Friends Again

I was very unhappy with my garden this week. As soon as I planted the alyssum, they wilted and flopped over. Sad and matted, the little plants that were once so cute and perky looked like someone rode a bicycle over them. What the hell? Discouraged, I was resolved to ignore them until the weekend.

This morning, I woke up and did my usual loop through the garden. Holy moly, it's a miracle!! The alyssum was upright!! Well two of them were still flops but the rest were looking perky again. HOORAY. I'm guessing they just needed more water since it rained last night. I'll have to be more careful watering them, at least till they're established. The rest of the morning was spent running around gathering dead leaves and "brown" material in preparation for the arrival of our composter (I ordered it last week from amazon and it's scheduled to arrive Wed). I was originally looking to get a two compartment composter but they were around $500 bucks and I just couldn't bring myself to pay so much. So I got this horizontal rotating one compartment composter instead. Hopefully, we'll figure out a way to create our own divider so I can continue adding material while waiting for the other batch to "cook".


Around lunch, I went to my primary series yoga class and sweated my butt off. Afterward, Ryan and I went to Elijah's for delicious overstuffed tuna sandwiches (strangely the little deli was packed at 3pm) and then to TJ's for groceries (also packed). Once I got home, I hit the garden again to till the soil in the other bed and continue mixing in sulphur and soil with gypsum. I'd like to finish all the tilling this weekend since we plan to go to LA next week where my mom has lots of mulch waiting for us. I can't recall if I mentioned this already but a few weeks ago, my mom and Uncle Jamie got a hot lead on some free mulch in San Fernando. Strange right? Apparently, Uncle had agreed to do some landscaping work for a friend so they jumped at the opportunity for free mulch. They're too funny. Anyway, my mom ended up getting a LOT of mulch and there are several buckets waiting for me in her garage. Thank goodness because as the temperatures get warmer, the mulch will help keep the soil moist and we won't need to water as much.

On a slightly related note, I should mention that I almost crossed the fine line between sanity and insanity last night. For some reason, I decided I couldn't stand all the ants in garden anymore and immediately waged war on the colony(s?). Yup, I probably spent half an hour obsessively drowning the ants and subsequently wasting water. As expected, the ants swarmed out of the nest and before I knew it, the entire garden looked alive with creepy crawlies. God I hate insects. No matter how many I drowned, they just kept coming back. Grossed out, I rushed back inside for chemical backup, grabbing any insecticides I could find in the garage. Victory shall be mine!! Unfortunately, my husband immediately halted me in my tracks and lectured me on the environmental toxicity of said insecticides. He insisted I put them down and back away slowly. Quite angry that he was standing in the way of me and total annihilation of the ants, I begrudgingly complied and instead grabbed my computer to google natural ways to kill ants. I found some promising leads but by then I was pooped, so I decided to leave the ants alone (only after sprinkling vinegar along the edge of the patio to deter them from crossing and approaching the house). Though I killed many an ant, I think the ants might have won this battle as it appears they are back to business as usual today. Damn insects.