But I got bottles on the bottle tree (I only need four more!) and e. tennesseensis in the ground and yelled at the dog some about how she’d better stick close to me. I didn’t think she’d be that excited about going outside, since it’s raining quite heavily but when she saw that I was going to let her sniff around the garage without a leash on, well, then of course she had to run around outside.
Until it became apparent that I intended on standing in the rain and on digging holes. Then she was content to stand at the door to the garage and supervise where it was dry.
The thing that is still the hardest for me to get used to about Tennessee when it comes to gardening is how the dirt is simply the wrong color. The people before me have some good soil in the beds but you only have to go down about two inches before it switches from black to brown. In the midwest, you switch from black to light black. There’s nothing with even the slightest orange tinge. And the brown dirt holds together like wet clay. You’re trying to fill in around the plant and the black dirt is behaving like mud and the brown dirt is behaving like The Blob.
It’s a good thing that everything I have planned for that bed is basically like “Um, just stick us in some ground and we’ll do something, of some sort. It’s all good.” Hearty, slutty things are what I have planned for there.
Still, this means we aren’t going to get the garden tilled this weekend. I had half a mind to go ahead and plant that bed, since it’ll be mostly wildflowers, but I think I need to finish the bottle tree first, so that I’m not stepping on the bed after it’s planted.
Also, I’ve noticed that the clover and the creeping charlie are pretty much the only things covering our yard at this point. We need to encourage some grass growth. I mean, I’m of the opinion that, if it’s green, it’s grass, but this is a little ridiculous. Our yard is about 1/3 clover, 1/3 creeping charlie, 1/6 wild onions and 1/6 grass.
If you could eat wild onions, I’d have wild onion chili for days.
Tiny Cat Pants 
That’s about the same composition of my yard, too. I’m over in West N’ville. If you figure out a cure for it, post it so I’ll know what to do!
Just be glad you have dirt and it is not solid rock under a thin layer of dirt. My parents’ yard is mostly rock. I remember when the city ran the sewer line to the house. I think they used more dynamite than shovels.
And yet, Jim, I bet your parents never had a problem with moles and right now, I am a little envious of that.
Stick, I’m hoping I can get a vigorous and massive composting program started for next year, but I think I’m going to have to haul in some dirt for this year.
Moles no. Rabbits yes. They used to plant a vegetable garden every year over the old septic tank location, but they have woods behind the house that lots of rabbits lived in… After all the kids grew up and moved out, they stopped planting the garden as there was no one to till the dirt anymore haha… (actually I think it was because the sewer line got put in and the free soil enhancement was not going out to the back yard anymore.)
I’m hoping the marigolds distract the rabbits. And the moles, who are becoming my mortal enemies.