Killing, Part 1: How My Gardening Odyssey Began

In 2001, the Queen of Potatoes was a single gal deciding to buy her first home all on her very own.  One very important criterion:  I wanted a yard, but I emphatically did not want responsibility for a yard.  I had never gardened, didn't want to garden. Thus, my hope was to find a sweet little townhouse with a nice little homeowners' association whose dues paid for upkeep of all the grounds.  How perfect it would be!

Not surprisingly, things did not evolve as I had hoped, but ultimately they evolved for the better. After spending Sunday after Sunday touring open houses, I found myself in love with a 50-year-old townhouse in a 50-year-old community, with no association or neighborhood rules.  One mortgage later, it was mine!

Happily ensconced in my new home, here is what this non-gardener faced for front and back yards:





For someone who had never gardened and never wanted to, I was suddenly faced with quite the challenge.  What to do, what to do? The easiest solution, of course, would have been to do nothing and just let the jungle be. But pride of ownership would simply not allow this. No, if nothing else, the mess would have to go. And so without any clear idea of what I would do to replace it, I set out to kill the weed and vine jungle. By hand.