I don't heart gardening

I really don't like to garden. I would think, being a woman, it would be ingrained in my DNA somewhere to love to plant things and watch them grow, but no. I am missing that gene. And I am really not sure why I don't like it. I love doing things outdoors. I actually am fond of manual labor. I know that sounds weird, but I worked at Bath and Body Works for seven years and my favorite part was doing stock in the back room. I love putting together furniture from Ikea and Target. I even like cleaning, doing laundry and I love cooking. So I am not sure why gardening seems such an awful task to me. Maybe it stems from the times when my dad used to make me pick up sticks in the yard as a kid. On those rare occasions I truly felt as if life was beyond unfair and my dad was trying to torture me.

I have not done anything with our flower beds in a year. Last fall I was in my first trimester so I was either too tired or feeling too sick to do it and then this spring I had something else that needed nourishing. =) So the gardening has taken a back seat. A few weeks ago I bought some pretty flowers with every intention of planting them, but then it rained for the next three weekends. So today I was all geared up and ready to go on the gardening front. It was nice weather, so I got out there and fertilized our yard. Ran out of fertilizer, but so far so good. Then I raked out all the leaves and old mulch from the beds. Not too bad. Then I have to get down on my hands and knees and pull up weeds. Ugh. They are so hard to get out. And I am pretty sure most of it is actually grass that somehow didn't get fully dug up when we created these flower beds. It is a pain in my, well, knees and back mostly. I swear it was in the 70s this morning, but I was sweating profusely. I was also trying to hurry because I was trying to get this all done before Bella woke up, since Jason wasn't home.

I finally get all the weeds up and then I sort of hoed up the dirt and then mixed in some new soil. About this time Bella wakes up so I didn't get to actually plant the flowers, but that part will be easy. Anyway, this is only the first flower bed. My next task is to plant my tomatoes that Jason got me and then I have to dig up a rose bush so I can turn our back yard garden in to an herb garden. I am actually excited about that part. I would love to have fresh herbs to cook with!

Anyway, if you have any ideas how to make gardening more enjoyable, please send them my way! =)