Hauling bricks for the garden!

[keal]

I wanted to plant a lemon tree in my front yard. It's just a small patch of grass. On my drives home from work, I see yards with trees, surrounded by nice walls of bricks, like a well. I want that!

So I head to the hardware store on a Saturday. I see bricks! 72 cents each. Great, I'll take 100. Where's the cart?

I get the cart. I take it to the bricks. Stack the bricks on the cart. Stacking... stacking... whew, done! I go to the checkout.

"100 bricks," I say. The cashier rings me up. I'm parched, I grab a soda in the refrigerator so conveniently placed right next to the register. Now I trudge the cart to my car in the blazing sun - it's lunchtime.

I put the bricks in the car. I grab my soda, and it's already warm. Torture.

I drive home, and unload the bricks right where I'm going to use them. But I'm already too tired to plant the lemon tree. I'll do it tomorrow.

Next day, I dig the hole, plant the tree, form the bricks around it, pour in some gravel to supress weeds, and push a fertilizer stick in the ground. Then I water.

Next morning, as I head to my car for work, I look at the tree. All that labor, and that's it? I tiny tree surrounded by bricks, and I have aching muscles and yearn for more sleep. The agony!

I get home from work in the afternoon, and suddenly I see my neighbors, who never come outdoors unless the electricity goes out, and they are doing things in their yard. I grab the waterhose and as I begin to tend my yard, a neighbor comes to me and says, 'nice tree, who did you hire for that?'

I explain what I did, and they don't believe me. 'No way. You did that yourself? Wow.'

I'm new to gardening, and the labor is killing me. But to be acknowledged by my neighbors, is priceless!

[applestar]

Wow that does sound like a lot of work, but well worth it!
Could you post some photos? I wanna see!

[rainbowgardener]

The things we [gardeners] do for love!

The back half of my yard is a steep down hill slope. I have been building paths and retaining walls down the hill, three so far. That means I carry my bricks (interlocking concrete blocks actually-very easy to work with, but even heavier) a long way from the driveway to the top of the hill and then I carry them down steep rough terrain to whatever spot on the hillside I am working on currently.

[imafan26]

The things we do for the gardens we love.

[tomf]

We have a health advisor that calls now and again to help us with our heath goals. I told her my main form of exercise is working on the property. She said that is not like a real work out, she has no idea of the work I do here.

[applestar]

Tomf that is so funny.

I hate exercise as in so many repetitions of a movement. I can't stand the idea of lifting weights.

...yet, I wear reinforced heavy rubber gardening boots and step over the rabbit fences surrounding all of my garden beds and areas. Even if I'm working in only one that day, I have to go in and come out. Usually, it's more than just once going in and going out. If I'm working in different beds, I'll be doing quite a few leg lifts (rabbit fences are 24-28" high) ...and that's while wearing the weighted boots.

Some days, I'm so tired I can't make the step over in a single smooth motion. My trailing leg won't lift high enough and I have to rest my knee on the edge of the fence before I can rock forward and make it over.

Usually, by then my legs are heavy and I'm literally dragging my feet... In long grass tangling up the boots. O yeah exercise those legs!

Some days I'm doing knee bends until I can hardly go up the stairs after going inside.

This is the time of the year when I'm bringing all the container plants inside -- bunch of little weights and some really heavy weights. Last time, I tried to move one that was too heavy for me by myself. I thought my heart was going to burst from the effort afterwards. I didn't know lifting a heavy weight can make your heart race. --- I bought pot lifting straps and it was amazing how easy it was to move that heavy container plant with a 2nd person.

[tomf]

Yes Applestar, my arms have grown after moving here.

[imafan26]

The health advisor is probably thinking you need more aerobic exercises. Lifting weight are good for toning muscle but it is actually much harder on the heart muscle since it does not increase oxygen. She's thinking more like brisk walking, sorry riding a tractor or lawn mower doesn't count, pushing one actually might. Others would be biking, hiking or stair climbing, and swimming. Running and jogging are hard on the joints, walking is low impact.

P.S. I'd rather work in the garden than do the aerobic ones. I tried to go swimming since it was the least offensive. I found out the hard way that from years of having to lift heavy weights with my arms, that my rotator cuffs are shot, and I nearly drowned. My job forces me to do a lot of walking but since my back, knees, and hips hurt the more I walk, it is never aerobic.

[rainbowgardener]

I worked hard doing heavy yard work for four hours today. It felt like exercise, but it is really hard to push yourself to move fast enough and keep going at a pace that makes it aerobic. Unfortunately while it is good for muscles and flexibility, it just doesn't replace jogging. I put the treadmill on 4% upgrade, 4 miles an hour, with brief intervals of 6.5 miles an hour. Do that for two miles and I know I have done something aerobic!

[applestar]

I know I probably need that, but I suspect Tomf doesn't, considering his other hobbies. Have you seen his skiing photos? I'm sure he wouldn't be able to do that if he's not in condition aerobically as well as other aspects.

Since I spend a long time in the garden -- sometimes 4-6 hours or more, and come in when I'm so tired I literally can't think straight and find myself zoning out looking for the next thing that needs to be done (no, stop looking... you told yourself that was the last thing... clean up and go inside.... ) it feels like a lot of *some kind* of exercise. Depending on the level of exertion, I can only "garden" on alternate days. (Maybe I should wear a -- What is that called "pedometer"? -- and see how far I walked within the confines of my tiny garden )

[tomf]

The point about aerobic excises is valid; a bit of our land is hilly, and when you need to cut up a fallen tree, or cut a path, climbing up and down them gets quite aerobic. Even using cables and a tractor to haul the logs up the hill your lungs and hart get a good work out. Thinning and road building causes me to do a lot of logging, if you have ever logged you will know it is hard work.
I like to hike around the trails around here, we have a network that runs all over our land and the neighbors as well. I do have an elliptical machine that I will be using more to get into ski shape. Next year I hope to have my boat finished and do some water skiing again, talk about a work out, both muscles and aerobic at the same time, so is snow skiing, just not as much. I am thinking of going to the local pool as swimming is a very good work out. If I sit around my body feels way worse than when I keep moving.

[Susan W]

One thing I am learning to do is pace myself, don't over do. I don't know about you, but I'm older than I was 10 -20 years ago. For example I can drag a large pot across, but forget the lifting and moving. I can, but better let (adult) son do it. Let the l loaders at the garden center put the bags in the car. Once home, I can pull one at a time to the step. Then roll to the back one at a time in a cart, unless the kid is there. He just picks up 2 with 'Where do you want this Mom?!' I get plenty of exercise with the smaller lifting and doing, and moving about.

[keal]

I'm an ultra runner, meaning I can easily run a marathon (26.2 miles) as a warm-up. Once a year I run a 60 mile loop around a mountain here on Maui with my neighbor (he usually travels the world to compete in 100-mile runs), it takes us over 12 hours. So you would think I'm in shape.

A few weeks ago, I bought 8 grass blocks. It's these concrete tic-tac-toe looking things, you till the driveway, shovel out the dirt, place these grass blocks in, level them with sand and a level thing with the bubbles, then top off with the soil you initially dug out. over time, grass will grow through the tic-tac-toe design and you'll have a beautiful driveway. I did one row that week, and I have to do about 24 more rows (8 grass blocks per row).

I thought I could do 1 row a week, but I was so beat-up doing that single row, I'm thinking 1 row a month, so it'll take me 24 months (2 years!) to complete my driveway.

The pain and suffering I experienced for the few hours it took me to install that one row of grass blocks? Tougher than the 12 hour run around the mountain.

I still haven't bought the blocks and sand for the second row. Gardening is *definitely* a workout. Health advisors who aren't aware of what it takes to create a beautiful home garden retreat - they really need to hang out with their gardening patients for a few weekends!

[valley]

Greetings, Bricks are wonderful. But....they're not 2cent each anymore. You're talking about the red, fired bricks right?

Richard

[keal]

Richard,

I went to Home Depot for the bricks, and it was the cheapest ones they had. Some sort of weathered-looking bricks, like they were originally red bricks that were aged and worn-out. It looks kind of drab, but I'm avoiding using paints in my yard. I figure after my lemon tree grows a bit larger, I'll surround the bricks with some colorful plants. After surrounding the tree with bricks, I filled it with red cinder to stop the weeds. Here's what it looks like right now: