Post date: May 20, 2016 3:17:38 AM
I had always planned to plant clover in the flatter, lower areas that were not populated with shrubs or flowers. So I had a bag of red clover seed ready for ambition to rise.
Then today, right after lunch, my neighbor said that she was going to have her garden helpers bring wood chips from the pile by the Common House to spread between our houses — one of the areas I want to seed in clover. So I asked if I could scratch the surface first, so that the clover seed could be surrounded by mineral soil.
For someone who really like to read about and grow native plants, and who had sown clover the year before, I was surprised that she did not know the basics of seeding. I also mentioned that scratching the surface would bring up a lot of rocks and asked what I should do with them, since part of this area to be seeded is on her property.
She said I could pile them around the tiny plants that she had marked between our houses. So I took my cultivating tool (which makes a great rock harvester) and scraped the mostly-soft earth (it had rained for four days prior) and rocks, pulling the rocks around plants like mulch.
I followed this with a bow rake, which gets smaller rocks. Then I hand cast the seed over my back yard and the space between my south berm and her house. Following that, I raked again to cover the seed with fine soil.
By that time I was pretty tired, and I knew I had to take a shower and rest before choir practice this evening.