Between my driveway and the neighbors driveway is this undefined strip of.. nothing. When we first moved in it was virtually a dirt plot and we considered what we could put in there. Then the rains came and something that looked like grass grew so we thought it was nice and bf mowed it when he mowed the lawn. Then the seasons changed and so did our cute little grassy plot. The foxtails took over followed by the dandelions and finally, over the summer, some strange weed bombarded the entire lot. Last weekend I started on these strange weeds, pulling each by hand to ensure that I got the entire root system. After two hours in the blistering sun, I had completed a 4 inch strip along the right side. Saturday I began again, determined to complete the weed pulling by the end of the weekend. 45 minutes later, bf came out and said "you can't pull them all by hand - it will take you forever. Why don't we see if Dad still has his buddys rototiller?" Well honey, you have the phone number so start dialing!Within 3 hours the Jeep was at our house, rototiller in the back. It was a little difficult to start but eventually it fired up and his dad showed us how to use it. Next morning there I was, adjusting the idle and the choke and pulling the string. After 5 minutes and nothing, bf put a little carb cleaner in the chamber with the spark plug and she fired right up. 10 minutes later, our little plot was plowed!
So begins the cleanup. I raked the plot, pulling out all the uprooted weeds and pulling a few more by hand. Whatever remained was left up on the topside of the dirt to bake in the sun and dry up. Those determined weeds sure don't last that long that way. We only tilled about 4 inches down. After I cleaned up the lot, it looked pretty nice.
When the sun started to go down I went out and planted 8 lantana plants in a nice violet color. BF tells me he likes these everytime he sees them so I picked them up last weekend to prepare for this project. We laid them out, spacing them where we wanted them and I went out later with a pickax to dig holes (this ground is HARD) and planted out each of the plants, going around the PG&E box at the far end next to the sidewalk. Can you believe that when I was weeding last weekend, the neighbor whose driveway is next to this lot was trying to convince me to just pave it over or lay it with bricks, saying "you can even PARK YOUR CAR on it," like that was a good thing. No thanks! While we were tilling his wife came out and said "You can't plant anything there, too many weeds," and I replied "That's ok, we're taking care of that." Since I don't believe in applying chemicals, I will surround these plants with wetted down cardboard or newspaper, to block the sun and the weeds, and then put some shredded compost or fine bark on top to help feed the land once the cardboard breaks down. This method has worked VERY well in another bed I created at this house.
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