Flower Power

The Dude and I are gardening. Of course one of the reasons we moved down here is for the yard. A yard in this city is a major premium. You're lucky to get a balcony or a deck, never mind a damn yard with grass and such. So a few days ago we spent our day off getting our hands dirty.

The previous tenants had a dog, albeit a nice dog, that destroyed the grass with her many trips outside. So there was a massive brown patch in the back. There was also a strip of weeds lining the fence and wild violets everywhere. The grass had started growing uncontrollably from the rain and it's been too wet to cut. We had so much work ahead of us.

We went out for our supplies using Zipcar and were nine minutes late returning it and were charged an extra $35. We picked up a shovel, spade (Which I've already broken), shears, grass seed, top soil and all sorts of plants. We're going to grow us some dang veggies. We tried the potted garden route on our old deck last year and it went okay, but I was a little disappointed with how small the plants were, and we didn't have enough room for more than a few things.

So we went to Fiesta Gardens and bought onions, lettuce, carrots, green beans, tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, strawberries, garlic, zucchini and pumpkin, plus herbs. I also got some sweet pea flowers for the old weed-ridden fence.

It was hell to get it all together. While digging out the flower bed I found all sorts of bulbs, presumably from a garden that once was, long ago suffocated by weeds. There were piles of roots and growth to sort through and throw away. I couldn't discern what was what, so everything went in the compost so I could start from scratch.

The Dude got to work weeding out the wild violets and digging up what would become our vegetable garden. There were old wooden slabs piled in the back of the yard and he used them to block off the soil. There was a bricked off area we chose as our herb garden.

It was so difficult. For some reason we didn't eat before doing this. We didn't eat all day, in fact. The Dude held up a lot better than I did. Eventually I ran out of steam and was merely out there for moral support in the misty gloom while the Dude finished planting the flowers and more of the herbs.

The next day there was even more to do. The Dude was off while I was working, so he was out there again, shearing the grass, planting the rest of the produce and cleaning away all the dead weeds and grass littered all over the yard.

And there's more to go. But! Here is the current state of affairs:

You can see the patches where we had to plant new grass.
The compost bin is crammed full with more to come.

Here's a close-up of the garden.
The herbs are in the corner.
The pumpkin and zucchini are to the left.

Here are the carrots, onions, green beans, lettuce, and peppers.
Straddling the two sections are the strawberries.