I told you that I had a couple of days off last week. I didn’t want a big vacation or even time away. All I wanted was to finish up some projects at home…mainly the garden and landscaping.
For a long time, I had a flower garden in front of my regular vegetable garden. The garden always looked unkept. I was just never happy with it. I’d weed the veggies and then get pooped out and not weed the flowers.
I had a goal to do something different.
I ended up making the flower garden much smaller. It’s about 1/3 of what it was. Part me was sad but I gave away so many of the plants and I saw how happy people were with the gift that it made it all totally worth it. I can’t wait for it all to fill out and be glorious.
See the little plants along the front?I saved that space to put annuals. I made a special trip to the farm store to get them. They are mostly petunias. They will grow well in full sun.
When I pulled into the farm store I saw big signs that said, “50% off garden plants”. Heck yah! I was excited. I ended up getting a flat of plants, 48 in total for $10. AWESOME!! This is my kind of vacation.
With making the flower garden smaller I had space in the vegetable garden for more plants. I ended up trying some new to me things. I’ve not planted cauliflower, broccoli and brussel sprouts. Being they were half price too I bought two packs of each. If you have an tips on growing them, feel free to pass them on. I know nothing about growing any of them.
I ended up buying too many flowers…I had more than I needed. I was frustrated and wondered what I was going to do with the extras. I set them aside and waited for inspiration. In the meantime, I started in on other things I wanted to accomplish. One of those things was taking the recylcing in. We don’t have curbside pick up so have to take the recycling to the dumpsters.
I was so happy, the bins were empty. It would be easy to find room for my cardboard. It’s typically a challenge. I went to throw the plastic in and someone before me had thrown away pots for planting plants. Oh. I wanted them. They had some that were tan…I didn’t want those. There were white ones…those I wanted. Only problem…I wasn’t climbing into the dumpster to get them.
Being the bins were empty, the pots were on the very bottom of the dumpster. Hmm. I notice one of the pots was actually a hanging basket. Oh…I definitely wanted that one. Hmm. That’s when it hit me.  I could try holding onto the basket then move the hook from hanging basket so I could lift the pots I wanted to take.
It took some doing and I’m sure if someone was watching me try to fish the pots out of the plastics dumpster with the hook of the hanging basket, they were rolling laughing. I didn’t care. I wanted the pots…and I got them. I ended up with four new pots and all they cost was a little of embarrassment.
I ended up getting one of them planted. See it hanging in the arch? It makes me smile…
My property line is just to the right of the garden. I don’t own that brown building. The gray garage is mine.
You can see in the pictures that the garden looks wet. I’ve had to start watering it. We are so dry here. We desperately need rain. It’s getting to the point that it is dire for the farmers that we get rain. We had a chance for rain it’s only a 50% but…just maybe we’ll get some. We’ve had rain almost get here several times…but none really came. It’s so sad to see the plants struggle with no water.
Thankfully, the garden I can water. I’m starting to think I’m going to need to start watering the lawn too.
For now, I’m super happy with the garden and the changes I’ve made.  The hard work was totally worth it!
I was thinking maybe Carl could use your extra plants for his new place
Your garden is looking good. I smiled when I read about your exploits at the recycling place – I would have done exactly the same haha.
I grow brassicas, (cabbages, broccoli etc), and I have to cover it with nets to stop the Cabbage White Butterflies laying their eggs on them and the subsequent caterpillars eating the whole crop! – I don’t know if they’re a problem for you in the US?
Wow TY for identifying the critters eating my cauliflowers & cabbages. Where can i find netting ? I really need for my garden beds.
Hi Joyce, here in the UK, I ordered the netting from gardening-naturally.com They have different types of netting to choose from :)
Your garden is beautiful! Who cares if you had to fish oddly to get what you wanted from the dumpster. The hanging basket makes a great cent to the look of your garden. I am glad you can have the space and able to takethe time, to have the garden and the plants you ga v e away will always be remembered as special plants.
Your garden looks great! I don’t know too much about gardening, but I remember somebody who grew Brusell sprouts say they are best if picked after the first frost. I have no idea though. We eat them, but never grew them. Isn’t it fun to find things in the dumpster! It tickles me to hear you tell it. I, too, have taken things from recycle places when we had to take to special place. Now they are picked up.
Your garden looks great! I laughed at the mental picture of you getting the pots out of the dumpster !
Your flower garden is perfect and I love how you saved the white pots, lol. I would of done the same thing. Good luck with the new veggie plants, I have never planted any of those. This year its only 4 tomato plants for us.
Love your garden!! Living in Reno, Nevada and eastern Washington, it is so strange to me to not water your lawn and garden!! If it isn’t irrigated in either place, it is brown!! With an average of 4-7 inches of precipitation in Reno and 7-14 inches in where I live in eastern Washington (and that includes the snow), it is obvious why we have to irrigate everything to get green around our houses and some of our crops. Humidity is usually low in both places as well.
Susan, I had the same thought. I live in Southern California and if we don’t irrigate, nothing but desert scrub and weeds grow. Good luck with your garden, Jo!
Don’t you have an issue w critters eating your vegetables? I had to put a huge fence in to keep the deer out. But a funny has found a way in (not sure yet how) and ate all my broccoli cauliflower and green bean plants! this week he/she started on my peas ate them from the ground up as far as it could go! left dying plants just hanging there.
my garden is not as cute as your either.
I’m digging out iris beds too they are taking over.
I thought the same as Carolyn. Here you don’t see a garden without a fence to keep the deer out. Groundhogs even dug under the fence. Our dog used to chase the rabbits out. I just gave up on a garden. Now the deer eat all the flowers.
Oh, you have now taken a new job and title “Dumpster Diver Jo.” Too funny and I probably would have tried it myself! Your property looks so nice! You need to proud of yourself of all that you have accomplished since your husband, Kramer, passed.
My husband has grown broccoli and Brussel sprouts once. Here in Texas they both take a long time. About the time he was giving up on them, they started to produce. It was fun watching them grow. He grows all his plants in 5 gallon buckets. We had lots of tomatoes, cucumbers and squash so far.
Advice to the new to you vegs. My dad always raised a huge garden and loved to try new plants. These were a few of his more successful. Think in terms of cabbage, good soil, water and sun. These vegs are not picked. They are cut. I hope it works for you. Let us know how it goes.
I love how you “rescue” items. You even have fun doing it. You always know ahead what you need and when you see it–make your ” move”. Everything looks wonderful at the garden’s edge and beyond. No help on growing those veggies–check you tube.
Your ‘dumpster diving’ experience didn’t sound strange to me. I come from a family of dumpster divers. We lived behind a decorating store and my mom would go through their dumpsters all the time. And my brother knew the trash pickup routes and times where he lived. He would drive around before them and pick up items left by the curb for the trash trucks. He picked up mowers, vacuums, tvs, computers, whatever and take them home and try to fix them. If he got them working, he would put them in his yard sale. Toys and furniture would be cleaned, fixed and some went to furnish his children’s homes and for grandkids to play with. Thanks for sharing.
I came home with 2 beautiful portraits frame from the recycle bin. The person who left them kindly propped them up outside the bin. We have curbside recycling but the rolling bins are too large for me to handle on my sloping driveway. So off to the recycling bin I go!
Your gardens, both veggie and flower, are looking awesome.
I had to laugh at your efforts to snag pots with another pot’s hook. I’ve been known to do similar things! The other day I wanted some boxes of a particular kind of yellow rice at the grocery store, There were just two, both on the very top shelf, placed way back beyond my reach. I looked around, saw no one to ask to help me so I devised a tool. I “borrowed” a long box of another product and standing on my tiptoes, using it as a “sweeper,” nudged the boxes, one by one, until I retrieved them. When I finished putting them in my cart, I looked up to see a couple of shoppers watching me with amusement. “By hook or by crook,” I said as I headed off down the aisle.
Jo, use row covers for your broccoli and cabbage etc. White butterflies will lay eggs on the young leaves and when the larvae hatch will burrow into the fruit set on the planets and ruin them. Gauzy, white row cover material let’s the moisture and sun in and keeps the bugs off!