My fairy gardenmother to the rescue!

So my neighbor across the alley has tripped upon this blog and -- gasp -- figured out pretty quickly whose blog it was despite my meager attempts (I said meager) at anonymity. She read about my dreams and yearnings to make the mess that is the back corner of my yard (the one closest to her) into a garden that actually produced produce rather than spiders and blackberry bushes. And instead of teasing me about how long it's taken me to attack that corner (though I have been attacking other corners!) she got to work. This genius of a landscaper is once again lending some of her energies to my yard (and making sure she has something prettier to look at than a couple blackberry runners that keep re-emerging and the pile of bricks left by the previous owner when we bought the place more than five years ago.) Like I said, she is my fairy gardenmother. She's been plotting with my husband on making this a real plot. They've staked it out, ran the string, figured out which neighbor was about to get rid of the fencing, she even squished some nasty looking spiders and turned the pile of bricks into a border for the soon-to-be growing space. Pretty soon it will be ready to have a giant load of TAGRO Potting Soil dumped on it, some seeds and starts planted within, and then I will have no excuses for not keeping this corner kept up. So thank you, fairy gardenmother, for kickstarting some magic in my backyard, especially in that horrid corner, and for being patient with our household of gardening/yardscaping idiots over the last five years -- and for helping take the fear and mystery out of just getting growing. I look forward to you having a prettier view from your yard -- and to me becoming less of a gardening idiot.

Sprouting sprouts and grassroots efforts

The sweet peas I had my kids push into the ground are beginning to sprout. It's so sweet to see.

Of course, the whatever herb my hubby planted in his makeshift indoor greenhouse (reused plastic insta-dinner container) is also sprouting, and at a speedier rate, even though he planted it later. But it is a makeshift greenhouse.

Which only makes me eye the corner of our property with even more greenhouse-lust. Year-round gardening. It would be lovely. We could curb our Pioneer Organics subscription to every other week instead of every week perhaps. Save ourselves a few bucks and have fun doing it.

Plus, it's fun to hook the kids on this kind of thing.

And if the backyard doesn't work -- and, actually, even if it does, we plan to join the resurging BUGS (Bridging Urban Gardens Society) -- a group of community garden enthusiasts who are forming a sort of guerrilla work party. Don't have time to monitor a plot on a weekly basis? Already have a backyard haven but want the other benefits of a community garden. Then this is the group for you ... come help weed or otherwise take care of another established community garden, and take advantage of the community aspect, being in the garden, and feel good about helping some folks out. It's a good thing.

Want to know more? E-mail me and I'll make sure you do.