A tribute to Grandma, Mildred Mayer

   This is my Grandma Mildred. She died many years ago, but I think of her more and more often. 

   I think the  words that I would use to describe her  would be, capable, effective and resilient.

   All these years later as I know she crosses my mind more and more often for reasons I am not even sure of, because I never thought of us as especially close at the time, and she often made me help her do things she never made the other kids do, it was usually some sort of chore I didn't like to do so I always assumed she lived the other kids more. Now I see what I learned from those things she took the time to teach me and realize the value of those moments we spent together.

   She thought me how to forge for food and pee in the woods, how to grow and appreciate things and I hope after all the begrudging help I gave her nearly 40 years ago, I now hear her coaching me in my head frequently. I think she would have approved of my unconventional gardening ideas and my community garden. 

   I often wish she was here to add to my ideas or help me figure out what to do in the garden.

    Grandma had what she called a rock garden and always had hundreds of different flowers and bushes and trees.

I think she would have loved the bag garden and no dig beds.

Such a delinquent blogger!

I am so sorry I have been so delinquent on blogging. Our life here has been so full if the unexpected and unavoidable for the last few months. My husband has had to have 5 surgeries and was hospitalized for a few weeks and then released only to have home nurses and follow up appointments and another surgery... But u was able to get a garden in, although I was terribly  late at it.  But here is a few things I have been doing that I wanted to share.

This is one if my bag gardens, there are a few other unconventional things I am trying out. There is also a bottle garden I recently started behind the bag of zucchini as well.

This is more bag gardens and a pile if grass cuttings on a piece of cardboard made an unconventional no dig garden.

These are my no dig beds with a few unconventional trellises I use. Also at the bottom you can see all the wilted tomatoes are cuttings I pruned from else where. They are struggling but hopefully some will make it.

This is a watermelon bush I am growing in a bag. It was started very late but is doing well.

  

   The house we recently bought we affectionately refer to as "The Big Ugly" was previously a run down and abused apartment house. It still ugly but we are trying to improve it as we go and it is a work in progress.

   The previous tenants felt the need to have various fire pits in the back yard and there   are also some buried stumps in the yard as well so I have been working to do what I can to help these areas. 

   I did a no dig bed over a stump that someone was apparently trying  to burn out by making it a fire pit.

   It has baby watermelons in it now but may end up with more things added soon.

    I have been busier than it looks, with family illness and a home schooled child and a full time job and the community garden I'm trying to get off the ground, so far all the gardeners have disappeared except for 2 ladies. We started with about 15 people. They have all discovered that they are "too busy" a few wanted me to till their ground (and I did) and I have them free seeds and plants and tilled and they still couldn't be bothered to plant. So my garden for bigger and bigger! 

   I am hoping to get it going enough to catch attention for gardeners for next year. I don't want to be a quitter! I think gardening should be available for anyone willing to so it even with limited time or mobility. And it should

Make people happy.

   Except of course unless you are the Grouchy Gardener!