On organic farms they till it like it is.

Or like it was brought in in bags that said organic, whatever works for an individual.

Behold my hearty specimen!!!

This year I threw caution to the wind and planted my garden in late March. I am a rebel, but don't be frightened. The total upside to living with the gardening teacher is that if any of the bad ass heirloom plants he brought you home and told you not to put out yet die because you didn't listen, there's a decent chance he has more to bring you.

So anyway, I had green fever and planted everything outside over a month ago and shit is happening around these parts!

First the old:

First pepper bloom!

Pepper patch a la Earthbox

When I grow up, I want to be a Kohlrabi!

Tomato plant is strong like bull!

Group photo. From near to far: Spice bucket (lemon verbena, african blue basil, rosemary, oregano, sage), Flower bucket, beet bucket (not shown), pepper box (3x hot and 3x sweet), tomato bucket, tomato bucket, tomato earth box, carrot bucket, kohlrabi bucket. Hoo-ah!

But wait there's more! well, there will be anyway. So the house next to us is vacant. It's on the market but they're asking some crazy amount for it and I don't see it going anytime soon. they don't need to sell it, so they're unwilling to move on the price for a while. They have a nice yard in the sense of getting light and stuff and being flat and kind of a shitty yard in the sense that yesterday it looked like this (but worse because I didn't start out with the camera)


The only thing you missed is a few saplings I cut down. I dont know if you can tell, but it was roughly knee high all around.

After an hour or 2 it looked like this:

And I felt totally spent and calm in the way that one can after a solid 2 hours with a machete and a rake. Yes machete, I went old school and I liked it. Some of the plants got whacked when they weren't looking, some were warned: There can be only one! and then beheaded.

Let's get some perspective on this, from the vantage of my rooftop garden paradise:

Oh how I wish I'd gotten the before from this angle!

Off topic: that's my yard on the right. Don't mind it's lack of luster, there are big ideas afoot for that this weekend.

Anyhow, HN and I and one neighbor on the other side of this patch of weeds have decided we're going to put a garden in there. Using more of HN's badass heirloom strains because he has extras we're going to go large scale tomato and pepper (always with basil to keep the tomat-hos happy) and 1-2 zucchini plants. This weekend we get the tiller and take it all from drab to fab so stay tuned.

Hopefully soon I'll have better pics of my rooftop paradise as well. It's not very paradise-y right now, but that should also change this weekend.

Viva le DIY!!

I don't know where that pile of grass clippings went...