Feeling Afflicted and Tormented

I've been feeling afflicted and tormented by weeds lately. Over the course of a couple months, we have been trying to get our garden and various other areas in our yard cleaned up and ready to plant seeds. It's a lot of hard work, and I wish I could say that we're almost done, but something tells me that planting a garden is only the beginning of pulling even more weeds.

Here's an example of how pervasive the weeds out here are. We have an electrical outlet near our garden (which doesn't seem to work) and with the way the weeds have taken over, it looked like it could be its own little biosphere up in there. When we were in NY, Andy's friend's friends mentioned that they had been invited to so-and-so's house for a "Garden Party". Meaning that they were going to plant a few window boxes etc. on someone's roof or balcony. I had to laugh. If gardening is that much of a novelty, I should just invite all my city-slicker friends to come out for a fun and exciting weekend of pulling weeds and then laugh when they discover the turmoil of weeds that just grow right back or having sore hamstrings from bending over for hours at a time. 

Anyway...here's a patch of weeds just outside our back porch before I attacked it:

Here's how our garden looked about a month or so ago. Some of the weeds were taller than me. It took 

several weeks of work to get it in better shape. I fully realize that thorns...briars...noxious weeds etc. were all placed on earth to afflict and torment man, but why must weeds be so perfect in fulfilling their divine purpose?? It would be nice for weeds to occasionally decide to NOT grow in garden beds. I'm just saying. 

Here's what things are looking like now. Here's the patch (pictured above) now. I planted come Calla Lillies and I'm a little unsure if they will survive through the winter, but at least they look good now. 

A lady I visit teach (and who happens to be a Master Gardner) gave me a bunch of cuttings of iris and other plants, so I fixed up the area outside our bedroom window. I'm hoping that by next year they will have grown in a bit more and I will be able to have a variety of fresh-cut flowers in some of the pots I make in ceramics class.

Our garden, which has been a nightmare of sorts is finally starting to look like it has potential. We have been more than a little discouraged with how well the weeds seem to grow out there, but hopefully that just means that our vegetables will have no choice but to thrive. After spending several weekends weeding and turning the soil, this is what it looked like a couple weeks ago:

This is what it looks like now that we've planted a few seedlings, lain down a weed-growth inhibitor and have put mulch around the walkway. We already have rosemary growing and have planted our beans, tomatoes, carrots and green onions. I hope those things grow well next to eachother. If not, we're toast!!

I'm also hoping that our dwarf fruit trees start making some serious headway. They have leaves, but I wonder when we'll actually start seeing some apples, peaches and pears. The fig tree we planted last year seems to be doing well. No figs yet, but I'm looking forward to them already. 

I now understand why some people have full-time gardners. It's a lot of work!!