We employ a local landscaping crew to maintain our meadows and perennial beds. I take care of 95% of the work in our approximately 600 sq. ft. vegetable garden. Last fall, we requested that the beds be covered with straw for the winter, as we do every year. This provides protection for the soil during freeze/thaw cycles and keeps the beds relatively free of weeds. During the growing season, I do the planting, weeding and harvesting unless we are traveling. I keep the garden in impeccable shape with respect to weeds. I happened to be around last fall when they started spreading the straw in the garden. Something didn't look quite right to my eyes, but by the time I got to the vegetable garden, two beds had been covered by the straw, which I realized immediately was not straw, but hay! I informed the crew that this was unacceptable, and that they had just seeded the area with millions of weed seeds. They removed the hay from the two beds, and one gardener returned the following week with straw and completed the job. This spring, of course, those two beds are sprouting a lot of weeds. Is It unreasonable of me to expect that they should weed those beds without charge this year? For a frame of reference, every time they come out and spend the day (it is usually a crew of between 3 and 6 workers) the bill is around $2000. We have been using this team for a number of years and are otherwise extremely satisfied with their work; we don't want to lose them. However, from our perspective, the weeds were a direct result of a mistake on their part, and we feel they shouldn't charge us for the time needed to get those two beds back to the condition they were in before the hay seeds were introduced. What do the Bogleheads think, besides the fact that we're paying too much for the gardeners? ![:wink:]( "Wink")
Statistics: Posted by veggivet — Fri Apr 12, 2024 2:31 am — Replies 0 — Views 6
