Last garden planted - finally

My daughter and I spent the day planting the far away garden. That's what I call my plot in the community gardens. It's really only about a 5 minute walk from my house, but as my other gardens are in my yard, this one has been dubbed the far away garden. It's been so rainy here that planting was delayed for weeks. The community plots were very swampy until midway through this past week. They finally opened the gardens up for planting last night. It was a busy place all day today with people coming and going, putting their precious seeds and plants into the ground, and hoping that they grow quickly to make up for the late start.

By 10:00 AM I was ready to call it a day, and I hadn't even gotten out to the far away garden yet. I'd only gotten as far as watering the herb and vegetable gardens in the yard and filling my wheelbarrow with compost intended for the community plot. We're close enough to the community plot that I can wheel the barrow over there, so I filled it with compost from my 'compost heap' to wheel over there. That's what wore me out. You see, the good stuff, the stuff that's ready for the garden, is all at the bottom of the heap. It takes a lot to move the not-quite-ready stuff out of the way and then get down in there to all of that dark, soil-like richness.

And a barrow full of compost is heavy. Did I mention that? And I had to navigate it along the path in the park next door, full of throngs of people there for a huge softball tournament being played on the four fields. I looked a tad out of place, and in front of all of those people I didn't want to put the barrow down to rest - come on, I have some pride. So by the time I got to the far away garden, my arms were cramping up, my shoulders were burning, I was pouring sweat, and I had to rest for a good 10 minutes before I could pick up the shovel and start loading the compost into the garden. And I'd only just begun.

My daughter joined me halfway through, so I had some much appreciated help just when I was actually beginning to peter out. We got the whole thing planted, a few sore muscles, and a bit of a sunburn despite the applications of sunblock.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. My experience with the community gardens last year was pretty disastrous due to flooding. I have a different plot this year and, I've heard, out of the garden flood plane. We'll see how it all goes.

I'll get some pictures up when I can move my arms enough lift the camera ; )