We've finished tearing up all the grass from the yard!

Thanks to two rototillers and the aching backs and sore arms of The Yardeners, all the grass has been piled behind our composter--never again to be seen inside the four walls of the garden. Bubba and Krizby broke ground last Saturday afternoon with a heavy-duty rototiller they rented from Home Depot. As Bubba struggled with the crazy beast that is the Home Depot rototiller, Krizby, The Pooh, Rourous, Jerry, and Coy (yeah!) picked up the cut up grass.

A word to the wise, and according to an ancient African Proverb: "It takes more than one pass to get up all that nasty grass!"

Also, let me just say, you never can tell what the deal is with dandelions. Even though we've taken up all them from the yard, we have for sure not seen the last of them. There have been a couple spurt out of the ground overnight! Whoa!

Here are some photos of our progress.

The beginning of it all. Bubba descends the stairs to help Krizby remove all the rototilled grass. He looks upon the destruction he has wrought with smug confidence. That's one strike against the encroaching dandelions.

Let me give you some pointers on using a rototiller. The way to control the speed of this beast is not to pull backwards against the forward push of the blades. That will only tire you out. Rather, push DOWN on the handle. Dig those blades into the soil. That will both slow it down and get more of that gross grass up.

This took me until about half-an-hour into it to realize.

Check out Coy and his 12-pronged rake skills! That man is crazy! This process took a loooooong time to finish. I mean, we wanted to be sure that we wouldn't be growing grass in the garden.

As we de-grassed the garden, Coy told us stories to pass the time. This was one story that Coy told: "There once was a little monster named Jimmy. everyone liked him so much that they told him to travel up this huuuuuge mountain to rescue the anonymous Cake Duffins who were trapped there. But Jimmy didn't like Cake Duffins so he decided to travel the seven seas instead but only ended up taking a bath. And this was exactly what his mom wanted him to do all week. The End"

The moral of the story is: "aim high and you will only do what you are supposed to do."

Face and Didi joined us after they got off work! Here is Face filling up the red wheelbarrow with sod.

Since they were the originators of this Wonderful Garden Idea, we received much wisdom from them on how best to de-grass a garden. We got it finished in no time.

So much depends on this red wheelbarrow. The Yardeners are very glad we have its services. Now if only we had some white chickens.

An Introduction

Let me introduce you to The Yardeners:

This is Krizby.

In terms of dedication, this girl ranks thirteen on a scale of one to ten. She told me the other day that, if it comes to it and everyone bails, she will weed the garden by herself. Blindfolded. With her teeth. She brings almost two years of gardening experience to the team, having grown flowers in a window box outside of her terrace.

She takes pictures.

This is Jerry.

He claims to have gardened before, and shows much promise. He is the shovel master and can weed even the smallest blade of grass from in between delicate lettuce leafs with deft proficiency. Jerry is currently using his skills elsewhere, but we are expecting his hours to jump quite a bit in about a month.

He has a girlfriend.

This is Rourous.

Having lived for years in Soviet Russia, this man can transform any physical object into the most useful of tools. After escaping the country, Rourous hid out in a toolshed and developed special "toolish" powers--becoming one with the other tools in the shed.

He is one of our most valuable Tools.

This is The Pooh.

Although very experienced in spreading fertilizer and mulch, The Pooh is our resident Realist. She keeps us out of the lofty skies above, and gets us to focus on ground-level (or should I say "garden-level") solutions. She most looks forward to the consumption of the Kale. She makes a wicked Brown-butter and Kale salad.

She is one of the few that participated in the Previous Garden.

This is Face.

Having grown up in France, she knows good food when she sees it. She has the uncanny ability to coax out only the best vegetables from the ground. I have seen her pacing the garden many an evening, reading Edna St. Vincent Millay to the seedlings.

She is my favorite.

This is Didi.

Most certainly the brains behind our endeavors, she puts the science into our Backyard Agriculture. Need to know which phase of the moon is best to plant beets in? Curious to know what to plant next to the broccoli? Didi's your girl. She regrets the fact that we are not growing any fruit in our garden, given that the apple is her favorite fruit.

She is looking forward to cooking the vegetables in a curry sauce.

This is Coy.

The youngest member of our group, Coy makes up for any lack of experience with "face time" with the garden. He is always there--some of us are not even sure if he goes home at night. Coy is an encourager and story-teller, and his words bring life to sore backs and aching muscles.

His tool of choice is the 12-pronged rake.

This is Bubba.

Having grown up in a family of gardeners (but never having ventured inside one until the age of 15), Bubba has the least experience in our group. We are hoping he surprises us with knowledge gained by osmosis. As an experienced musician, he has developed a hands-off approach and is the founder of "light touch" gardening.

He counts Nature as one of his best friends.

The Back Yard Garden

It was Face and Didi's idea to start with. We had tried to cultivate a garden two years ago, but then most of the laborers had left the country on a semester abroad program. And the garden languished, ripe vegetables getting burned by the sun, innocent rabbits staring at the rotting delectables.

So we decided to try again. And this time it would be bigger--about five times bigger than the last garden. Exact dimensions are 22ft by 49ft: over 1,000 sq ft. of garden. And this time we would plant more.

Here's the list of what we are planting:

-Peppers

-Eggplant

-Rosemary

-Sage

-Tarragon

-Zucchini

-Butternut Squash

-Tomatoes

-Basil

-Beets

-Broccoli

-Carrots

-Cucumbers

-Corn

-Lettuce

-Onions

-Radishes

-Arugula

-Kale

-Leek

-Spinach

-Thyme

-Green Beans

-Snap Peas

One thing is certain, we are not messing around.

So here begins the Many Wonderful Adventures of the Yardeners. Best of luck to us.