Welcome to the jungle*

* formerly known as our garden…

My poor garden is long-suffering.  It goes through periods of total neglect, being used as a paint/workshop, or is the victim of my less than expert attention.  Last week when attempting to dig up a science project I realized the dire situation that had bloomed back there.

Weeds!  Giant killer weeds!!  And they were taking no prisoners!  It’s shocking how they can grow on top of  brick!

There were at least a thousand chores I didn’t want to do so I decided to head outside and slay some weeds.  A little bit of effort yielded a BIG sense of accomplishment – and a big sense of dread at the enormity of the task at hand.

It ultimately took 3 hours to weed my tiny little garden - and I filled the curbside composting bin TWICE.  As you can see, there’s not actually a lot of dirt back there… it’s mostly brick.

Oh… and while I was pulling weeds like a mad woman, what was The Child doing?  Uh, she “helped”.  Who doesn’t need a gigantic hole in the garden?  I really can’t tell you just how helpful it is to hear “LOOK NOW!” with every shovelful extracted!  The annoyance pride shone across my face as I reminded myself that there were many other ways she could have “helped” that would have been far less helpful

 So today – in honor of the first day of spring – we prettied up the clean, weed-free dirt with some actual pretty and EDIBLE things! 

Red-leaf and Meyers lettuce, two kinds of tomatoes (at least one is fog-tolerant – we’ve had them 3 other summers), sugar snap peas, and catnip for the Hairy Beast.  The tall, green-thumbed super salesman at Sloat Garden Center assured us that all of these things would survive the total lack of unclouded sun, cool weather and questionable soil that graces our neighborhood.  Riiiiiiight.  We’ll see about that.

We put some major COLOR!!! along the far wall to brighten up the view from the livingroom.  I’ll be happy if the Forsythia survives… because it’s so bright and grows quite large, and also because it’s my namesake

 

Spring has sprung early in my garden

This afternoon I noticed the cherry blossoms were tricked in to coming out early by this recent bout of sunshine.  Funny how they appear out of nowhere.  My garden is choked with a thick blanket of weeds – though they are lovely, lush and green at the moment.  I find it frustrating that every year I pull them all out, fertilize and try so plant something new; and every year I hope that something will finally take hold, grow thick, and choke out future weeds. 

Ever-hearty is a miniature yellow rose that was given to me 2 months after I moved in to this house – almost 5 years ago.  It was one of those little Easter flower things they sell at Safeway and was on death’s doorstep within a few days of my receiving it.  Cavalierly, I planted its almost dead carcass in a little spot in the garden.  I felt bad for (almost) killing it so quickly so I attempted to absolve my guilt by letting nature decide if it lived or died.  Despite often going months without water and usually being dwarfed by surrounding weeds, it survives.  If suffering my neglect it will bravely bear one small flower.  If I give it any love it busts out loads of blooms.

Today there are two little buds, about to open up and show their beautiful buttery yellow selves…  Awwww… such perseverance!

I hope I get some time this week to start some work in the garden.  Hopefully I will finally coax it towards its potential this year.  For such a little space it presents some serious challenges!

1. There is no direct sunlight.
2. Indirect sunlight is between 4-6 hours.
3. The soil is incredibly sandy.  I have amended it a number of times, but I really need to take some out in order to make room in the beds for better soil.  In order to do that I have to move dirt through my house as there is no access to the yard from the street.
4. Sandy soil = high surface tension = difficult to get water in to the soil to the plants.
5. I’m not a real fan of what would do well – succulents.

Any how… enough of my list-bitching.  I guess I’m happy to see some signs of life back there yet still felt the need for a small scale rant. 

I’ll try to post some Before pics this week.  That certainly worked wonders for getting my house in order!