Weeds and Rain

Weeds and rain are the two governing factors for gardening at our house.  With weeds, one of us (usually Mom or me) will finally go over the edge because of some weed or other desecrating our yard or beds. Rain, on the other hand, almost never happens, so when it does, we all jump and dance for joy... then spend the next morning weeding the inevitable weeds that shoot up after it rains.

Yesterday, I finally got irritated at all of the grass (read weeds) growing in the crack between the gutter and the street.  It is by far the lushest grass on the entire property, even if it is mostly crab grass, with a bit of clover thrown in for luck. It turned out to be kind of fun to pull out, since the roots are in such a tiny place and the foliage takes up quite a bit of room.  Just scrape the leaves off the road, twist and pull (really hard) and up come the roots.  This kind of gardening is pretty gratifying because it immediately looks better.  Of course, there are still buckets of sweat, but at least you can tell you did something when you're done.

Any weeding is easier when the ground is moist... which it almost never is here because it almost never rains.  The last rain we had was when Brian and I took a vacation to North Georgia.  We had almost three days of rain, but by the time we were home from vacation, the ground had dried up.  And that was three weeks ago... three weeks of 90-100+ temperatures.  Since then, we cheer whenever we see clouds and get sad with blue skies.

Today, it rained!!! A full hour of rain to help water the plants and soften the earth. Hooray!  Of course, that means that tomorrow is a weeding day. Sigh.  Weeds and rain.

Note: This post was written two days before it was posted.  I got sleepy and didn't finish the last line.