Why renting sucks.

I'm in a bad mood. The new building owner sent a crew into my backyard to 'tidy things up'. In the past, our lease stated that our backyard was private, but all bets are off now that there is a new owner who wants the place to look 'manicured'. Here it is just reaching the warm part of the year and they just cut the only shade tree back to nubbins. I only blame myself for not earning enough money to be a homeowner.
Oh and did I mention they started repairing the sprinkler system in the front yard and turned off the flower bed water for 2 weeks? The pansies are about to dry up and blow away, even though I did water them once with a pitcher and 4 trips back and forth to the kitchen.
They are still raking up the back yard. They've been here five hours working around the complex.
I wouldn't be so grouchy but at 3 AM this morning our electricity got all fritzy. I'm sound asleep and all my computer equipment starts turning itself on and off. Every light in the house that was turned on was blinking. So I went outside and saw the adjoining apt complex was also blinking. I read for an hour when I heard what sounded like a police radio in my backyard. I go out there and a power company worker is one apt. over talking on a radio about how the transformer is about to go, but it's already past him to fix anything so they'll have to send another truck.
An hour later I was asleep again when the repair crew showed up. And then the electronics started beeping and chirping all over again.

So any hope I had of sleeping in on a Sat. morning was dashed when the gardeners we weren't expecting knocked on the door at 8:45 announcing they needed to be in the backyard all day working. What ever happened to 24 hours notice? Grrr!

More plants

Today I went to Walmart and found the sweet banana pepper plant and the greek oregano plant for a mere .96 a piece. And I had to look down every row past the expensive fertilizers and I finally found what I needed; the el cheapo no name brand of veggie and flower fertilizer for $2.50. You know they are trying to hide it when it's buried in a corner with no price tag on it knowing that most shoppers don't have that kind of attention span and will buy the miracle gro for $11.95 a box.

Now all I have to do for a few weeks is keep everything watered.

Duck?

I found a peanut shaped like a duck.

Marigolds

Marigolds repel insects and add color, so I planted some french marigolds.

Seedlings

Here are the seedlings waiting to be planted. I got them all planted this morning.

Square Foot Gardening

This morning I literally rolled out of bed, walked out to the garden and started working on the new garden. I wanted to get everything planted before the sun came out and heated everything up. Now it's noon and it's still overcast. I'm not sure I'll even see the sun today. Still, I'm glad I got everything in the ground. The only seeds I planted were sunflowers. For everything else I chose seedlings from the nursery since I normally put in the garden in March and here it is May already. The apt. complex sold recently, and I wasn't even sure I'd have a place to live much less a place to garden. The part that makes me anxious is the new owner can come over anytime and decide to dig up the whole yard and not give a care for all the work I've put into it. I try not to think about that, because if I did I'd never plant anything. The reason we picked this apt. over others was because it had a private back yard that I could grow things in. But in the few years I've lived here, this is the third owner and you just never know what an owner is going to do. The new owner already said he's going to paint the exterior in a month or two, and that's surely going to tear up the yard again.

Planting a garden is a act of faith. It's like saying I'm going to be in this spot for at least another 10 months.