So, after the work on Booshy Boosh, I got sick. We don't know if it was due to something on the bush being breathed in (it was dusty and smelled funny) or if something else got me, but I've been unable to continue on Project Clear Out for the past few days. To put it simply... I'm wobbly. When I stand up, my legs feel like they're shaking and soon to give out on me. I'm weak, nauseated, dizzy, having a hard time with food. Everything feels like it's separate from me, like there's a layer of cotton batting wrapped around me and keeping the world outside. Most of my time has been spent curled up on the couch, wishing it was over. Today, after a lot of sleep and a lot of huddling, I'm feeling quite a bit better... and GRIM is sick. -headdesk-
While I was having problems sleeping, I talked to Blue about the pots we saw that I wanted. Turns out, we've both had very different ideas of how our back yard would look in the long run. Hm. This... could be a problem. Miscommunications have abounded, on both sides. I'd talked of planting the garden under the old swing set, he'd talked of reusing the wood FROM the swing set to build my raised beds. I'd mentioned getting GRIM a baby swing to hang from the swing-frame's eyes, closest to the play house, he'd seemed agreeable.We'd talked about taking out the two idiotically placed trees in the middle of the yard and planting one shade tree off to one side. I want to keep the play house's frame and rebuild it where it stands. He wants to tear the whole thing down and put up a new one somewhere else. I think we should take out the old tool shed and put in a newer one, maybe something bug-proof. He doesn't see a problem with the existing shed staying. I want to rip up all the damned palm bushes. I have no idea how he feels about those. I also want to rip out a bunch of the purple-flowered vines we have, as they're taking over and clearly animals are hiding in there. He sees no reason to do any such cutting. We DO agree on one thing, though. We both want to keep the freaky-weird citrus tree that stands in the little grassy island between playhouse and shed.. maybe the fuschia if I can save it.
I dropped another bomb on him, today. I want to scatter seed for Corsican Mint in our lawn. He doesn't know why, and I'm not sure I really have a reason, other than I like it and I happen to think "lawn" in the back yard is a complete and utter waste of resources and space. Not that I want a cement pad back there.. but there's a lot you can do with all that space that isn't mowing/blowing/raking/weeding/feeding/watering/etc.
So while we were talking about the pots I wanted, I found out I won't be getting them for my birthday. Since they're at Big Lots, chances are they wouldn't be there for long, so I won't really be getting them at all. He was full of reasons why they'd be a bad idea, why just getting regular wood half-barrels is so much better than planting in plastic-foam-form "wood" half-barrels.. but I'll admit I was sad. I had a specific plan all laid out in my head, and it needed four round containers. Large containers. I've seen what happens to wooden barrels after a few seasons and I thought plastic would be much better. Anyhow, we talked and it was all very "meeting of the minds" and we both were very clear that any talk we made of the back yard and "plans" was very up in the air. Nothing is set in stone and we're talking about things we'd like to have in place years down the line. That's all fine and good, but if I got planters for my birthday, I could garden THIS YEAR, not next.
Putting away the daydreaming I'd been doing about the plastic half-barrels did do me some good, though. It got me back into looking at what's out there. The next day, I had something new in mind. It's not pretty, it's not architectural, and it doesn't fit with my little dream garden. Honestly, if this thing works as well as I think it would, I couldn't care less how it looks.
I'll share the New Idea with you next time.
Good gardening!
Showing posts with label gip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gip. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Gardening Dreams
I've wanted a garden for years.
Growing up, I had several grandparents inspire in me the urge to grow. My grandpa Ray had a huge amount of land behind his house, to us city dwellers. He'd go out every year and till a good, wide patch for peppers, tomatoes, melons, and god knows what else. My grandpa Jim lived out of the way, in a tiny "blink and ya passed it" town called Princeton. His two acres sat between the local post office and the hardware store/mechanic. Across the way was public works (open only by appointment) and behind him, the Sacramento River. With his sandy soil and the town's "valley" cupping the scorching heat each summer, he grew tomatoes by the bushel and anything else he fancied. He would trade produce with a woman down the street for her chicken's eggs, bring ducklings to his window to show me, and always demanded I eat at least a tiny bite of onion with my country breakfast. My Texas grandparents, Evelyn and Miles, had a peach tree in their back yard and flowers in the front. Occasionally, my grandpa Miles would get an urge and we'd all head to the garden supply. I was always allowed to pick out at least one flower and, if it were a garden year, some seeds or starter plants. The ground was good for a couple of inches, and nothing but hard-pack clay below. Still, we managed to play around with our new babies throughout the seasons.
I still hear stories about my early escapades in the garden. How Ray told my mom there was "nothing out there" I could hurt and to let me be. A while later, I came in, beaming at him as every tiny pepper and tomato his plants had held rolled around in my cupped-up skirt. How I would crawl under the canopy of twining indeterminate tomato vines at Jim's place, playing with his chickens and ducks. The way I'd listen so carefully to Miles as he patiently explained for the tenth time that my plants won't have grown another inch since the day before and nod my agreement, only to run outside with the ruler, yet again.
I've dug tiny garden plots in every property my mother moved to, including her last. I'm still embarassed to see the dip in the exact center of the left half of her lawn, when I go to visit. Why couldn't I have done it in the back yard, or maybe off along the side of the house, why did I have to scar her lawn - her landlord's lawn? She still jokes about it and I still defend my reasoning. The other spots wouldn't have had enough sun, and besides she sure seemed to enjoy the hell out of the garlic, onions, peppers, and tomatoes I'd brought in. Years later, when my grandpa would be moved into the little "in-law cottage" behind my mother's house, I'd plant an apple sapling in a giant plastic "drinks" tub and bury cut-off sprouts from her russets in back, where my grandpa could watch them from his chair by the window. My aunt and I would dig up little potatoes and cut down swathes of white and yellow iris to bring in and marvel over with him.
Over a year after his passing, years after I'd planted my potatoes and moved away, my mom still finds tiny ones in the dirt, dug up by the new "back neighbor's" dog.
These men taught me something more important than being outside or risk/reward behaviour.. They taught me to respect my land, to respect my food, and to know the pleasure of growing something with your own labor.
I haven't had a garden - even a plant - in years. I moved out of Jim's place, away from owned land and wide spaces. I met and fell in love. I marveled at living in an apartment for the first time since my very first years. I was ecstatic over hot, running water that was safe to drink. A toilet that didn't lead to a septic tank. Showering inside. Walking down the street for cigarettes or a gallon of milk. Pizza delivery, having access to a phone and a car. Internet! I didn't need a plant; I could hang over our tiny, ground-level patio and look at the bushes and grass of the apartment complex.
We would move many times, after that. Renting half a house owned by out of state family, with in-laws as roommates, sharing a rented house with other in-laws, struggling to maintain rent on the same house alone, downgrading to one side of a duplex. At each place, a familiar refrain: "Can I have a garden?"
And then... the housing market was dealt a set of terrible blows. Prices had gone up from 'expensive' to 'unreasonable' and then 'you're kidding me!' The bottom fell out. Those that had taken out loans and mortgages on such high values couldn't keep up. Banks reclaimed, real estate officials donned sackcloth and ash, proclaiming "the end is nigh". And off in a little room, our little GRIM cried. Soon, grandparents were thinking about the tiny, wriggling bundle's future as well as their own.
We call what we do here "renting", but really.. we're paying back a long-term loan. We have a house. We have a pair of yards - front and back. We're in a safe, quiet neighborhood. There's a park just down the street, and the elementary school GRIM will one day attend is just beyond our fence. We. Own. A. Yard.
"Can I have a garden?"
"Well, it'd take a lot of work..."
"Duh. Can I have a garden?"
"There's still a lot that needs to be done *inside* the house."
"Noted. Can I have a garden?"
"...If you help, yes. You can have a garden."
This.. is my sandbox. I will take all I have learned at the knee of my elders, and make it something they would be proud of.
Growing up, I had several grandparents inspire in me the urge to grow. My grandpa Ray had a huge amount of land behind his house, to us city dwellers. He'd go out every year and till a good, wide patch for peppers, tomatoes, melons, and god knows what else. My grandpa Jim lived out of the way, in a tiny "blink and ya passed it" town called Princeton. His two acres sat between the local post office and the hardware store/mechanic. Across the way was public works (open only by appointment) and behind him, the Sacramento River. With his sandy soil and the town's "valley" cupping the scorching heat each summer, he grew tomatoes by the bushel and anything else he fancied. He would trade produce with a woman down the street for her chicken's eggs, bring ducklings to his window to show me, and always demanded I eat at least a tiny bite of onion with my country breakfast. My Texas grandparents, Evelyn and Miles, had a peach tree in their back yard and flowers in the front. Occasionally, my grandpa Miles would get an urge and we'd all head to the garden supply. I was always allowed to pick out at least one flower and, if it were a garden year, some seeds or starter plants. The ground was good for a couple of inches, and nothing but hard-pack clay below. Still, we managed to play around with our new babies throughout the seasons.
I still hear stories about my early escapades in the garden. How Ray told my mom there was "nothing out there" I could hurt and to let me be. A while later, I came in, beaming at him as every tiny pepper and tomato his plants had held rolled around in my cupped-up skirt. How I would crawl under the canopy of twining indeterminate tomato vines at Jim's place, playing with his chickens and ducks. The way I'd listen so carefully to Miles as he patiently explained for the tenth time that my plants won't have grown another inch since the day before and nod my agreement, only to run outside with the ruler, yet again.
I've dug tiny garden plots in every property my mother moved to, including her last. I'm still embarassed to see the dip in the exact center of the left half of her lawn, when I go to visit. Why couldn't I have done it in the back yard, or maybe off along the side of the house, why did I have to scar her lawn - her landlord's lawn? She still jokes about it and I still defend my reasoning. The other spots wouldn't have had enough sun, and besides she sure seemed to enjoy the hell out of the garlic, onions, peppers, and tomatoes I'd brought in. Years later, when my grandpa would be moved into the little "in-law cottage" behind my mother's house, I'd plant an apple sapling in a giant plastic "drinks" tub and bury cut-off sprouts from her russets in back, where my grandpa could watch them from his chair by the window. My aunt and I would dig up little potatoes and cut down swathes of white and yellow iris to bring in and marvel over with him.
Over a year after his passing, years after I'd planted my potatoes and moved away, my mom still finds tiny ones in the dirt, dug up by the new "back neighbor's" dog.
These men taught me something more important than being outside or risk/reward behaviour.. They taught me to respect my land, to respect my food, and to know the pleasure of growing something with your own labor.
I haven't had a garden - even a plant - in years. I moved out of Jim's place, away from owned land and wide spaces. I met and fell in love. I marveled at living in an apartment for the first time since my very first years. I was ecstatic over hot, running water that was safe to drink. A toilet that didn't lead to a septic tank. Showering inside. Walking down the street for cigarettes or a gallon of milk. Pizza delivery, having access to a phone and a car. Internet! I didn't need a plant; I could hang over our tiny, ground-level patio and look at the bushes and grass of the apartment complex.
We would move many times, after that. Renting half a house owned by out of state family, with in-laws as roommates, sharing a rented house with other in-laws, struggling to maintain rent on the same house alone, downgrading to one side of a duplex. At each place, a familiar refrain: "Can I have a garden?"
And then... the housing market was dealt a set of terrible blows. Prices had gone up from 'expensive' to 'unreasonable' and then 'you're kidding me!' The bottom fell out. Those that had taken out loans and mortgages on such high values couldn't keep up. Banks reclaimed, real estate officials donned sackcloth and ash, proclaiming "the end is nigh". And off in a little room, our little GRIM cried. Soon, grandparents were thinking about the tiny, wriggling bundle's future as well as their own.
We call what we do here "renting", but really.. we're paying back a long-term loan. We have a house. We have a pair of yards - front and back. We're in a safe, quiet neighborhood. There's a park just down the street, and the elementary school GRIM will one day attend is just beyond our fence. We. Own. A. Yard.
"Can I have a garden?"
"Well, it'd take a lot of work..."
"Duh. Can I have a garden?"
"There's still a lot that needs to be done *inside* the house."
"Noted. Can I have a garden?"
"...If you help, yes. You can have a garden."
This.. is my sandbox. I will take all I have learned at the knee of my elders, and make it something they would be proud of.
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