A Southern Gardening Tip

Never, never, never, never, never let your husband till up the burmuda grass then 'just rake it out' for an 'easier' way to prepare more ground for a garden.

I knew it was a bad idea. You see, half of the way burmuda propagates is by runners through the soil, and one teeny bit of runner can produce a new plant. So when Chris decided to 'help' me in the expansion of our garden plot this spring and ended up tilling all that burmuda grass into the soil, my stomach sank, and I was tempted to not speak to him for a week. However, knowing that it would have taken me half the summer to dig up and shake out all the soil from all of that grass, I bit my tongue and prayed that I was wrong and he was right.

Well, it turns out I was right. A few weeks ago, I successfully weeded the old section of the garden fairly easily and even planted some fall crops. Then when I went back a few days ago to tackle the new section and found that the roots and runners of the weed grass were so networked deep into the soil, I threw up my hands in despair and called it quits.

I've decided we are going to till up the new section, smooth it out and let the burmuda take it back as lawn territory. I figure if we put the house on the market, having a weedy garden plot in the back yard would not be a selling point. And next time I want to start a garden plot on virgin soil, we are going to do it my way: slow and steady wins the race in the long run.