Mammoth effort in the garden and a lot of trips to The Dump

Sarah Van Der Kley and Martin Good.

It's spring time and like many people, we've been doing a bit of a clean-up around our property. Okay, a big clean-up.

Most people who own a property tend to take good care of their grounds and spend a fair amount of time maintaining their garden.

Not us. While the lawns are mowed regularly, as someone whose thumbs are any colour but green I tend to forget about the garden part.

To the point that it got completely out of control and we decided to tackle the whole jungle in one giant effort.

It wasn't just weeds that needed to be taken care of but also all the rotten mushy apples that I'd carelessly let cover the grounds. And the area where I was dumping the grass clippings which was getting up to window height.

After two weeks of back-breaking work I'm pleased to say the garden now looks fantastic and there's not a rotten apple in site.

But the whole endeavour has reaffirmed my hatred of the dreaded place we call The Dump.
It took about 16 trailer loads to clear our bit of paradise and I was at the refuse station so often that one worker commented that they should start paying me.

The dog enjoyed the frequent trips but I did not.

I've done some calculations and as it takes around three-quarters of an hour to get to the dump, unload the trailer, pay and travel home again, I have just spent 12 hours of my life getting rid of garden waste.

If you spread that over a year it would only be one hour a month which is totally manageable.

But 12 hours transporting weeds over two weeks is just ridiculous.

The worst thing is that the part of the garden I started in has blimmin' weeds growing in it again (apparently they grow back!).

So what have I learned from this? Well, I've discovered that there were some hidden gems behind all the weeds, like a rather good fence.

That if you do a little bit of work frequently, gardening will be a much more pleasant experience. And that perhaps we are not the kind of people who should own fruit trees.

- Don't miss Martin Good and Sarah Van Der Kley on The Hits Hawke's Bay from 6am to 9am Monday to Friday.