News
today from FPG's CFO: I am sorry to report that both our recent Rock
Sale and last month's Dead Plant Clearance Event were utter failures;
as such we have missed our revenue goals for the fiscal quarter
ending—wait, how do fiscal quarters work? Ah well, there's a reason
I became a gardener and not something useful.
What
this means for the continuing development of the Gardens is that our
operating budget is roughly equal to any buried change or scrap metal
we find in the earth-moving process. Thus far, our coffers contain
two and a half tire-irons, an old matchbox car, a surprisingly
complete set of silverware, two dozen rusty nails, a screw driver,
and a small pair of scissors.
We're
saving up for a trip to the scrap yard, but until then we are forced
to be thrifty and innovative in our use of tools and landscaping
materials. For example: gas for the lawnmower is expensive! But, in a
pinch, one of those hand blenders from the kitchen on an extension
cord can work just as well. Probably. Bang. That's real savings right there.*
Or
consider a retaining wall (oh, do
consider a retaining wall). I wanted to build a short one to put the
veggie bed up on a small terrace, but allan blocks or natural stone
can be pricey—in that they have a price and so are not free, which
places them light years beyond the aforementioned operating budget.
(I don't even want to think about how many tire-irons it would take
to pay for that kind of hardscaping.) So the ingenious solution I
stumbled upon was to simply use materials found around the yard. The
previous owner left behind lots of good stuff, so surely I could find
something
with which to build a retaining wall. But what?
Lo
and behold: bricks! Old, leftover bricks work splendidly for a small,
informal retaining wall. I couldn't believe the previous owner didn't
want to take these with her! Well, you know what they say: one man's
trash is another man's … masonry. So I rounded up all the bricks I
could find and voila, I had a great dry-stack wall complete in no time. Now,
unfortunately, I could only find three bricks, so the wall is a
little patchy in spots. But at a total cost of nothing
I'm pretty darn proud of the results. Check it out:
This retaining wall was built entirely with found materials! |
*Who am I kidding, this is a bad idea. Really, just terrible. Don't waste your time attempting this. I just wanted to seem thrifty and innovative.