Planting Season

Planting season was upon us. It was early April, and so far we had no garden. No pots, no dirt, no seeds... nothing.

For two weeks, we had discussed casually how we could make our "parking lot garden", but to date, no action had been taken. Wooden boxes, wheelbarrows, wagons, cars and truck beds had all been discussed, but no decision had been made.

We were sitting around watching TV on a Saturday morning, and the garden was mentioned once more. Well that was it. No longer was I about to sit around talking about this garden. I pulled up the local classified pages and began searching. Less than a minute into my search, I spotted it - a free truck-bed liner. I called the individual, arranged a time, and within the hour, we were off to get our free truck-bed liner.

We met the man at his house, and learned about the various uses for truck-bed trailers. Too bad they were out of our price range (free or less), or we would have had a portable garden. Satisfied, though, we hauled off the truck-bed liner and headed home. We drove about a block before we started asking, "now where are we going to get dirt?" No sooner had we spoken, I noticed a trailer on the side of the road piled high with dirt. We pulled over and approached the nearest home. A Latin woman in her mid-40s opened the door, and in our best Spanish, we asked about her plans for the dirt. She encouraged us to load up. Fortunately, we had borrowed some shovels, and took turns shoveling until our truck bed was full.

We arrived back at our apartment about 2 hours after our departure, and immediately began by unloading the truck-bed liner in our parking stall. As an apartment, we were allotted one parking stall behind the complex and one underground. It was obvious which one the plants would prefer. We shoveled for another half-hour and managed to find a rake hidden behind a nearby apartment.

Finally, after a half-day's work, we stood back and admired the beginnings of our "parking lot garden". (Dave in black, Jordan in white, Tyler in blue).