Even though the following days were moderately hot and steamy, I rubbed my hands together waiting for my favorite thing, friable soil.
After all that wait, I could dig in the dirt again. The soil on the hillside bed that I started some time ago is the best soil on the place: loam. The tall foxtail weeds were at their biggest and most vulnerable to being uprooted. I attacked the ones that were once on the fence line with my favorite tool, the baby mattox. They had no hard soil to hang onto, and surrendered to my attack.
Stabbing the mattox pointy end into the earth, I knocked off the remaining loose dirt against the blade side. Several big tubs of the weeds went into the compost pile, which had begun to feel neglected from only getting smelly garbage dumped on it.
Next, I dug up clumps of overgrown iris plants, from the long bed I planted years ago on the downhill slope. I have so many now that I only save the best rhizomes to replant. A dozen made the cut.
Of course, I apologized profusely to the irises. They were part of the field planting of fancy irises. That bed is now sadly overgrown, even though I do mow the weeds along the sides.
It turns out that irises need to be divided and replanted at a rate guaranteed to make my head swim, every three years. I even planted three in the brick bed, where veggies often refuse to grow. The other irises are some bronze beauties originally from the fancy planting, now in their third location. Pay no attention to the weeds, they are soon for the compost cage. The scrawny chard are the result of the drought. They did try.
However, she does go on, the beauty of iris division is it can be done in August, when there is very little to do in the dirt. All it takes is some rain. Right after I got the divided ones into the ground, There fell another inch and a half of gentle rain. They appeared to be cozily settled in to their new bed. They are very forgiving, but I did hear a murmur from one of them that sounded like, "About damn time."
