Tilling 2 Ways

I spent most of yesterday digging up a built-in flower bed with a pick and shovel, then raking in an "organic" fertilizer (see yesterday's picture for an "after" shot). In the afternoon my husband came out to look at his field of cultivation, the front yard, which he wants to turn into a lovely, green, grassy lawn. I came up front, dirty and achy as only the first day of digging after 2 months of winter can make you. He had been meticulously hand-pulling weeds. He said "I think we should rent a tiller. It would make this a lot easier."

I flopped down on the front steps and laughed hysterically. "You were not the first person to think that today." I watched him use that tiller this afternoon, and a lovely job it did as I picked my way through the rest of the un-dug flower bed. I was glad to be using the pick. I found hexagonal tiles exactly matching what we have in the bathroom, and I got out a lot of the remaining roots from the bushes I tore out in January. The soil around here is pretty much always workable, when it isn't too soggy. It never really freezes. We don't get the assistance of frost heave with plowing, and the bugs stay alive through winter, but we can grow something almost year-round.