The tiller awoke before dawn. He put his boots on.

Yes, I did visit Jim Morrison's grave when I was in Paris.

So I rented this tiller for 4 hours and went to work. I've got onion and lettuce plants I've grown from seed for about a month that need to go in soon. The lettuce plot will get a sprinkling of additional seeds soon after. I've learned with lettuce that it's good to have plants at different stages of development since they otherwise all tend to bolt to seed at the same time.

As I said in a previous post, this was an air strike against the deeply rooted "choker plant." I'll know in a few weeks how effective it was. Honestly, I don't think the mechanized tiller went much deeper than my efforts by hand, but it was a hell of a lot easier and quicker.

If you're playing close attention to the photo, you'll notice three significant changes from previous years. One is I redesigned the wooden planks. Originally they were meant to cordon off different sections and provide a boundary to the plot as a whole. I decided I needed wider walking paths instead (so you don't compact the soil and it's not such an acrobatic exercise to get around in there). The weeds were growing under the planks anyway. Somehow.

Secondly, I "moved the goalpost" - that trellis type thing I fashioned for peas. They never seemed to survive in the original location, so I picked a more shady spot near my neighbor's fence. I'm also going to try seeding them directly this year instead of starting them indoors.

Thirdly, in the background you'll notice my new Nissan truck. My Honda Civic was a beloved old friend, but since I hardly drive and need cargo space for tools, mulch and musical equipment, I finally overcame my sentimentality and gave it up. I cracked the front windshield twice trying to cram my bass cab into the front passenger seat which was the only place it could fit. Last month I did a gig with North of Canada in Arlington and equipment was no longer an issue. Now I just need to relearn how to parallel park.

life in West Nile

I spent a full May 2006 Saturday digging up the weeds by the roots, turning them over, chopping up the exposed soil with the blade of the shovel, and moving on to the next shovel-full. I discovered that the mosquitoes here are pretty damn hungry. After covering every bit of exposed skin with itchy welts, they went on to bite through my jeans and shirt.

Once when I was in high school, I'd managed to cut myself pretty badly on a piece of glass on the way to a talent show audition and I remember some friends following the trail of drops of blood through the hallways to the music room where they adoringly told me, "You have such pretty blood!" Apparently if you're a tiger mosquito, it tastes pretty good too. Whenever I go to my garden, it's like I'm wearing a dinner bell around my neck. My neighbors don't seem to have this problem. Vegetarians really do taste better (or at least smell better according to this study).

Anyway, by hand tilling I managed to save all the asparagus plants. I also found some plants that looked like, well something potentially edible. They weren't. BTW, I still do this when something different looking shows up. I've had better results since. Last year, this strange vine appeared out of nowhere and I decided to let it be. Turned out it was a lima bean plant.

I do plan to finally rototill the non-perennial sections of my plot this spring. There is some kind of deeply-rooted mean-spirited weed that pops up everywhere on extremely short notice through inches of mulch and even wooden boards, and it chokes the hell out of my plants. The winter strategy review concluded that the infantry can't always handle it quickly or thoroughly enough, so an air strike is needed.

welcome to the jungle

H.D. Thoreau, where would my life be without you? You are the most prominent among my personal pantheon.

I like the outdoors. I have a do-it-yourselfer streak. I like to cook. I like the smell of dirt, freshly tilled. The best night's sleep I ever had was after I spent a whole summer day bailing hay in order to bribe a farmer into showing me the whereabouts of a forgotten family burial ground.

Gardening is the answer to a life sentence of the slow fluorescent death in an indoor office. It's also a kind of a laboratory in the event that someday I decide not to make that particular compromise anymore.

So, step one, I contacted a local community garden to see about plot availabilities. It was May by then, but there was one 15' by 20' plot left. "It needs a little cleaning up," said the manager, in a clever understatement. "I'll take it," says I, enthusiastically, and sent off my $20 annual rent that afternoon.

The photo is of my garden plot as I first saw it in early May 2006. "I'll rototill it for $60," said the manager with a sly smile. Nope. Perhaps he didn't see that there was some asparagus somehow surviving in that mess. This needed a hands on approach. Anyway, I like physical labor right? Or at least I guess I really like asparagus.