Although it was breezy, Saturday was a great day to get some yard work done. The Hubs tilled the main garden bed. I weeded most of our front walkway, cleaned up the sedum in that walkway, weeded part of another bed, transplanted a bay laurel shrub, and put beet, kohlrabi, pea, lettuce, and spinach seeds in the ground.

Our garden is a series of raised beds in our tiny backyard. It’s tiny by suburban standards: out entire lot is 17/100ths of an acre, with a 1,072 square foot house, a 400 square foot garage, and a driveway on it. About a third of the open space is the front yard. There’s an unplanted area about 15′ wide between the house and the east fence. The back yard is mostly lawn, but in that lawn we’ve squeezed two 8’x3′ raised beds, a 6′ strip of raspberries, a 6′ strip with several types of blueberries, a nectarine tree, a tart cherry tree, a grafted apple tree, a grafted sweet cherry tree, a plum tree, two kiwi vines (one male, one female), and beautiful redbud tree and a western juniper tree that are purely decorative. (The birds love them both.) We have a few beds that mostly contain flowers, and there’s a 10’x16′ patio that’s covered with a pergola The Hubs designed and built with the help of a journey carpenter friend. In the unplanted area along the east fence, we put in a raised bed that’s about 3’x15′. Last year, it grew cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkin, and squash; this year, it’ll hold corn.

The main bed is a 4′ wide strip along the back fence. It gets sun all day, year-round. There’s a bed along the west side of the house. When we moved in, in contained flowers. It’s now home to a large rhubarb. It’s a great spot to grow celery (it’s the only place in our yard that gets mucky – everywhere else drains quickly). We continued that bed back along the edge of the patio, and there are grapes growing up the west side of the patio.

We somehow manage to grow a lot of stuff in this tiny space. And spring means prepping the beds.

My glutes and legs were sore after weeding & planting on Saturday, and I only worked a few hours. I’m impressed – clearly, I need to weed more!

I skipped the swim I planned at lunch because I need to run tonight, and I don’t want a repeat of Friday. I plan to run four miles. I was thinking of a 10K, but that’s silly — I have a 10K race this Saturday. Now is the time to run four miles, then do another short run on Thursday. No need to wear out my legs.

It’s going to be difficult to plan the next few days of workouts. I have a trial tomorrow in a neighboring county. I may need to spend the night tomorrow night. If that’s the case, I’ll try swimming back & forth in the sadly tiny pool at the hotel. I’d almost prefer riding the stationary bike, even though that sounds even sadder. Regardless, I feel very ready for Saturday’s 10K – just so long as I don’t do any weeding Friday afternoon.