A Hard Talk with Myself
6 Aug 2012
I am finally feeling nearly like my normal self again and ready to make up for lost time in the garden.
Implementing the garden plan is taking longer than I ever imagined. I knew in my head that this was a major project and it was going to take a full year, but it’s been three months and I wanted to be further along than we are. I thought the trees and paths would be in by now and I could start planting the bushes and perennial herbs in the fall, and instead we’re still working on sheet mulching and clearing out the old plants.
It’s so hard not to buy plants. I want to buy plants! I want to buy trees and herbs and when I see plant lists like this I just get a little nuts. This is why I have dozens of plants sitting in the back yard, pot-bound and under-watered, that I bought months before I had any place ready to put them. I walked all the way around the house this evening and had a hard talk with myself.
I have to stop buying plants before I can put them in the ground.
I have to stop spending money on plants when I should be spending it on mulch & labor.
I need professional help to do some of this work.
First we have to wipe the slate clean. We have to clear out the gravel beds, move the huge boulders and the coquina piles, add the manure and soil amendments, build the compost bins, and finish the sheet mulching. The new goal is to have this done by the end of August. Then in September I can start buying plants again!
June 18, 2013 at 1:42 pm 
June 18, 2013 at 12:32 pm 
Aug 06, 2012 @ 22:01:00
It is just uncanny sometimes, I swear.
The single biggest thing that is holding me back is time. I have been fighting tooth and nail NOT to buy plants or seeds that I just don’t have time to plant or care for – or, for that matter, to clear weeds where there will be naked soil because I don’t have time to plant or mulch. SO FRUSTRATING.
But! There will be a workcrew of nice teenage boys at my house next week to clear all the weeds and turn all the beds for fall planting, and a load of mulch delivered to my back door. :-) Those boys will do in one or two days what it would take me TWO MONTHS to do on my own. So I can go ahead and order for fall planting, and make decisions about what can possibly get done during the winter and what must wait for spring.
A rule of thumb I’ve come across in other contexts recently, and been reminded of the value of: fast, cheap, and pretty/quality – pick two. :-/
Aug 07, 2012 @ 14:35:26
It *is* uncanny. I know this means you got the grant, but how much? Did they just give up and give you all the grant money?
Are they also going to fix that back fence, or is that your neighbor’s property?
Aug 09, 2012 @ 20:11:52
Neither – the fence is our problem, but it’s not addressed by this grant, which is for street-view projects only. I’m thinking of tackling it in the spring, though.
You know, I’m still unclear on the money piece, and I need to talk to Gretchen about it. There are a lot of solutions that I was prepared to spend money on that they found cheap-to-free alternatives to ($20 to have the trash service pick up deadfall from the tree we lost last fall and bring back wood mulch, instead of renting a chipper) – you know what, I just need to make a post. Maybe an actual blog post instead of/crossposted to LJ!