first backbreak

As yesterday was a really nice and sunny day and I was in dire need of some fresh air, I decided to finally aerify the small bit of lawn in front of the house.

Or what should be lawn, but is more barren, trampled ground with some patches of grass, lots of moss and many, many dandelions and other weed.

The plan was already in my head for a while. But it was very cold recently, so gardening season was still off. A few days ago, one of the neighbours has dumped a small load of fine sand next to my plot, so I already was determined to use this sand, to refill the holes, I wanted to drill into the grass bit. A process, we call topdressing at work, when we maintain the golf greens. Then I thought of how to do it best. There is no way, I could use the huge machinery we have for aerifying at work. But after I thought of how it would be to bore the holes individually, with a knive, I quickly reconsidered. And went and asked our head greenkeeper, if we had any mechanical tool for this purpose, too. Turns out we have.

It is a simple, metal frame with handles at the top and six aerifying spoons at the bottom, fixed to a steel plate. You drive the spoons into the ground like using a spade, until the plate is flat on the ground, thus creating six fine, regular holes maybe 12 cm deep and 3 cm wide. Simple, I thought, and went and borrowed the tool.

Wasn’t all that simple, because it took a lot of strength at certain places, where the ground was very dense, to get the things into the ground at all. Yesterday was the one time, I was glad for every extra pound I weigh, to force the spoons into the ground, standing on the plate. Took me three hours straight to work the tiny bit of land. Some more time was needed to spread the sand. Next opportunity I get, I’ll add some good soil, mixed with seeds, to get the grass growing.

But this morning I had a lot of trouble, trying to even get out of my bed. First day of work in the garden, and my back is killing me already.