Monday, August 08, 2011

Plans

I find that I always tend to let life happen to me, instead of planning out what I want to have happen in my life. This is a bad habit that I intend to change! I've lived in this house for 15 years, and the entire time I have bemoaned the fact that I don't have a big garden. I have a little grow box, and a little bit of planting area by my living room windows. Even though I have a good sized yard, I don't have enough sun in my yard because of over grown trees. So it's very difficult to get anything to grow. My neighbor has a really nice yard. She has a back yard, but also has a large side yard where she has a vegetable garden. Years ago, her husband put in cement stepping stones, and grow boxes all over the side yard. They have always had great gardens, but this year it is at it's best. I am seriously coveting her garden! But today I have decided that I am going to change my yard, and make my garden as beautiful as her's! I am going to get my trees pruned back, and I'm going to lay some cement walkways like she has. (They did it themselves with a cement mold.) I'm going to put in some more grow boxes, and do my garden right! I wasn't going to post pictures of her garden without asking her, but I've been taking care of it for a few days for her, so I have decided this is the pay I get for helping. :P So I'm going to share some pictures here of her garden so you can covet it too. :D For those who live outside California who may not have this kind of garden culture, here in California, our gardens are part of our living space, and we decorate them like we would our house. :) Oh, and she actually took out a tree recently, so her garden is really doing well. But she got a late start in planting, so these aren't fully mature yet.







































Here is a picture of her grapevine that has climbed in to a nearby tree. I asked my neighbor how they were going to get the grapes down. She said the tree is in the easement on the other side of the fence, and they don't like it, so they will cut it down to harvest the grapes. :)



















She has planted some citrus in containers, and they seem to be doing really well! This one is a variagated lemon.




















Now from the sublime to the ridiculous, here are a couple of pictures at my house. Actually, my basil has done very well. I put it in containers, and it has done great! I've made a lot of pesto, and it has been wonderful! In this picture you can see a plant with sort of purplish/green leaves. I took cuttings from my friend's plant, and it has really done well. Now I just need to find a place to plant it. THere is one dead plant in the picture. It's one that didn't survive my vacation. But it was struggling to survive when I was here, so it's okay.















And here is a picture of some of the fruits of my labors. As you can see, my red tomatoes are very small. They just don't get enough sun. But my squash does well. Have you ever seen these round yellow squash before? I also have some eggplant in a container and it is doing well. BUt next year I"m going to have a garden like my neighbor's!! :)










3 comments:

Grannymar said...

Oops! Your blog has gone all healthy and slimline tonight! LOL.
The sidebar has slid down to the bottom.

Your neighbours garden does look nice and it has given me an idea!

Looney said...

How many kids and dogs play in the back?

Delirious said...

She has two dogs, that are only allowed in the dirt area. Although recently my other neighbor saw some workers putting sod on a neighborhood lawn, and saw that they had extra sod. She asked if she could have it, and they were glad to not have to haul it to the dump, so gave it to her. She laid it in this neighbor's back yard, where the dirt is. It's doing pretty good so far. It filled about half the space.
She has three children, but they are all grown now. But they do bring their grandkids home. The back part of her yard (behind the house, out of the picture) has lawn, so they spend most of their time there.