I got injured in the garden. While digging the final potato beds and pumping water around the plot, I take a careless step and fall into a rain barrel. Don’t worry, there is no accident footage. I only share the time leading up to the accident and tell you how I got injured.

Note: The video version of this post gets released on Wednesday, May 22.

We are nearing our last frost date. Soon, I’ll need garden beds. Most urgent is to finish the potato beds. Two more to go. The hazelnuts are turning green, the cherry blossoms have fallen. The garden says spring is here.

(11 days earlier) “It is snowing. It is really snowing. It is so weird to see snow flakes and green trees.”

We had a sudden frost after hot days at the end of April. Many think that was the Ice Saints come early. I don’t trust it yet. Three weeks early is very early.

But the potatoes don’t care either way. So, let’s get them into the ground. If I can manage… When I dug the other five beds, I said this would be easier with lawn. Well, didn’t feel easier at first. Even with a sharp spade, cutting the grass line was hard work, especially at my weight.

Pepper tried to get to some sheep poop on the wrong side of the fence. I used it as an excuse to take a digging break.

We quickly built the couch from the two pieces. This is a pass-me-down from neighbors. I’ll need it the next day.

Luckily, the work on the bed went much more smoothly on the other three sides.

In many places, I could even actually fold the grass over. Where the tall grass dominated, things were easy. The shorter, seedy grass was hard to cut through. The folded-over grass gives the bed more structure than the ones I did on the weeded bed have.

More weight or more strength would definitely have helped. But it worked even with my lack of weight. It definitely took a lot longer, though. It would also have helped to trim the tall grass before cutting the edge.

But I’d taken all the batteries home for charging and didn’t want to wait. I did things the hard way because I was scared I wouldn’t get them done at all if I waited any longer. The seed potatoes were looking drier by the day, and I wanted to get them into the ground.

It was a beautiful day for manual labor, so I didn’t care. Soon after, the potatoes went in. These are Blaue Anneliese potatoes, a blue variety that matures late.

I scraped soil out of the ditch until I had a few centimeters of soil above each tuber. As I hadn’t added peas, I didn’t water them in at all. Time to take in the seedlings and head home.

The next day’s walk was no fun with millions of mosquitoes in dense swarms. You could not stand still anywhere. And footage meant mosquito bites.

So we rushed through the forest and decided to fly the drone in the garden instead.

I used the time to weed the onion and garlic bed and the path that will be next to it soon. To my husband’s entertainment, Pepper decided to go for the compost behind my back.

I’ll have to close this up soon or this will become a common occurrence. I definitely can’t dump fresh compost like this.

Good morning. I am just checking on the garden on my way to class.

It is a very, very ugly day. Hence, the outfit right now. I know I look ridiculous.I don’t care. It is cold. I am cold. I hate it. We are back to single-digit temperatures. I am just here to check on the seedlings and that everything is looking good. And then I’m gonna head to class.

The potato beds are looking good. I am going to have to do some weeding. But that was to be expected. I mean, I did just throw the grass on there. So, I’m gonna check on my seedlings, and then we are gonna get out of here.

The seedlings were happy and healthy. Seeing them look this good almost makes me sad. I’ll need to skip a garden day after the injury, and some of the tomatoes will look a lot less happy then. But right now, they are looking excellent. Ready for potting up but happy.

The seedlings are looking great, and I don’t even need to water.

The only thing that’s not looking good is the seed potatoes. I mean, just look at them. They are all squishy and–especially this one–are getting soft. I really need to get those in the ground. That’s going to be our next project. But first, I need to head to class.

This rain barrel being full will be my almost literal down-fall later.

Okay, I dumped all the collected water into the rain barrel and closed the rain barrel again.

There’s one more thing I want to show you before I leave and that’s the lack of a trash pile. There is no longer any trash. I’m so happy. Anyway, I really need to get going.

My husband convinced me to order the pump that goes with our tools to move the water around on the plot. I managed to untangle the very long hose and figure out the attachments for the pump. If I can’t have running water here, now I can at least move things more easily.

The hose is long enough to get to the bottom of the growing plot but I wouldn’t need to go that far now. The main point was to make room in the overflowing barrels for more rain.

I turned on the pump. The outlet was leaking a bit but I wanted to check the other end first. The water was pushing the air out of the long hose. I could have fixed the outlet first.

But a few moments later, there was water. The flow isn’t very strong through the long hose but that’s fine. We’ve got time.

Instead, I built the first part of the compost system. Pepper sneaked in again while I checked the pump.

While the water pump did its thing, I dug the final bed for the final seed potatoes. Finally!

In between, I kept checking the pump, even switched it over to the second barrel. Once the outline is cut, the process moves a lot more quickly.

I was almost done when I checked on the pump and found the battery empty. After hiding on the couch in the garden house for half an hour, I planted the potatoes.

Shock was masking the pain. I didn’t know yet how hurt I was from falling into the barrel.

I’m ashamed to say I even did some digging. Toward the end, I noticed I was favoring the injured side and hand. We can’t make good decisions under shock. I need to learn that lesson. I should not have used the hand at all until I was sure nothing was seriously damaged.

A few hours later, the hand will be in a splint. My thigh will be severely bruised. But I got lucky.

So long, and thanks for being here.