Home FAIL
So I have been lately obsessed with reading Apartment Therapy and all that sort of home-remedying-make-me-a-better-person-or-at-least-help-me-organize-better sites. And I have to say, at first I was inspired but soon that faded to jealousy and feelings of inadequacy. I ran out a week or two ago my heart full of happy to IKEA to get storage solutions, like the white magazine organizers and storage boxes to fit in my existing IKEA bookshelfs....only to get home and realize that they were too big and there are two models of large square bookshelves with openings. FAIL.
GARDEN FAIL & Plan B:
A week or so prior, I was inspired by gardening articles and my long standing love of planting vegetables and flowers...so I ran out to a local nursery, wandered among azaleas in full bloom, wisteria, fruit trees, etc. And I bought a bunch of herbs, vegetable seedlings, a lemon tree and a lime tree, and a creeping fig that I want to train to grow on my stark white 8 foot outer walls. I get home inspired, and grab my new pitchfork to till the soil so I can plant my creeping fig. Here is the part of the story to stop reading, because inspiration over. The earth is so hard that I actually snapped off one of the thick half inch metal prongs on the end of this pitchfork. WTF you say? WTF is right. I managed to burrow out a space and filed it with new soil and planted my creeping fig....2 weeks later it is a dry, brown fire-hazard. And here's the thing. I like gardening, in SB i had over 50 thriving orchids. I grew lettuce for christ's sake. Anyway, I resorted to containers to plant things in, and thats okay...for now.
Here's my plan for the garden (which is substantially large): PAY carpenter to make gates to replace the rickety broken down ones I have now. Then I am PAYING a landscaper to till the dry earth, ammend it and replace the corroded sprinkler system with a new one on a timer. This alone will alone me to keep alive the gardens which currently I cannot water so why ammend the soil till you have a way to provide sustenance to your investment. Then I am redoing the entire garden with the aforementioned landscaper to put in fruit trees, lawn (tho-decreasing it), raised vegetable bed, pavers, scotch moss, creepers, etc...everything I had been trying to do and failing at. Once the bones of the garden are in place I can enjoy doing the smaller plantings, the flourishes, but putting in irrigation, timers, and dog-proof carpentry is just beyond my ability. So, Plan B is something I have to save for and in the interim. Hello containers!
GARDEN FAIL & Plan B:
A week or so prior, I was inspired by gardening articles and my long standing love of planting vegetables and flowers...so I ran out to a local nursery, wandered among azaleas in full bloom, wisteria, fruit trees, etc. And I bought a bunch of herbs, vegetable seedlings, a lemon tree and a lime tree, and a creeping fig that I want to train to grow on my stark white 8 foot outer walls. I get home inspired, and grab my new pitchfork to till the soil so I can plant my creeping fig. Here is the part of the story to stop reading, because inspiration over. The earth is so hard that I actually snapped off one of the thick half inch metal prongs on the end of this pitchfork. WTF you say? WTF is right. I managed to burrow out a space and filed it with new soil and planted my creeping fig....2 weeks later it is a dry, brown fire-hazard. And here's the thing. I like gardening, in SB i had over 50 thriving orchids. I grew lettuce for christ's sake. Anyway, I resorted to containers to plant things in, and thats okay...for now.
Here's my plan for the garden (which is substantially large): PAY carpenter to make gates to replace the rickety broken down ones I have now. Then I am PAYING a landscaper to till the dry earth, ammend it and replace the corroded sprinkler system with a new one on a timer. This alone will alone me to keep alive the gardens which currently I cannot water so why ammend the soil till you have a way to provide sustenance to your investment. Then I am redoing the entire garden with the aforementioned landscaper to put in fruit trees, lawn (tho-decreasing it), raised vegetable bed, pavers, scotch moss, creepers, etc...everything I had been trying to do and failing at. Once the bones of the garden are in place I can enjoy doing the smaller plantings, the flourishes, but putting in irrigation, timers, and dog-proof carpentry is just beyond my ability. So, Plan B is something I have to save for and in the interim. Hello containers!