It is nights like last night and days like today that make me long for a farmhouse in the country. No neighbors, no drama. Don't get me wrong I love our street. Some of my closest friends here have been made on this street. But things have been a little strange lately, or estranged I should say.
Do you remember my post about our bark pile? If you missed it you can catch up here. This is what the pile looks like as of today. Some is gone but most is still there. This seemingly harmless pile has been causing me a lot of angst. I'm going to spare you a lot of the details but I just wanted to say there are a lot worse things out there I could do than pile this stuff in my driveway back in the alley. I keep trying to reassure myself that I could have a yappy dog or a big dog with a lot of doggy manure. I could not take care of my lawn or be a chain smoker. I could scream and yell at my husband and kids at all hours of the day and night outside for all the neighborhood to hear, or I could play loud music 24/7 with a lot of bass. But I choose to get bark mulch, come on now is that so bad?
Let me just say that I am doing the best I can. We are not rolling in the Benjamins and I am trying to do the things I love (like garden) alongside of raising a family. I get to spend my birthday money on my garden every year or my fun money as I please from the monthly budget but we don't have a lot of extra money to purchase garden and landscaping supplies for our home. When we started this whole home ownership thing this yard was a manicured mess (if that doesn't make sense you can read this). I knew I needed some kind of mulch around my garden to suppress weeds and grass and I debated between bark or gravel. In the end the bark won costing nothing, as I broke even from selling one truck load for basically what I paid to have it all dumped in the alley.
At the end of the day today I am felling a little terrible as I have been belittled by the way my garden looks. This has really hurt because it came from someone I cared about. I am not sure if my garden actually looks bad or they are just mad at me.
Does this look terrible because if it does I need to do something else because I don't want my property to be an eyesore. Please comment and honestly let me know if I should figure something else out to use as a mulch in my garden or if you think it works.
The worst part about all of this is that where my garden grows, nothing used to grow. When we moved in this spot under the pine tree was struggling to even grow grass. So I think that anything is an improvement from that.
4 comments:
It looks like you have made effort to make the space work for what you love: gardening. It looks like you can grow all sorts of delicious and beautiful things that nourish heart and soul. But for someone who thinks a back yard is for grass and not much else, it could look "weird" and intimidating-so I can see where someone might not "get it"-but ultimately, this is your home, not theirs. This is your little patch to make your own and if they don't like it, they can kiss your butt! I personally would love to have your gardening passion and skill, I have a huge back yard that could use some direction...wanna come down to Vancouver and help a sister out??
It looks great! It's on your property so don't worry about what other people say. I read a quote the other day that this reminds me of. It said that girls compete with one another and women empower each other. The other women needs to women up!
Your garden looks great!
So how does it look today, at the end of our summer when gardens are loaded with overgrown and messy but prolific plants? I'm coming to realize that gardening finesse comes from a lifetime of trial and error, and at 50 I'm still not there! Your pile of bark mulch looks good to me, I would be happy to have that! I have a pile of mulch from a local farm that I researched, and I feel flush (my birthday money too). My pile has been there going on 2 years and I love using it. Bark mulch around beds is super smart – weed control, mud control, tidiness. Your garden looks like the beginning of a great project to me, just keep going! Bean teepees for kids, more raised beds on top of the bark (I have 3 made of free city recycling bins cut to 2' high for onions and potatoes) herbs for spontaneous cooking (flat leaf parsley and chives are my faves). Enjoy and maybe give away some tomatoes, you may get some converts!
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