Weed whacking and other adventures

Or how to spend a Wednesday getting grass all over yourself while repeatedly breaking a string trimmer.

This one’s a doozy.

The grass on my glasses was only the half of it. Sweater, shirt, pants, shoes- mess doesn’t even begin to describe it. But it had to be done. I had to get the rechargeable battery- put it in the string trimmer- and try to tame the weedy mess in between the beds and pots.

So it started well. Moving pots aside and cutting everything down to size. It’s much easier then the bulky push mower for sure.

The first sign today was going to be interesting was the discovery that my lemon verbena needed to be re-potted. The roots are coming out the bottom! It was very fun ripping it up off the ground. I’m tempted to get another rainy gray pot from work- it’s my favorite color. Don’t be distracted by the fact that the leaves have fallen off- lemon verbena is deciduous.

Doing the area around the rosemary was easy- except for when I accidentally clipped a part of the blackberry vine. Luckily the one I killed was a last season fruiting cane AKA a part of the plant I should have pruned anyways.

Then, the first problem occurred. Turns out I was all out of string. Last time it was done, dad had come down and strung it up for me- that’s not happening now.

But dad is perfectly available to give me instructions to do it myself, and surely the string is somewhere downstairs?

This is not the string dad told me to find. We have somewhere the branded stuff that is better for the dewalt trimmer- this is generic. But I spent almost an hour trying to find the good stuff, and wherever dad stashed it- it’s gone. But what harm can the generic stuff do!

And I discovered that if you let the outside string get to about a foot in length you can really buzzcut the grass! Of course it is at ankle hurting length so you have to be careful, but what could go wrong!

Oh boy.

Anyway- as I was moving things so I could trim the grass I decided to harvest the leeks in the last leek pot. It was mostly weeds anyways, and leeks are good.

Also it freed up a terracotta pot for succulents.

At this point I was hot so the magenta sweater of destiny got to go chill on the rosemary bush and get perfumed.

And then I made some nasty discoveries.

Yeah that’s a severed root of a Brussels’s sprout.

The plant it belonged too had withered- despite plenty of moisture in the bed.

I rolled up my sleeves at this point and got to investigating.

Oh dear that’s a gopher hole. Looks like the little rodent bastards are either coming up over the edges of the bed or tunneling from below.

Well that’s why my celery died- guess the feral cats are off the hook. I pulled a few plants, and I’m hopping mad. I love sprouts- so does dad, I was really looking forward to them.

Gophers are the pits.

Two things happened at this point, the string tangled and had to be replaced and then soon after that…

The reason my dad has two batteries charging at all times became apparent.

Well that was an easy fix, just had to swap batteries and keep moving.

Until the top popped off again. Ok. Just have to rewind it.

And of course shuck another layer.

I kept at it- trimming behind the beds in the back, around the apple tree- moving pots and bags and milk crates.

At this point I found out my problem isn’t gophers rather then cats- it’s gophers and cats. See up to now the smell was the lovely scent of cut grass. Until I got around the leek bed and it became the lovely smell of cut grass mixed with ammonia.

Lovely.

Then- right as I realized I was going to need cat repellent AND gopher repellent, disaster struck.

Looks like I let the outside string get too long and it looped around the base of the darn thing, choking it.

I tried to fix it. But I’d need tools and maybe my dad to come downstairs and you know what? I’m done.

Annoyingly the area under the seedling bench will just have to remain un-trimmed for now, I just don’t have the energy or the tool.

Under the lemon tree remains also un-modified.

But I did a good job with everything else, and I managed to move things around to look at trouble areas. So a good days work regardless.

The root bound lemon verbena is back in place, that’s tomorrows job.

In the mean time my salamander looks at me judgmentally for thinking using the generic string was a good idea.

Yeah I know.

Time to break out the tweezers and pliers and fix a string trimmer.

Tomorrow. I’m tired and the garden smells like cat pee.

But hey- I got 90% of the garden trimmed. That’s worth some rest.