Sunday, May 13, 2007

Oh Happy Day

Kid firsts - first bath together, and Meimei's first wagon ride and their first ride together. Yay!

So, I was out doing dandelions this evening, kids in tow, with a little hand tool. The one that looks like a really big fondue fork and you stab it into the ground and tip it toward the weed so the fork pulls it loose. It was going fine, and it was chemical free, but then my neighbor showed up. She said, "Happy Mother's Day, borrow my weeding tool." And I did, and holy crap, I want one. You just put the little basket in the middle of the weed, give the step a little shove with your foot, and pull back up. The weed comes with it when you pull back up, root and all. Then you just slap your palm on the knob to release the weed. So although there is more weeding to do, and every time I turned around there were more, I actually got quite a bit done. I had to stop for bath time and get the kids in, so I returned the tool because I don't know when I'll get back to it. Probably not for another week or so.

We got the entire creeping (creepy) evergreen thing out finally - four giant root balls to dig out, one shovel split, a cubic ton of lava rock mixed with soil, etc. Now, we just have the entire rest of the bed to dig up before I can get my new stuff planted.

Does spirea take over? It seems to be jumping and there's tons of little spireas growing in about 2 feet in front of the actual bushes. Weird. Anyone want some spirea before I rip it all out? I don't want anything creeping around in my front yard.

3 comments:

Allknowingjen said...

Ooohp that weeding tool looks really cool! I might have to get one of those!

Happy Veggie said...

We have that weeding tool, and we love it. However, when you live next to railroad tracks and rentals, it doesn't make a huge dent. Still trying to figure out how to deal without chemicals. It does work well on things other than dandelions too.

Pusher said...

Brenda and I were just talking about that weeding tool! My lawn is too far gone for tools. The weeds are just going to have to stay there until I get around to replacing them all with garden and paths.

Spirea will spread. It sends up suckers, like lilacs. It can also grow from seed, but that's a slow process and they'll die after you mow over them a few times.

Lots of accomplishment over the weekend! Digging root balls out from areas with "decorative" rock mixed in is ridiculously hard work.