A Roof Top Garden in Denver

A friend was visiting his friend and sent photos of that friend friend's garden.  This is on a roof in downtown Denver and is pretty darn amazing!  

Here is a view of lovely flowers with  a bit of cityscape:



















Followed by a closeup of tomatoes with what appears to be a parking garage int he background .

 


















Check out those wee yellow tomatoes!

 The gardener hard at work and dwarfed by a humungous pot that looks to have dill, tomatoes and what might be squash btu I'm not at all sure


















And a stunning pepper

And finally a still life I call "gardener and HVAC"

Pretty astounding what sort of productivity she's getting here.  I would think all that black roof space would cook the plants right on the vine!  (Note to self:  Send a solar cooker.)

Yeay Craigslist!

Just a short entry today.   As we all know I'm downsizing a bit.   I needed to sell my awesome but huge tricycle.  Yes, tricycle.

I posted it on craigslist a few days ago and just now met a woman and she bought it.  Our negotiations went like this: 
Her:  What's your lowest price?
Me:   What's your highest offer?
Her:  (she says something 50$ more than I figured my lowest price would be)
Me: All right.  

We were like shrewed skilled traders...or like two older women who had done lots of research and knew what was reasonable.   Hope she enjoys it!  I did.

There it is in all it's glory.   She'd called around clearly and talked to the guy who had done some maintenance on it. 

Here's hoping the price I got covers most of the brake job I'm getting on the Subaru tomorrow. 

I'm thinking I may sell the electric lawn mower on craigslist too. That's where I got it last year.  I'll add the heavy duty electrical cord and see what I can get for it. 

A Very Wee Garden

Here is another friend's garden.  She lives in an apartment that is the main floor of an older house.  The only restriction on use of the yard is "no eyesore"...hmmm.  Thus she's proceeding with care.  Since there is another apartment in the house and they get to use the house too, best to be polite.  The yard is also quite small.

She's gone with a container garden.

Here's an overview photo:

 The black thingy in the background will eventually be a water feature and sunk in the ground.  She's been here barely a month.  Things are proceeding quickly.

Making good use of the back steps.  I think that's a lemon tree on the top step.  It will be inside in winter.




















 A tomato!

 And more tomato plants!  Pretty impressive.  I like the tiny flowers on the left.  They look big given the small size of the garden.

The whole thing is on the east side of the house.  This is fine given the intensity of the sun around here in the summer.  The fence on the north side of the lawn, about 5 feet from the garden, and the protection of the house to the west, will probably extend the season a bit after a frost will have hit bigger gardens that are more exposed.  And of course with containers one had the option of bringing the plants into the house on frosty nights.

Medicine Wheel Garden

This isn't my garden.  It is at the house of some friends.  It's lovely.

It's built around the compass and each quadrant is based on a color.  I may have the colors wrong and will edit after the gardener corrects me.

White, yellow, red, purple/blue.   A lovely tree is in the center and a ring of rocks defines the edge.  I have to admit that being Princess Practical, when I first saw the design as it's going in I thought "you can't put a garden under a tree!"  That thought was immediately followed by "says who?"    The 2nd thought was the correct one.  You can put a garden wherever you want.


 Here it is with the rocks and a few baby plants.

And here it is this morning.  You can see the added mulch of wood shavings which looks great.  It has a substrate of cardboard and paper.  I'm stealing the idea for the area around my camper I think. 

A bit of the "yellow" quadrant featuring a calendula plant.  I've never gotten calendula to grow at all so I'm impressed.















A bit of the white quadrant

Red quadrant (poorly centered)


















 More lovely plants.  I like the mix.  Mostly herbs and whatnot with decorative grasses.

 Bit of art near the center.

It's really lovely.  I find it fascinating that a mullein, with yellow flowers, planted itself in the yellow quadrant.  

The garden follows most of the principles I just read about in Sepp Holzer's book on permaculture.  Trees, rocks, mulch, microclimates.  This tiny garden has it all going on.   

 

Weird Al...Where Were You When I Was Grading Papers from the Illiterati?

Simplicity Through NOT Facebooking

So Facebook has been messing with your head of late...what with the psych experiments.  But of course, if you're on the f-book, it's been messing with your head the whole time in my view.  I have friends (real life ones, not f-book friends) who like and use and enjoy f-book.  Good for them and as you know I believe in each person doing as she/he pleases.  

For me, not f-booking is simple and frugal and brings me lots of peace.   But, you f-bookers may wonder, how do you "stay connected" to people?  How do you know what everyone you've ever met, and some you haven't, are feeling like at every moment of every day?  What if you want to post something interesting but you aren't on f-book?   Well, I don't care.  Moods pass quickly so why do I need to follow each up and down of the entirety of my acquaintancy?  I don't.  The close friends, I follow them because we talk and email, and GET THIS...write letters and MAIL them at the POST OFFICE!  OMG!  Did you know that the post office still exists?

Anyway.  It is my contention that f-book can mess with your head, actually I mean MY head, at all times.  Even when there is no overt psych experiment.  I tried it for like a day and hated it.  I know people who check it frequently to see if anyone has "liked" something they've posted.  Um...what?  I know what I like and it makes me happy to not care if anyone else likes it.  Of course, I'm an introvert.  If you care to know if other people like it too, then by all means, f-book it.

I'm clearly not entirely against social media...what with the blogging, but at my core I really really really don't care if anyone reads this ever.  I care even less if anyone "likes" or "dislikes" it.  I rarely check my "stats" to see if anyone is reading.  I'm surprised when I get a comment.  I understand that others aren't like me in that.  Peachy keen.

What  I don't understand is the surprise that f-book would do something like run a psych experiment on the users.  The "privacy" policy....which last time I read it seemed to be an agreement to give up all privacy...is pretty unreadable so I have no doubt that somewhere in there it states that f-book may use itself against you.  Maybe blogger will at some point too.  I couldn't be bothered to rummage through the policies in that much depth.  I doubt I'd be surprised if a similar situation occurred.  Chagrined, but not surprised.

So, that's the rant.  Remember that everything at all times is "user beware."

My life is simpler by not getting caught up in a social media situation geared to extroverts and lots of information.  I prefer the blog where I put things out there and then move on with my life.  As I move into a camper in the next couple of weeks even this could go by the wayside.  Maybe I'll post paper bills around town with flour paste decrying my latest opinion.  Who knows.