I was livid last week to see theinders late afternoon and thinking about my great work the day before as I usually mow my lawn in the fall time. However, I dwell on it because I was ready to storm the beach for our anniversary. We have been dating for quite a while and she knew that she wanted to do something different so she suggested we go green this year and she even though that she had a very normal lawn that was just too small, she decided to let me know that she thought that if I would help her with something, anything, to make her lawn a little nicer she would love me forever. She is so crazy right now and it is so nice to know that she is happy and contented with whatever my decision may be.
icide, fungicide, and certification for our lawn was the next items on the list. I manage a gardening business so I know that a lot of lawns just need that one big item to make them look better and some to go further. Regardless of what, I knew that it was going to be a process and it would not be as easy as throwing some seeds in the ground and hope for the best. For my company, digital use, I decided that I would try to save as much energy as possible and not use power or energy consumers for my project. We are so far into savings today that I believe we will be able to do this! We planted our seeds in plastic cups 5 years ago and still have bees and butterflies on our flowers even after giving them a 20% cut. We also have a rain water tank, solar powered toilets, solar outdoor lighting, and running water in our rain barrels, some of which are hooked up to our sewage system to pull our waste from the storm drains. Pretty neat, huh!
The next items on the list were to replace the plastic patio furniture, get a potting bench and not break our back, and invest in some potting. If I can’t break that last potting bench, I will buy another one just for potting. It is estimated that if all goes right, we will have potting benches for about 35% of our space in the coming years. Of course, this being optimistic, I like to think that we will break that last potting bench in about three or four years time.
The next item on the list was to replace all the utterly disorganized inside plants. They were growing in half gallon plastic pots, dirt had been mixed in with the dirt (ha), and they just did not make the cut. This was my baby steps for the day. I came home to find them dead. The label said to simply trim the backside of the stem and send it to the landfill. I have a hedge against this mistake in that I do not want to add to much mulch or amend the soil, just cut the plant back and add a layer of mulch to the top of the soil and that’s that. Potting media improves as well.obsidian helps lighten the load as well as provide good drainage.
The next item was to replace the sprinkling Warning shot for the famous Chagrin peach trees and peaches. I was able to get some new spray heads for the watering improvement project.Rain, rain, rain, am I going to break out the encyclopedia on sprinklers? No, I am just going to re- barb the old one. The new rain barrel heads are a lot smaller and theyDO make me feel cooler when I head out there with a mug of hot tea. Job well done!
Finally, I spent an hour or so crawling on my knees, slithering around in the dark because there are so many hungry mouths in the garden waiting to eat what I have given them the key to. It is funny how much of what you do in the garden has to do with smell. You know, that sweet, rotting smell you get on your hands when you’ve just weeded the garden? It only happens when you’ve either gone to the compost pile and let it know that there is food in it or that composted material is there waiting to be eaten. Weeds are good. I like to run them over with the lawn mower before I mulch. Eat them and they will keep the weeds down and that is good. Harvesting is good – that is until you get the worms. Weeds go to seed in there and that is our cue to go in for the shovel. yo! Weeds are good for the soul.
This is the winter garden harvest – the easy part. This is the harvest we all wait for – the easy part.
