El Jardin. I dug it, dig?

The desire for a garden with oddly shaped, oddly colored vegetables motivated me to move from my apartment to a house. Spurred on by the $8,000 new home buyer's tax credit (Thanks, President Obama!) and a good deal, I became a homeowner.



I did not want a gigantic house or backyard, mainly because I live alone, I travel a lot, and I'm lazy. My cute little 937 sq ft house is the perfect size, but the ginormous back yard is a little much.



You can't have everything. I have a plan, though...hide my back yard negligence with a privacy fence that will also block out highway noise, wind, and animals that want to eat my garden.

Currently, lacking the funds for a fence, I started the garden anyway. In preparation for the garden experiment, I talked to my Uncle J. He has a sustainable garden and sells garlic, mostly, for profit (he tried selling shiitake mushrooms directly to local chefs, but the government shut it down... apparently, you can sell mushrooms at a farmer's market, but there's something dangerous about bringing them to a restaurant where they will be washed and cooked by a professional chef).

Uncle J warned me to plant out of the shadow of the house. Advice which I promptly forgot until I saw the first plot as the sun went down.




So, instead of putting the plots side by side, they will be catty corner from each other. Although aesthetically questionable, it won't look any worse than the yard itself, which is currently piebald. I hear that's a genetic condition.