A Romance with Weeding

You don’t see many swimming pools on farms. Even though I’ve visited fewer than a dozen farms, I hardly feel like I’m going out on a limb by saying that. The farm we’re working on has one, and it even has a cute little pool house to go with it. I’m guessing the dairy farmer who owned the property in the 1950s wasn’t the one who had it built. The current owners didn’t have it installed either. After all, putting in a swimming pool usually isn’t the first thing you do when you are creating a highly diversified small farm. 

So what do you do when you buy a farm that has a swimming pool? You fill it in with dirt and make it a garden, of course! While I’m sure there will be days this summer when I will be wishing I could turn back the hands of time and talk them out of it, right now I have to say I think it was a brilliant idea. And because I spent almost a full week weeding the entire pool so we could start planting, I’ve thought about it a lot. On Saturday, when the Master Farmer was giving a tour of the farm to a group of people, she came to the swimming pool and said, “Swimming pools are frivolous; gardens are practical.” Well said, Annie. I will keep telling myself that in August!

Most people would probably think that a week of weeding would be torturous. I know I kind of expected it to be. On the first day, I stared out at the pool of weeds and tried desperately to think of any other jobs I had forgotten about that I could use as a means of escape. But somewhere along the way, boredom turned to satisfaction which eventually turned to a strange kind of pleasure. Sure, it might not have been as much fun as watching newborn lambs learning how to walk, but it was still weirdly enjoyable.

Even though the weeding is done for now, there is still plenty of work to be done in the pool garden. We will be building garden beds for the next week or so, and then we can begin planting. Over the course of the year, we’ll be harvesting some delicious pumpkins, potatoes, leeks, and squash. Before that happens, though, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of chances to become reacquainted with my newfound love of weeding.