Basil at the Door

When we planted our front yard, Kate had the idea to plant a bunch of herbs right in the front. It seemed strange to me, but I went along with it. Man, what a good idea it turned out to be.

The herbs have done spectacularly well (along with everything else) in the garden, especially the basil plants. They're easily ten times the size they were when we planted them. They're beautiful plants, which is reason enough to feature them up front. But then, each day when I get home from work I'm greeted by the nicest scent of basil and cinnamon as I come up the front walk.

We live on a major street, so we get a lot of foot traffic past the house. On many, many occasions now I've seen people stop dead to look at the yard or smell the basil plants. It makes you feel good because you know they're admiring and enjoying something you helped foster into existence.

And of course having plenty of fresh cinnamon basil and lemon basil to cook with is no small benefit either.

Rolling Out the Green Carpet

Sod is great stuff. It's insta-lawn. As I think I said in the post the preceded this one, I've always been more of a red thumb than a green one (plants don't bleed, but if they could I'd have a lot on my hands.) So attempting to raise up an army of grasslets from seed was mostly unthinkable. A comparable feat for me would be raising up a city by planting a bunch of cinder blocks in the dirt. Sod seemed like the only viable option.

And while the prep work; tilling, raking dirt, amending the soil, tilling again, etc. isn't easy work, actually dropping the sod is a piece of cake. And the instant gratification can't be beat. You may not get the satisfaction you'd likely get from nurturing seeds, coddling the young plants as they grow to maturity, sending them off to school and then suffering the bitter disappointment as they throw everything away to pursue their impossible dream of learning to disperse seed in the form of an edible fruit. But you do get a lush new lawn in a day. Let the nanny raise the children.

I just hope the new lawn takes root. We have a couple large trees in the back throwing a lot of shade down on the grass. If the new grass doesn't get enough light, it may start to get patchy. That would be a real shame. Kate and I are going to try and thin out the foliage in the canopy. Then we'll cross our fingers. And water a lot.


NOTE: This picture shows the yard with debris and dirt still all over the concrete paths. Step three involves powerwashing all the concrete and then planting ornamental plants in the strip of dirt we left empty on the right side of the photo. And step four brings a whole-yard privacy fence. Step five is a surprise.