I adore mature landscaping.  With that in mind, my goal in the first year was to get the “infrastructure plants” in, so the garden could begin maturing.

August is near the end of our dry season in the west.  When the rain starts, so does the growing season, and I didn’t want to miss a day of that!

With that goal in mind, let’s have a look around, shall we?

Until last year when the home was built, this land was a cow pasture and literally millions of years of weeds grass.

And on this day 1-year ago, The Hubs and I got the keys to our new home.

SEVEN MONTHS of decisions, planning, waiting, watching…

and waiting…

and waiting…

and…

The day we took possession of the home, I had a crew breaking ground on the backyard.

Half of the backyard is a slope spanning a 30 foot run to 15 foot rise.  Also known as 1 in 3.

In other words.  Steep.

I made the most of the slope by building two terrace patios with two flights of stairs, and a waterfall in between.

I also made the most of my budget by designing retaining walls using pressure treated wood kick boards.  The same material used at the bottom of wood fences.

This wood is intended to be in constant contact with dirt and water, and way easier on the budget than the concrete retaining walls my contractor wanted to build.

Genius, I say!

The contractor was scratching his head on my idea, but since that time, they’ve built my design on every project with a slope.

The retaining walls are only ~2.5 feet tall, but per city code, the posts had to be buried 5.5 feet in the ground!

The crew had to dig about 30 holes 5.5 feet deep for the terrace retaining walls, and the retaining wall at the bottom of the slope.

By hand.

With a shovel.

In some cases they used a jack hammer shovel.

Did I mention hardpan?

After about 4 feet deep, the guys had to lay on the ground to reach further.

After tons of holes were dug for wall posts, we got tons of poop.

Gross to humans, but delicious to plants.  And flies.

Them young’uns and I held up progress while we had a brief burial ceremony for my Little Young’un’s placenta.

The Hubs loves to tell people how many years we had a placenta stored in our freezer.  For the record, it was only TWO years!

I was waiting for the right opportunity to bury it, and the big Maple tree seemed perfect.

Plus it’s better to wait about 18 months if it will be buried under a plant.

The workers got a kick out of the whole thing.  Then they maneuvered the 18-foot tall October Glory (Maple) on top of it.

Without stepping on the placenta, of course.

A few hours later, the crew was done for the day, and the young’uns and I enjoyed a few minutes from all the noise and dirt.

The project wrapped up about 6 weeks after the estimated time, but almost exactly on time according to my own estimates.

Life went on.

The garden flourised.

October was glorious, just as the tree’s name promises.

The Almond tree put on quite a show.

The weeds plants I didn’t want to grow, grew, and grew, and grew.

Pulling weeds is a full-time winter job in the west.

Unless you drop a bomb of plant weed killer.  Which I choose not to do.

Then the roses started blooming.

And put on a show for the entire spring (AND summer)!

The Azaleas…

the Jasmine…

and the Penstemon joined the blooming party.

Then I started to notice a problem.

At first, it was only a few rocks that appeared to be cracked.

Then, as the winter dragged on, more rocks began to crack and crumble.

By spring, the entire waterfall, four pillasters, and the rock retaining wall near the terrace were all crumbling into millions of pieces.

I picked up a random rock, held it about 6 inches from the dirt ground and dropped it.  It broke in half, exposing a fossilized sea shell.

Took a closer look, and noticed a lot of the rocks had impressions of sea shells.

I got the landscapers back out.  They weren’t very responsive at first, but after a few conversations, I helped them realize it was only in their best interest to make this right.  And they finally did.

Which meant another round of backyard construction.

Every. Single. Rock. And boulder. had to be replaced.

Everything.

The whole kit and caboodle.

Which no doubt made me a little cranky.

Then finally, it was over.

We shook hands, and we still speak when they’re in the neighborhood.

As for the garden.

The roses are starting to look a little tired.  They’ve been busy all summer long and are ready for a rest.

October promises to be glorious.

The Almond tree is bursting with Almonds.

Not a single plant has perished, which I think is quite remarkable!

The waterfall is running in tip-top shape.

And I am looking forward to the Fall and Winter season.

When I will work and the garden will rest.

Thank you for visiting my garden!

If you can’t find me, I’m probably IN THE GARDEN!

I had a “hideaway” bed that I pulled out every. single. night.

And folded up every. single. morning.

With FIVE brothers, I can assure you this was not an ideal situation.

When I “became a grown-up”, I was excited to just have a normal bed.  One that doesn’t fold.  One that doesn’t come with seat cushions.  One that doesn’t smell like boy farts.

You know.  Just a normal bed.

I loved having a normal bed.  It was as awesome as I imagined it to be.

But to this day, I wonder why I didn’t put my handy skills to work and make a headboard for my bed.  I guess I was too busy making fish tank stands to hold 175 pounds of salt water and ocean life.

About 8 years ago, The Hubs and I finally made an investment in a bed frame.  Best idea EVER!

Walking into our bedroom and seeing the bed made my heart sing.

What can I say.  I’m a simple girl with simple dreams.

I loved that bed frame to pieces, but when we moved to the new house, we decided to go up to a KING size.  And that style had been discontinued.  Yes.  I wanted to buy the same bed again in the larger size.  I guess that makes me a dork.

If the bed looks familiar, it’s because I put it in the Guest Suite in the new house.

For our new bedroom, I shopped high and low, and kept going back to this beauty:

via ethanallen.com

And now that it is here

I have turned my attention to what needs to sit next to it.

I’m going for a Modern Glamour feel, with a little something quirky.

Cuz I heart quirky.

This chest is just the right amount of quirky different.

via ethanallen.com

I keep going back to the idea that the finish is just different enough to not be matchy-matchy, but still uses the same color palette as the bed with the yellow and orange undertones.

And check out the hardware.

Oooo-la-la!

The quality of the pictures is just…meh…but you have to know the back story to understand why.I never thought for 2 seconds that I would be “publishing” these pics anywhere.  I didn’t even think The Hubs would ever see them.

I took these pictures because I have this determined spirit to make my surroundings live up to their best potential.  But sometimes I run into a little snag along the way.

Like this:

And that was the “sale” price.

I know most people wouldn’t bat an eye at this tag.  And knowing what I do about furniture, it is a pretty decent price for the piece.

But if I can bring something back to life for a tiny fraction of the cost, why not!?

I didn’t tell my friendly sales lady that.  I just snapped a ton of pictures and walked out of there determined to recreate this look.

The Hubs is a very reasonable man, and often kills my ideas with his logic.  Like the point that I will spend another 6-9 months finding the perfect piece, and then when I do find it, getting this look probably won’t ever happen.  To his credit, he didn’t bother this time.  I think he heard the fire roaring in my belly and decided to leave it alone.  He’s a smart guy like that.

I came home from the showroom that day and immediately hopped on my computer, looking for anything remotely similar to this chest, and how the heck do I recreate it.  For less.

That is precisely the moment I discovered this world of DIY bloggers, and the more I read, the more I was inspired to start my own blog.  Cuz this sort of thing is right up my alley!

So if you and I met because of my blog, we have this Bombe Chest to thank for our meeting.

Reader meet Bombe…

Bombe meet Reader.

Thank you Bombe and tons of bloggers for inspiring me to start a blog.

Thank you Reader for sharing my journey with me.

Now that you have all this back story, I am excited to share the “what happened next”.

I DID find a specimen that fit my budget

And I just love the word “Sale”, which closed the deal on this piece at 25% off.  Which brought my out-the-door cost to $45.

She’s really sweet.  Like a dog that humans gave up on and sent her to the pound.  She’s got about 50 years of layers of inappropriate chemicals and colors.  Someone took a hot iron to her, and probably a screw driver.  She’s got huge gouges on her face, and burn marks that brought tears to my eyes.

Right now she’s in my garage waiting patiently for me to make her whole again.

She’s almost ready to tell her story.  And I can’t wait for you to see!

As for that Bombe Chest, I think I’m gonna call that friendly sales lady and ask her when the sale will be back on, and I’m gonna get it.  Since I need TWO nightstands.

Editor Note: As for The Hubs and his (fuzzy) logic.  Tonight just as I was putting the final touches on this post, The Hubs took one look at my Thrift store find, then looked at the mess I have made in the garage, and said, “how much would a new dresser have cost?”

I love you, Dream Squasher.

Then I had TWO reef tanks.

Then I moved to a new place, and everything was dead the first morning at the new apartment.

Animals that I had kept for many years.

Many purple, blue, and yellow tangs, clowns, anemones, coral, shrimps, tons of snails,  200+ pounds of live rock, and ~100 pounds of live sand.  As well as other animals I have forgotten with the passage of time.

To see all these animals dead–and all at once, was devastating.

After a while I started up one tank again.  I came home one day to the beautiful (new) Blue Tang lying on the floor.  She had jumped out of the tank and died on the floor before I found her.

All the deaths were just too much for me.

I sold 2 100-gallon tanks, a bad ass skimmer, 2 metal halide lamps, and tons of customized plumbing (built by moi!), all to a guy from Tahoe with 10 kids.

When I saw this cloud, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a Ribbon Eel.  I never kept a Ribbon Eel, but I could spot one in a line up with one eye closed.

A Ribbon Eel seems to always have her mouth wide open to the water’s surface.

Clouds that make familiar shapes make me happy.

Someday I will spot marching elephants.  Just like the ones I saw on Sesame Street.

I hope there will be a camera nearby.  Like the day a Ribbon Eel appeared from the clear blue sky.

Canon

ISO 400

Focal Length 40 mm

Aperture f/11

Shutter Speed 1/800

No Flash

Now pay attention.

The birds around here wear camouflage.

Watch the head.

Coming in for a landing.

Checking for fleas.

Got one.

Now it’s time to go.

I hope the bird scratched the cow’s itch while she was up there.

The least one could do for this poor pregnant mother.

Canon

ISO 400

Focal Length 190mm

Aperture f/10

Shutter Speed 1/500

No Flash

I dreaded taking a fitted sheet off the clothesline or out of the dryer.

In the beginning it was the *only* fitted sheet, so it went back on the bed, but after many years, I scrounged up the money to buy a second sheet, and that’s when I began fretting over this fitted sheet business.

Many years later, I got good at making a weird ball of the fitted sheet, and having one “clean edge”, that faced out on the shelf.

But the sheet was always super wrinkly after, and what girl likes wrinkles!?

It would just have to do, cuz I had no idea how to make it better.

Then one day I was watching Martha Stewart.

This was before she went to jail.

I think.

And she had this random tip on how to fold a fitted sheet.

Since that day, my life in the linen closet has never been the same.

So, I thought why not randomly share this tip with you!  Unless you were watching that episode of Martha Stewart, then you already know how to fold a fitted sheet.

But hey! most of us probably were NOT watching Martha Stewart, cuz if we were, she’d still have a TV show, right!?

***For this tutorial I am using a crib sheet cuz it’s what I had coming out of the dryer when I had the idea for this blog post.  But this technique works crib-to-king.

I normally do not lay a sheet out flat like this to fold it.

Only for this tutorial.

And after you’ve tried this technique a few times, you will probably be able to fold a sheet holding all four corners at the same time.

I might be a freak of nature, tho.  I can fold a king size flat sheet without a single thread touching the floor.  That’s what I learned from MANY years of hanging clothes out on a line for EIGHT PEOPLE!

You would think that with 8 people in my family, I had a lot of help.

You would be wrong.

How To Fold A Fitted Sheet

Step 1

Lay the sheet flat.

Step 2

Find two corners.

Step 3

The key to this technique is tucking two corners into the other two corners.

With two corners lying flat, find a third corner, and put your finger into the tip of the corner.

Step 4

Tuck your sheet-covered finger into the other corner.

Step 5

Do the same for the other side.

Then tuck the two bunched-up edges together.

Step 6

Lay the rest of the sheet flat.

Now you have a fitted sheet that is lying flat.

Step 7

Fold the sheet as you would a towel.

Or a flat sheet.

Now it’s time to take all those weird balls out of the linen closet, and bring order!

What!?  I was the only one doing the weird ball thing?

Happy Folding!

I went through the manual step-by-step trying to figure out how to wind a bobbin.  After much frustration, I scoured the internet high and low looking for online tutorials for my machine, the Brother CS6000i.

Nothin’.

I know there’s at least one person out there doing what I did…cuz you know…great minds do think alike.

heh.

Every machine is slightly different, so grab your manual and follow along.

Today I am going to share how to wind a bobbin on the Brother CS6000i Sewing Machine.

I don’t know how experienced seamstresses or tailors do it, but I am guessing that having a few threaded bobbins lying around ready-to-go keeps a project moving along.

When you’re buying bobbins, keep in mind that sizes vary depending on the machine.

It was easy for me to find the size for my machine at the local fabric store, and now I have a pretty decent stash.

Tutorial: How To Wind A Bobbin

Step 1

Load thread on the spool pin.

Use the handy illustrations on the top of the machine to get the thread placement just right.

Step 2

Wind the thread clockwise around the bobbin 4 or 5 times, then pass the end of the thread through the guide slit in the bobbin winder seat.

Cut the extra thread with the thread cutter.

Step 3

Move the sewing speed controller to fast (three arrows).

Step 4

Put the pedal to the metal wood, and let-er rip.

Step 5

Keep the pedal pressed until the thread on the bobbin is touching the bobbin shaft.

***Note: The thread should be lined up like the one pictured below.  Not winding the bobbin properly might cause the thread tension to lossen, and break a needle.

I speak from experience…

Step 6

Cut the excess thread using the bobbin thread cutter, and remove the bobbin from the bobbin shaft.

That’s it!

You’ve just winded a bobbin!

Now go on and wind some bobbins.

Stay tuned for my next sewing tutorial:  How To Thread A Needle

***Brother is not a sponsor.

This post is for you.

The Brother has been a great intro-plus machine for $151.99 (and free shipping!).

From Amazon’s website, features include:

• Free-arm computerized sewing machine; with 60 stitch functions, 7 styles of 1-step buttonholes, and variety of snap-on presser feet
• Computerized stitch selection on LCD screen; with auto threading, tension control dial, and auto-set drop-in bobbin
• 110-volt machine operated with either foot pedal or 1-touch button for start, stop, and reverse stitching; dual LED light
• Accessories include wide table accessory for quilting and more; hard cover case protects in storage

Click here to learn more about the Brother CS6000i Sewing Machine.

And to read about why 658 people love this machine on Amazon reviews.

Stay tuned for my first tutorial on sewing.

Getting Started: How To Wind A Bobbin.

***Brother is not a sponsor.

There’s nothing like talking to another mom while she is still in it.

I’m convinced that as soon as our kids start getting bigger, we forget the timeline of baby development.  Perhaps I’ve heard too many stories of babies who could sing the ABC song at 12-months-old.  I’m pretty sure that didn’t really happen, but someone really told me that.

When my own 12-month-old couldn’t even point out an A, a B, or a C.

When Young’un #2 was born, there were a whole lot of times I said to myself, “geez, I forgot all about this part!”  And my girls are only 22 months apart!

S’ok that parents of adult children remember things differently, right?  I’m sure it’s mother nature’s way of ensuring a future generation.

My cousin made a recommendation that would turn out to be some of the best advise I’ve ever been given in my lifetime.  And I thank my lucky stars everyday that I made the effort to do as she suggested.

Her advise?  Sign up for a Gymboree class.

My cousin assured me that I would meet tons of other moms there, in the same boat.  If nothing else, it would be a way for Baby Young’un and me to get out of the house.

Baby Young’un was 8-weeks-old.  Just a teeny tiny baby.  I didn’t have no business sittin’ on a padded floor singing songs, and waving scarves over Baby Young’un’s head.

At that age, why don’t they just serve cookies and tea and call it what it is?  A way for us lonely first-time mothers to get the heck outta the house and listen to grown-up conversation.

Remember Miss MacGyver from Miss MacGyver Pops Corn?

That’s right!  I met Miss MacGyver at Gymboree when our babies were…well…just babies!  Her baby was ~20-weeks old, which meant Miss MacGyver had been at it a little over twice as long as me.  That made her an expert on everything happening to me, cuz she’d just been through it.

The timing couldn’t have been better.  When I met Miss MacGyver, I had spent SEVEN YEARS mourning the death of my best friend.  Who was also my sister-in-law.

I was finally ready.

4 1/2 years later, my friendship with Miss MacGyver has become my Mommy lifeline.  We share in all the happy moments, the fun moments, the exciting moments, and the dreadful moments.

Mothering together.

Our own little village when the Dads are off working hard to support our families.

Yea, I might be bragging just a little.

But hey!  How many people can say they have a friend like this?

One who would never gossip behind her back, and always support her no matter what.

One who would have the perfect words for every occasion to cheer her up, build her up, talk her off a ledge, or just call to say hi–leaving a 5-minute voice mail (which sometimes involves singing) that makes her chuckle and giggle?

Yea, that’s the kind of friend I’ve got.

I would suggest you rush to Gymboree as fast as you can and get yourself a Miss MacGyver in your life, but I don’t think there’s another one out there!

For a while now, I have been whinin’ about my lifelong dream of learning how to sew.

I have wanted to learn how to sew ever since my Grandma taught me how to thread a needle at 5-years-old.

3 (or 4?) years ago, I finally bought a sewing machine, but it turns out that having a machine in a box in the closet didn’t teach me anything about sewing.

I’ve brought this up so many times to Miss MacGyver, and some other people in my life who are expert seamstresses and tailors.  But this time, Miss MacGyver said, “Why don’t I teach you how to sew?”

We set a date for our Sewing Party.  I was to bring my Brother, all of Brother’s stuff, as well as fabrics to make a pillow case.

I think my teacher overestimated her student’s abilities, cuz I was completely confused before we even started.  I couldn’t even figure out what the heck is Cotton Poplin.

I finally settled on something that was labeled “Cotton”, and hoped for the best on the Poplin part.

I never did figure out that whole Cotton Poplin thing, but I had the best time, sitting with my Brother at my sister’s kitchen table, learning how to read a pattern, cut a pattern, thread a needle, make stitches, button holes and sew a button.

At the end of the evening, I packed up my new pillow case and my button hole complete with a button. My brain was jam-packed with new knowledge like selvage, seam allowances, fusible interfacing, and back stitching.

And my heart felt full from the generosity and kindness of my friend.

Teaser: there's another room tour coming soon!

Before Miss MacGyver taught me how to sew, she taught me how to love again, trust again, and to be a friend again.

Many, many, many thanks to you, Miss MacGyver for teaching me a skill I’ve wanted to learn since I was 5, and being the sister I’ve wanted since I was 5.

Love you bunches!

Stay tuned for some tutorials on sewing.

I still don’t know exactly what Cotton Poplin is, but I do know how to sew.

Just in case you have a sewing machine stashed in your closet that you don’t know how to use.

5 years ago this month (August) I officially left my career.

This time 5 years ago, I was executing a plan 6 months in the making to move a complete data center from one city to another for Nokia.  It was a large project in terms of “this isn’t something companies do every day”.  But a small project in terms of my previous experience and capabilities.

There were lots of suits pacin’ around, wringing their hands and looking for reassurance that there wasn’t a single hiccup (and there wasn’t).  I sat quietly as I always do in front of my Cisco gear typing away until the very last piece of iron was hummin’ and passin’ packets.

My 7-month baby bump barely noticeable.  The only butterflies in my stomach was her dancing to her own rhythm just as she does now.

In a period of 6 hours we (me and a bunch of big muscle-y types) had moved about 15 racks packed with network gear, servers and patch panels from a data center in San Jose to a data center in Mountain View.  OK…the muscle-y guys did most of the heavy lifting while I gave the thumbs up on pulling plugs and moving copper.

via Google Images

I am proud to say it was a very well-orchestrated move and my users were offline for about the amount of time it took to physically drive the equipment from one facility to another.

By the time the iron was reinstalled on racks, I had a fully operational network up and running and lots of very appreciative engineers.

I hung around for a few weeks after, but this data center move was the last big project of my career.

Of course, I had the option to stay if I wanted and I did consider it for about 2 hours…they even gave me the option of “working from home” which seems comical now!

But feeling my young’un doin’ dances in my belly reminded me I had a more important task ahead.

Now that it’s been 5 YEARS (!!!), I am reflecting on my journey so far.

5 Things I Wish I Knew 5 Years Ago.

1.  Because I grew up desperate for the Mother I never had, it was in my head that once I had kids, all I would be doing for 18 YEARS is raisin’ young’uns. During this past year my older young’un actually likes doing other things that do not include me.  It’s weird (in a good way) to see my almost 5-year-old stretching her independence.

So.

If I could go back in time, I would have told my pregnant self that in 5 years, I just might start thinking about having a career again (if I want one again), or doing something totally different (like blogging!?).

I also would have reassured myself that I’ll get plenty of new ideas between then and now.

2. What concerned me the most about leaving my career 5 years ago was “I’m gonna forget all this techy stuff.” Well, 5 years later, I haven’t forgotten much.  At the time I thought I would forget everything from how TCP/IP works to how to log in to a router.  Pregnancy hormones did make me deranged and I probably did have short-term memory loss during the 4+ years that I slept in 3 hour windows.  BUT! Headhunters still call me when they have a position to fill (even in this “terrible” economy!), and I’m about 99% sure I could get a job working in my former career if I really wanted.

So 5 years later, I still feel “relevant”.  And actually, I believe I would make a more valuable employee now than I did during my pre-Mother days.

3.  A lot of well-intentioned people told me during the early stages of Motherhood, “oh, it gets a lot better.” Most of the time, they just instinctively said it without me even asking, “is it gonna get better?”

I got so tired of hearing it that I might have rolled my eyes a time or two.

I don’t remember.

I was really tired.

Bottom line: hearing it didn’t help, and me saying it now won’t help anyone else.  It’s sort of like trying to explain to a woman with no children how tired she’s gonna be when her first child turns ~9-months-old.  Or trying to explain to parents with one kid what it’s like with two.

Right?

It’s a level of tired that just can’t be explained, and can’t be understood.  Experience is a requirement to understand.  On the other side of sheer exhaustion, it has gotten better.

4.  No full-time Moms who are in the trenches every day.  All day. Warned me about Ugly Thursday (or the 4th day of Daddy’s 5 day work week).  Ummm.  Maybe I should read #3 again.

And I am convinced that they all knew about it and just didn’t tell me.

Like a cruel joke.

Every full-time Mom knows that by the time Thursday rolls around, something. has. to. give.

Mama’s gotta have a break somehow, someway.

Or she might spontaneously combust.

Seriously.  It’s bad.  Real bad.

By Friday, I. am. numb.

4+ years of Ugly Thursdays I have come to realize that not only does Mama need a break, but my young’uns also want a break from me.

This is the point when someone needs to Mother The Mother.

By Thursday, I am really longing for a Mother, a sister, an aunt, a Grandma.

Somebody.

Anybody who loves my kid (almost) as much as I do, and “get’s it” that me wanting a break doesn’t mean I don’t love my kids.  Someone who knows I just need to get away for about 45 minutes to breathe.  And daydream.

I came up empty-handed in the Mother, Sister, Aunt, Cousin department…and Thursday is the day I get the most sad about that.

5.  Five years ago I was a neat freak, clean freak germaphobe. If my 5-year-younger-self could see me now.  She would vomit.  But it’s all good.

The health department hasn’t shut us down and CPS hasn’t knocked on my door.

Maybe they did and I wasn’t home.

These days I crave adult conversation the way my pregnant self craved sleep.

My 401k misses me.

My laptop bag feels all empty inside.

My work wardrobe wonders where I went.

But my 2-year-old summed it up best yesterday, “Mommy, I missed you when I was sleeping.”

I am right where I need to be.

With no regrets.  And that is the ONE thing I wondered about the most 5 years ago.

Let’s start with some basics.

I care just a little bit about the environment (and animals).

After all…to know me is to understand why I am Vegan (most of the time).

I do what I can.  When I can.

I recycle.

I undercycle.

I upcycle.

I downcycle.

I overcycle.

I even stalk Freecycle.  Every morning.

To know me is to understand the triangle on packaging.  And perhaps more importantly, what it means when there is NO triangle on the packaging.

That being said.  I also *love* gardening.  I don’t think I need to use metaphors here.  If you keep reading my blog you’ll know how much I love gardening the way you know when you’ve gotta pee.  It’ll be that familiar.

I also avoid pesticides and fertilizers the way a Snowman avoids a hot summer day.

Given my (somewhat) Mother Earth style, and my urge to satisfy my inner kumbaya, I decided to start a compost.  That was years ago.  When I was finally ready to pull the trigger and buy a composter, we decided to move so my grand plan for gardener’s gold was put off another 2 years.

As soon as we got settled at the new place, I went out and got a composter.  The Earth Machine, to be exact.

Things were going great.

I was satisfying my crunchy side.

Saving Mother Earth from exploding one bread crumb and compostable plate at a time.

***Side note:  I just have to say how proud I am of my family.  We had 40+ people over for dinner, and this was the entire amount of trash that went to the Landfill!

So things were going along just fine.  I was dumping food waste.

And with millions of years of weeds on this former cow pasture turned dream garden, I had plenty of weeds.  This is less than one week’s worth.

Then something bad happened.

Really bad.

We were invaded by gnats.

Literally hundreds of thousands of gnats.

They were everywhere.  Especially in the kitchen. (!!!)

This was an average day once the invasion happened.

We lived like this for at least a couple of months.  Hoping things would change and the gnat situation would naturally take care of itself.

It didn’t.

Out of complete desperation, I went to the garden one day with a shovel and the focus of a fighter pilot, and shoveled  my entire stock of gardener’s gold into the “Yard Waste” can for the city to pick up.  The Earth Machine was completely FULL.

I was really sad and disappointed, but I didn’t have much time to think about that cuz I was focused on not swallowing or breathing in gnats.

To walk into the vortex of a swarm of gnats.  To become one with one million gnats.

It was one of the nastier jobs I’ve done in my lifetime.

After shoveling gnats and rotten food into the Yard Waste bin, the cleanup involved a fly swatter, a large wet towel (to trap hundreds at a time in the kitchen), and the garden hose (to drown the ones too slow to fly away).

A few gnat-free weeks went by.  Then I noticed a little sprout in the place where The Earth Machine once stood.

Then there was a couple more leaf sprouts.

I had pulled enough weeds to know these leaf sprouts were different so I left them there.  Curious to see what would happen next.

What happened next is that the sprouts got bigger and bigger.

I was not 100% sure what I was growing.  Then my brother came out to visit.  He’s a hard core vegetable gardener type.  He’s got an electric fence around his garden.  That makes him hard core.

He took one look at my garden and said, “you’ve got cucumbers and tomatoes.”

Take a closer look at those leaves.

Every. Single. Leaf. Is. A. Cucumber.

And sure enough, about 2 weeks after he left, cucumbers became recognizable.  All over the place!

Now guess how many cucumbers I eat per year.  The cucumber I put in the compost last year was the *only* cucumber I bought all year.

Now it’s lookin’ like I might have at least 50-75 cucumbers.  I’m factoring in that a lot of them won’t make it.

Here’s what my Surprise Vegetable Garden looked like this evening.

Everybody I know who grows tomatoes spends the entire season worryin’ over them, so I’m guessing I will be lucky if I manage to get one tomato before I screw that up.

But the cucumbers are growing faster than weeds!

Pickles, anyone?

As for next year, I think I officially caught the vegetable gardening bug.

Stay tuned for that next year!

I might even wire up an electric fence.  It sounds pretty easy.