I have a new goal this spring — care about my yard. I’ve been much more willing to fling myself into big indoor projects like redoing my kitchen or building furniture than paying any attention to that vaguely green area outside the walls. But with some serious help and encouragement from my mom, that’s changing. I’m starting fairly small – there’s a 9′ by 12′ area out front that’s bordered by the house, the walkway, and the driveway that would be a really nice flowerbed. It had some random hostas, liriope, and lots of crabgrass, plus a row of bushes to keep people from falling off the yard into the driveway (about a six foot drop). It also has a rose that insists on producing lovely pink flowers despite my total neglect.

So the first step in turning this zone into a flowerbed was digging everything up. We left the bushes and the rose, but after more discussion today, it looks like the rose will need to go too, despite its awesomeness, because it’s in a really awkward spot. Anyway, last Saturday we spent a couple hours digging everything out, and marveling at the vast number of earthworms in my yard. Today, we started the very tedious process of sifting all the dirt to get random bulbs, rocks, and roots out of it. I also took on a tiny triangle to the right of the path, which used to be full of random grass, and today I dug it all out.

Turns out digging up a flowerbed involves finding strange objects… like a railroad spike, a Spirograph wheel, a beer bottle, a plastic washer, the biggest earthworm ever (no seriously, I’m talking seven inches long, the thing was like a snake), and speaking of snakes, two six-inch long brown snakes, which I’ve discovered by Internet were probably either worm snakes or earth snakes- both totally harmless, and interestingly, live on earthworms. Tasty.

So there’s a lot more sifting in my future, and then we get to do the fun part, picking plants! I’ll try to actually take pictures for the next few steps.