Last weekend I fought battles with sod. I'm trying to dig up beds for asparagus, strawberries, and all those stupid zinnia seeds I saved from last year. But even with my new tiller
I'm having trouble making the grass go away. The best way seems to be to double dig it, like I did for the asparagus bed
which is fine as far as "load-bearing exercise" goes but takes a short forever. It took me two hours to dig this out.
So in between bouts with the tiller, which makes my hands cramp like crazy, I cleared out the trenches between the garden beds.
And discovered that I'd planted the snap peas in the wrong bed. My strategy is to rotate the five beds, moving each one up each year. This is supposed to distribute fertility and prevent insect pests from building up in the soil. My order of rotation is greens (lettuce, spinach, brocolli); fruits (tomatoes and peppers); roots (carrots, radishes, beets),;legumes (peas and beans); and leave one fallow for a season, planting cover crops like Hairy Vetch and Winter Daikon. Although the fallow bed usually ends up being a place to put things that wouldn't fit in the other beds.
Luckily I hadn't planted too many of the snap peas--just about 20 of them--so I was able to move the cages that I use for trellises and replant, If any of the 20 come up, I'll gently move them to the new place.
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