More Ideas

I am still in love with the concrete block planter idea and in fact I am going to expand on it! I took a quick look online and found that many people have found that using concrete blocks as planters is a good idea and they have had some really really good ideas of how to use them .

My new love of concrete blocks is primarily that concrete blocks are cheap and a quick scan of craigslist showed me that in many cases they are free which is even better than cheap. I'm going to line the new garden where the sunflowers are going to be with the magic blocks and then I am going to plant in the blocks! I am going to get dirt from the city (Hi Dad!, Hi Tony!) and add it to the swath and make it into a raised bed. I'm still going to have to dig deep for the sunflowers but some of the deep will be new healthy dirt instead of the blechy clay that is there now.

See? Really clarified the whole idea yes? I have also decided that I am absolutely going to do the pallet idea, I had been going back and forth about doing it because it looks a little hard, no matter what the video says but after looking through yet another seed catalog, now there are going to be two pallets! One is going to be herbs and the other strawberries. They are going to go along the wall next to the potatoes. Free time is for suckers.

I think I will plant the sunflowers toward the back of the space and plant something else in the front,the blocks will protect the area from Rocket and the flowers in the blocks will make sure they are pretty to look at. They will be like Leila Ali, pretty but totally able to kick your ass.

This is not going to be an easy thing to do but I think long run its going to pay off. True, I will have less "lawn" area, but I don't have much "lawn" anyway and Rocket didn't spend a lot of time in that swath of property anyway, so its no loss to him. The summer the yard itself is not going to be  dog friendly for him anyway, most of the area is going to be planted and thus off limits to him any way.

I think the long term goal for the area will be to plant knock out roses along the fence. They are a very tough and flower for a long time, downside being that they have no scent but they are pretty. I know I'm most likely going to have a long wait to have my dream of honeysuckle growing on the fence, unless I miraculously find a lot of it, unprotected and easy to dig up and remove. I still want it though, and it would smell divine. The fact that its habit is pushy and it has to be strongly controlled is a little bit of a bummer. I think I could be a vine nazi if I had to be though, I would hope.