Peace and leaf blowers

I am on vacation from work but apparently this does not entitle me to be on vacation from noise. Leaf blowers, tree munchers and general garden killer noise was what woke me up this morning. Allow me to explain the complete illogic behind this particular noise this morning. It rained last night and this morning. What pray tell does this have to do with my slumber? A leaf cannot be blown around when it is wet; this renders the leaf blower entirely useless and the person operating it a complete douche bag. Why oh why would they use them after it has rained? Well, the gardeners in our hood either have completely fried all brain cells from inhaling the gas exhaust that comes out of the leaf blower or they just don’t give a fuck. Could be both…what I do know is that they have not the slightest clue about plants. 

They re-seed grass and then cut it the next week. They “prune” plants by chopping off everything but the base. They weed gardens by pulling every living thing out of them. These fuckers kill all things living. Maybe I am hostile towards them this morning because they woke me and waking me up is akin to waking a bear out of hibernation (let’s just say that last year my neighbors woke me up on the 4th of July at 3am with fireworks and what they received was a verbal assault so severe they are now scared of our household – I am fortunate that I was not arrested). It is not pretty to wake me up and I advise all not to try it. 

You may not know this but California is in a serious drought. Los Angeles County has restricted the days you can water, when you can water, will fine you $300.00 to start if you violate the outside rules and has asked all residents to reduce their water usage by 15%. So, what do the gardeners do??? They start to water. Not something they have ever done before. It’s kinda like a big fuck you to California. 

The irony in all of this is that these hostile plant murders from this morning are not even our gardeners. They are our neighbors gang of sadists for the sleeping. This disruption this morning has solidified two things: I need to live somewhere where I do not hear my neighbors flushing their toilet next door, where there is not a police helicopter flying over million dollar homes at 10pm, where people do not feel fireworks are a rite of passage and where people tend to their own gardens. 

Oh yeah …….one last thing: if you want to check out a very nifty way to sift through blogs – try http://alphainventions.com/   it provides you blogs that have literally just been created.

Garden Green Gems

 

Jordan Smelling the Flowers

I am growing some drought proof flowers in pots to see how they fair for the summer. We have very sandy soil and it is challenging to grow anything without adding compost monthly and a lot of starter dirt. Wanna recycle and reduce your garbage? Composting is awesome. Our tomatoes or over 5 feet tall now, we have tasty cucumbers and lettuce that actually has flavor! And, every once in a while we get a surprise sprout from our compost. Right now I think we have a red bell pepper joining our plot. 

I started our compost with old dirt from dead flower pots, a bed of shredded paper, vegan trimmings from our kitchen and red worms that speed up the compost. The worms add a little extra umph to the soil. We have a small can in our kitchen that we dump all of the banana peels, apple cores, orange peels, wilted lettuce, etc and dump it into the compost bin at the end of the week. Oh and by the way, our garbage is much less and less stinky. 

So, how does your garden grow? Do you compost?

I love to hoe

My garden brings me so much peace. I get home from work, go outside and look at the growth of my garden. 

I have started most of my garden from seeds. The lettuce, the cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelon, basil and various flowers. I weed the little plot, fill it with dirt, aerate the soil and carefully plan how the garden should grow. Once you see the little seedlings pop up you get this burst of excitement. I surround them with the compost I create from our kitchen (and some help from red worms) and my little seedlings just thrive. You should see my roses! The fragrance will put a smile on your face every time. 

The best part about gardening is not how good the fruit and vegetables taste, but the knowledge that you grew your own food and it is good for the earth. See? You can be a tree hugger without wrapping your arms around bark 😉