green(ish) thumb

Unfortunately, Blogger had a meltdown last week and this post was deleted... I've tried to recreate it!
Ok.... so my ability to garden has yet to be seen.  In our first month as yard keepers, we've mostly done the post winter-thaw maintenance... picked up sticks, racked up very wet leaves, cleaned off bushes, re-seeded patches of the lawn, fertilized.  (Oops I confess, we've yet to fertilize but we've bought the supplies!  The eco/pet friendly kind, though we may not need it after looking at the health the rain has brought to our grass.)  My life is a glamorous one and suspect it'll get even more glitsy, and by glitsy, dirty!

Our local Ace hardware store loves us, or they should.  We've been frequent visitors.  When you buy a house and sign over the next x amount of years of your life to attentive home keeping, you walk out of the mortgage office all, "Yay!  We're done!  We win!"  only to realize that your washer and dryer vibrate so much that when in use you must duct tape their doors shut to get a load done, or that much of the fresh paint on all your walls were poured down your sink, or that all your outlets are two prong and you need three.  But, seriously, all in all, houses are fun and any little trials are learning opportunities... right?

Well I have a lot of learning to do about gardening, but I'm eager.  A dear friend gave me this book:



{adorable cover, right? very thumb-printy}



So far I'm loving it.  Did you know that there are growing "zones" and that you should know your zone before picking out your plants?  No use to buying something beautiful that won't survive in your soil, climate, or sun conditions.  Essentially, the book gives you a breakdown of all the very helpful things to know before committing time and money to your garden.

Here's a bit of an intro to our growing environment.  Welcome to our backyard!











  

When I initially posted this, I received numerous comments on our push mower.  Yes, it's pretty old, but yes it works!  And yes it was free!  And it's sustainable chic!...Right?  I actually love it, though this praise is coming from the one who hasn't mowed the lawn yet.  It's really wonderful to not worry about gas and maintenance only requires an ACE visit every few seasons for blade sharpening.

As you can see our backyard is sloped to the west, which is great for viewing the sunset from the house each evening.  There's a couple levels of retaining walls that greatly define the yard and I'm really excited to figure out our landscaping and patio plans this summer.  I'm waiting to do most of my planting until I see just how shady the yard gets with our two big elms filled out with their wonderful green canopies.

The extent of my gardening at the soma home has been potting herbs.  I've read that growing herbs is just about the easiest thing in the world, yet, I've already made (and corrected) some screw-ups.  Firstly, I've broken a Dirt Cheap Green Thumb rule by starting with plants and not seeds... for what I spent on a single plant, I could've bought a packet of seeds and had dozens of plants.  But I needed herbs for cooking now, and wasn't too confident I do a great job with starting from scratch.  So I bought young plants.  The second mistake I made was to buy a couple plants that looked a little ill, because that's all Home Depot had and I was impatient.  Well, they ended up having bugs!  G-ross.  So, I started over.  Also, huge blooper; I had it in my mind that I was supposed to put rocks over the drainage holes in the bottom of my terra cotta pots to "slow down" excess water leaving the herbs' soil.  What a brilliant idea!  No, not really.  Apparently, this promotes mold in your soil and plants... I have evidence.  Anyway, I'm finally on the other side, with healthy plants and a bit more green thumb knowledge.

My next green thumb challenge is taking a stem from one of our hydrangea bushes and creating new plants from my cutting.  I may or may not update you on the success of this endeavor, depending on how embarassing the result!