Like the previous eight or nine springs, we’ve decided to plant a vegetable and herb garden. When we started, I planted only a few things and used those old whiskey barrels (my wife and I still laugh when we think about bringing those home from the store, with all the windows in the SUV opened because of the intense smell of whiskey in the car.) The barrels were easy to plant and maintain. We’d plant a zucchini plant in one barrel, a tomato plant and jalapeno pepper plant in another, and basil, rosemary, and few other herbs in the third barrel. That worked okay until we wanted more veggies.

We’ve been planting a full garden for the past six years. It is more work, but we get a whole bunch more veggies to eat and share. Memorial Day Weekend is usually the weekend that I plant everything. We need that extra day to recover… My wife and I work as a team. She weeds and clears out any plants still left from the previous year. I till the soil and do the planting. (The kids stay inside and enjoy the air conditioning. They’re not interested in planting or eating veggies.)

I usually have a fear and an aversion to using any kind of power tool because of my lack of sight. For some reason I don’t have that with the Mantis tiller. I am happy to report that I still have all my digits and there were no incidents again this year. That’s six for six! I till the soil and then have my wife have a look to see if I’ve missed any spots. Having my wife (or anyone else) check my work usually bothers me, but for this it doesn’t seem like a big deal. It must be the euphoria of not bleeding or not feeling pain from an injury caused by the tiller that makes me forget to be annoyed.

Once I get the spots in the garden I missed with the tiller, I get my wife again to help with the layout. She tells me what the plants are and checks my placement. We want the spacing to spot on. Once the placement is done, I dig the holes, drop in the plants, then water them all. I enjoy planting the garden with all the bugs crawling on me, the loud noise of the tiller running, the smell of dehydrated cow maneur, and the sun beating down on me. I enjoy it because I can do most of the work on my own, I can’t say that about many other things.

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