Renewed garden hopes

Happy Spring!  There are crocuses blooming in the front yard!  I know this because my son picked one... every year we go through the "don't pick other people's flowers" routine.  One day he will get it.  Maybe.  He's so cute when he brings me flowers though.  We'll have to plant a few flowers just for him to pick.  That would be fun, don't you think?

I took the opportunity to spring clean my car today.  It had an entire winter's worth of garbage and toys and crayons in it.  My husband kept asking me if we could clean out the car one of these days.  "Of course!",  I say, "I'm tired of the tire changing stuff being under my feet!"  I think I finally got the message that by we he means me.  So there I was, head down, bottom up, digging the insane amount of trash out from under my son's seat and explaining to my daughter where to put the pop cans that she found.  Then my landlady opened her garage and needed to drive past, which meant that the laundry basket bursting with random gloves, toys, etc, and the grocery bags stuffed with trash needed to be moved.  It's embarrassing for me to know that other people know how messy I really am, so I tried to not make eye contact.  She stopped to talk anyway.

Are we going to renew our rent contract?  Yes, I think so, I say as I try to gather as much garbage as possible right there where she can see.  Then there's a little chit chat about her grandkids, power bills and new sprinkler systems and then she says, "Would you like to put in some square food gardens by the fence?"  She has seen me out there, looking over my pitiful little garden plot.  Eyes come up..."YES!"  She also informs me that the planters around the edge of the patio are fair game as well.  It's shady, but I think I can figure out a few shady plants to put there.

It turns out that my landlady used to square foot garden herself. (not at this house unfortunately)  I should have asked a few more specifics about what she has pictured, or how many boxes I can do, but I have to have such questions working in my brain for a few days at least in order to actually ask a worthwhile question to anyone, and I definitely could not form any sort of question while I sat on the floor of my mini van trying to get that yellow colored pencil out from under the edge of the chair.  No worries though.  She offered me some videos that she has about this gardening method, so I have a little time to prepare for another garden discussion.  Remind me to ask how far down the fence we can go.

I'm so excited!  As it was, my plot was 11 feet by 1.5 feet.  Not a lot of space to grow tons of veggies like I want to do.  I'm not a pro at square foot gardening, but I'm sure I can figure something out.    And now the garden planning gets to start all over again!  Too bad I have to wait for my winter sowing bottles to sprout before I know how much of what I will have.  That would make planning a bit easier.  But I guess I can pass the time by figuring out how to get some gardening boxes going.