Sunday, May 25, 2008

competing interest



Forgot to mention that my main competition for the sewing is my backyard garden.

The soil is horrible. Cigarette butts, broken beer bottles, plastic bags, and more get turned over with every shovelful of dirt. My allergies are in a perpetual state of rebellion with each fistful of weeds that I extract from the tangled mess.

And yet, I am seriously enamored with this space. There are two other tenants in the house, but no one seems to even glance back there, much less dig in. Maybe I'm the crazy one.

So here it is, the space that is competing with all my other tasks. This is the biggest garden I've personally taken on. Community gardens have partners. The little space on Ashland Street was tiny by comparison. The 540B plots were a bit larger. Blue Elm is going to be the best by far I think. Tomorrow RJR is going to help me rough in a patio area. Ok, he is going to rough in a patio and I'll be planting more seeds and tearing out more weeds to shape in a space for wildflowers along the back fence. Some of my plants were grown from seeds, others were purchased at the South Wedge farmers market, and others are cuttings/transplants from my mom's garden.





The "garden" in March.






Ready to go into the ground.



The garden now.



Herb garden outside of the fence: dill, spearmint, orange mint, sage, sweet basil, purple basil, thai basil, marjoram, thyme, orange thyme, lavender, oregano, parsley...will keep adding if I can--love the herbs!





Cucumber hills.




The compost bin in full effect.

Instructions for the design found here in a book I got at a thrift store.





Tomorrow the peppers and tomatoes are going in!

1 comment:

Patti said...

Wow! What a change in your backyard. Your neighbors may not be motivated to make the change, but they will appreciate the view.

I am planting in pots on the deck today, and Dad is rototilling a kitchen garden off the deck. Mondo G.F. was no fun yesterday, so I am waiting to get many of my plants from our locally grown garden place in N.C.

Keep the photos coming!