In October, 9 years ago, we moved in to our new house. The house may have been ready, but the “yard” was a mud pit – no grass, no flower beds, nothing but red clay mud.  You literally could not get off the sidewalk without sinking up past your ankles in the muck – or slipping uncontrollably and landing on your backside.  Not good.

To make matters worse, I had done what I always do when I move; dug up all my plants and brought them with me. Now, I needed someplace to plant them…but where?  No beds were ready and because it was already October, time was of the essence.

So, we built two raised beds out of scrap plastic/wood boards. Wonderful Husband insisted that five inches was deep enough to grow the plants; I disagreed, but he was right.  Wonderful Husband insisted on making the beds six feet wide, assuring me that I could easily reach the middle…I disagreed, and I was right. Plus, we didn’t incorporate enough organic matter in the soil, so it was still essentially hard clay.  Still, it was only temporary, right?

Nine years later, guess what? Yup!  The “temporary” raised beds are still there and, after all my plants had been relocated to other beds, I have to admit they were neglected.

Recently, I decided I wanted to start a small kitchen garden…concrete blocks for the raised bed borders, just some herbs, maybe a couple of tomato plants, some green onions…nothing big or complicated.   The place that receives the most sun is where the current raised beds are located.  Which means the old beds have to go before I can build my new, improved beds.

In a moment of insanity, I started digging. I had to work from the outside of the bed toward the inside, it was so densely grown up.  Out came some ornamental grasses.  I found and transplanted a few butterfly weed plants and a Queen of the Prairie plant that had somehow survived the neglect.  Wonderful Husband decided to help, grabbed a shovel and started digging from the other side.

All was good, we were shoveling and grunting and sweating (which is fun, if you’re a gardener). Then Wonderful Husband screamed, a blood-curdling, bone-chilling, primal scream!  I looked up to see him dancing on one foot, then the other foot, slapping frantically at the air…what happened?  A corpse?  A snake?  What?  It took me a minute to realize that he had disturbed a nest of ground bees and they were very unhappy about it!

We ran into the house and I went into Nurse Dona mode to take care of Wonderful Husband; hydrocortisone and ice packs to reduce inflammation; Advil for pain, and a cold wash cloth (why? Because Mom and Mammaw always gave me a cold wash cloth, somehow it makes you feel better).

Wonderful Husband and I decided discretion was the better part of valor for the remainder of that day. Much as I hate to kill anything, we bought some insecticide and sprayed their nest.  I haven’t had the courage to try digging there again.

I have to admit, though, I never thought Wonderful Husband could move that fast!

Stay Green, good friends!