Earthquake in the Trailer Park Tonight, revisted.

We're here because we're tired of the rat race, done with the rat race, or kicked out of the rat race. We are discontented, malcontented, disabled and differently abled. We're sad, but we are happy. We have our own little world in the trailer park.

On food stamp payday, we barbeque, on minimum wage payday we shop at the CP Thrift Store.
And, on each Saturday morning, neighbors come for the Free Food that some local do-gooder Christians hand out. It's all starchy GMO crap with an occasional  organic reject from Whole Foods.

Because we live in well-planned manufactured tin cans, we actually have good housing. Quality homes that have features that far surpass our incomes. Our roofs don't leak because we make good use of Kool Seal white roof coat, and lots of UV- resistant tarps. We make good use of no-cost, low-cost repairs and it is good-enough repairs. Our homes are not exactly tight, but they really do hold together.



Many of us live in RVs on rubber wheels so when the earthquake hit at 3:20 a.m we shook, rattled and didn't roll over and didn't fall down.
After the screaming and the cussing we all piled out of our houses like angry ants when the field is on fire. We yelled for each other to make sure we were still among the living and the younger ones jumped up to go bang on doors and make dang sure we were all doing OK.

  We have a generator because an RV is a mobile home, literally. We have all the modern conveniences of any American home. An RV is just like a McMansion, only much much smaller.  We have refrigerators, and water heaters on demand.
We also have propane tanks to run the heaters and the cooking stoves and batteries to run the electricity inside, if we don't want to plug into the Grid.  As long as the water lines hold, we have clean sparkling water.

We know we all depend on tax money from a generous and caring society. We know the disability check and the Social Security check will come. We know the bus lines will come and the streetlights will shine.

Outside in the dark August night we took care of each other -- charged cell phones, made big pots of coffee and shared bottled water. We also broke out the beer and the whiskey because a party at 4:00 a.m. is a Universal thing! We pulled chairs around in groups and in each row of our trailer park we all laughed and gossipped and knew that come daylight, we would have a hell of  a clean-up.

As predicted, the sun did rise and as we recovered our sea legs we each ambled home. Each of us so glad our tin cans held together (mostly), and only listed off (somewhat).
The same life we had the day before the earthquake went on as before because for us, each day is a non-cliche new beginning.

On the edges of America, on the borders of the cultures, we have to scan the shadows and look for the daily bread, the place to rest and we do not take for granted that life will be easy. But we do demand that your neighbor is your friend on the spinning earth.

When last we spoke of the container garden, we had just planted the heirloom tomatoes and other such old-fashioned things. And we discussed the #5 plastic bins that we, the royal we, will plant our old-fashioned things in... and we have and they are up and look at what is going on now in the trailer park garden in early June!
For a quick review of the plantings and doings in March '15, clicky here, and then come right back! 

We are letting the weeds grow, and they are providing a lot of blooms now and look very adorable in a cottage garden kind of way. I practice an organic and biodynamic style of gardening. Weeds for the bees, butterflies and worms and caterpillars and lots of ladybugs, and lady bug larvae.
I am quite sure the manager of the trailer park is not happy with my weeds! But they are very important to the success of my garden and my produce I hope to have........ the tomatoes, the zukes, the cukes and all the lovely flowers too.

Here we have lettuce and tomato seedlings and they have grown so much......as you shall see in the pics nearer the bottom.
I planted seeds of 2 kinds of cukes to climb on the patio, and a zuke to grow all over the place. Okra, beans, bell peppers, and Jalepeno, and basil, mint and sage. Lots of flowers too for the beeeeeez and butterflies.
Indigo Rose is a great black little tomato that's new to me, Cherokee Chocolate, a relative of my all time fave Cherokee, Garden Peach (new heirloom to me), Black Prince ( love a dark tomato), Silvery fir tree with fine lace leaves and a red tomato, a big orange and yellow beeksteak weirdo named Hazel Mae, which is also new to me this year. This is gonna bee fun. ha ha ...

I re-use old plastic tags, mark them with a Sharpie, or use popsicle sticks or little random pieces of wood to mark the seeds and tiny plants (and big plants if memory might fade)

Cukes, Zukes, okra and peppers. Lots of tomatoes!!
The beans are running along and have had a lot of snails to attack and eat them so Sluggo to the rescue! I do love and need some bugs and spiders and worms and such, but I need far less snails and slugs. Go Away!

 Here's my Meyer Lemon. I LOVE my lemon. So much. At cocktail hour I pop out for a fresh lemon and put a sliver of fresh goodness in my martini.

OK, I planted the heirloom tomatoes, the peppers, and a basil and lots of flowers in the bins with yummy organic soil. Then I did a covering of the dirt using the  plastic from the big bags of organic soil, to A. Keep the soil warm and moist. and B. Keep the cats from taking a crap in my pots of dirt and tiny little garden plants.
I love the cats. I do not want them in the dirt, pooping.

The tomatoes and other tiny little things were transplanted at the end of May '15, and in a week they have doubled in size!
The marigolds, the sage, the lobelia....... are all blooming and attracting lots of bees all day.
We get California carpenter bees.... big buzzy and black velvet.
We get Apis mellifera, the good ol' Honey bee that Monsanto and Bayer are hellbent on KILLING OFF. And lots of teeny teeny bees, and lots of ladybugs too.

Here is the big view. I took some bamboo poles, that I grew in Tacoma and lugged them down here with me, and I stuck them in the bins of dirt and tied them together for a frame to hold the tomatoes. Will this be strong enough? I don't know. But I can add more sticks and stuff later as the season goes on if the plants threaten to grow as high as an elephant's eye.

I have 4 more big pots that I'll fill with more organic soil and put in the cukes and zukes and other stuff I wanna grow. I use Kelloggs Organic soil , or Black Gold, (Organic Materials Review Institute) OMRI ok'd, and supplement it with organic compost.

so, yes, since we are very bee and butterfly friendly and we never never use poisons, and only grow in organic soil, we are lettting the weeds grow. Weeds are lovely plants with bad press.
Many plants have self-seeded from last year.... tomatoes, alyssum, lobelia, chamomile, dusty miller.... We have lots of sow thistles, and tiny other things, and I'll add my little film in a few days and make a list of the names of the weeds I've been able to identify. That there is a subject I want to know more about.

The butterfly bush and  a tiny tiny bee on the Luther Burbank from Santa Rosa Shasta Daisy.
It is all Heaven!

the patio is much more bohemian

..this year than last.  This year, honestly, only because these 40s barkcloth drapes were the easiest to pull out of my great big box of old fabrics, did they make the cut for this year's fashion in decorating the trailer park patio.

 More color, more pattern but it is the same furniture. I moved the dresser to the side, and hung a big piece of black shade cloth as the "front door". Soon, once it heats up towards 80+ everyday, we'll need to toss the big BIG shade cloth over the roof, aka Big white tarp.

Last year I used a lot more neutrals... canvas, raw silk, faded vintage fabrics.
 Here is before...

When you live in a tiny house, an rv, a trailer or a camper or van, the outside spaces become much more important. That's the best part of living tiny, is you spend more time outside.
so, the 99.00 patio was destroyed in the hot sun, so we bought a 50.00 white tarp and tossed it over the frame, tied it down with bungie cords, and beefed up the legs with the bamboo poles we had on hand. The floor is pallets, and the big wood box is made from pallets and scrap wood and holds tools. It locks, and it is really nice to have them all together, and out from under the Winnie in blue bins.
All the furniture is the same, with just different fabric tossed over the cushions. There's still more tiny lights.... from yard sales.... to hang up around the edges to light it in the night. 

The fireplace on the patio is from yard sales....  sitting on some marble squares.


I love hearing the birds twitter, the buzz of the bees that visit my flowers and the sound of the breezes.
I am not a fan of traffic, stupid kids with sub-woofers or loud misogynistic rap noise.
But, outside, is where I spend a lot of time. And in California, shade is so very important. It's cooler under there.


The garden is all in pots, and this year I'm trying out #5 bins from the hardware/thrift store to grow the tomatoes in.

I move the potted plants around but I think this is the best garden for the day...

I made a trellis around the front of the shed to hold morning glories and a lot of cucumbers.

Those big #5  Sterlite bins will hold the tomatoes and herbs. The black pots will hold the peppers, the okra, tomatillo, and eggplant.

The first sweet peas of Spring 2015. Cheri Amour from Renee's Garden seeds company. Sweet, pastels and two-tones.

The Victoria blue blooms came back, and the nice little merlot pansies go well with a faded pink flamingo.

I'm letting the weeds grow. They are food for the bees, and they are actually really interesting, but more about them another time.

The Sweet Peas are UP

It is, and should be, a post-Christmas holiday tradition, that Sweet Pea seeds should be planted in January. It's a beautiful and easy to grow vine or bush flower that blooms in earliest Spring, and can go on a-blooming until the early Summer when the garden makes way for the lush gardens of the summer heat.

Sweet Peas, Lathyrus odoratus, love a rich soil with lots of compost, lots of fertility, and aren't too fussy about soil, as long as it isn't too sandy or doesn't have too much clay.
Amend your soil where the vines will grow, and string up some sturdy hemp string, or attach a trellis to a board fence or on a wall, for the flowering vines. They can scamper up the branches of a shrub that leafs out late in Spring. I've had fun planting them in a sunny position at the foot of a large old lilac and they bloomed before the lilac blooms and the sweet peas were nearly done by the time the lilac leaves appeared.

There is also a bush Sweet Pea, and I've had good luck with that version also. So if you don't have room for a trellis or have a wire fence, just plant the shorter ones and you can still enjoy the delicious fragrance.

John Keats loved them so much he took a fountain pen to paper and wrote....

*********** 

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white
And taper fingers clutching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings. 

**********
Soak the seeds overnight before you plant them and they'll sprout in about a week or so. After 9 days of waiting, here are my sprouts at 1 day old, 3 days old, 5 days old, and 7 days old!

You can see the little tendrils already, so these need some skinny little branches and twigs to help them get over to the trellis on my patio. It is gonna be fun watching them climb up!

Protect them from slugs, snails and birds and goats and chickens if you got 'em!
Keep them watered well, but don't drown them and if you get some sun on them, they will really take off growing rapidly and probably start blooming in April.
This is California gardening... for a colder climate like Washington, check this post I did in 2012.

Here's a few of the colors you can expect: All the lovely pastels, and dusky tones, almost black, and some are bi-colored, but they are working on the ever-elusive yellow. Blue is particularly charming in the Sweet Pea!
The fragrance is a bit of sweet Spring charm,  the flowers are gorgeous and complicated, and arrive on long slim stems. A bunch of them in a vase or Mason Jar, is a simple pleasure.

Bi-Colors!

Curly tendrils!

Always choose varieties that say on the package or catalog description, that they are fragrant. Sadly, in the quest for color variety or heat tolerance, a lot of fragrance power has been lost.
I always choose the old-fashioned, or heirloom seeds, but this year, I'm trying a New Zealand line,  Cheri Amour, from Renee's Garden.  This variety promises to be both fragrant and beautifully colored with solids and bi-colors, and  the petals are ruffled!

Don't eat these peas.... they are not the garden peas... Sweet Peas are mildly poisonous.
A few old fashioned Sweet Pea varieties are Old Spice which resists heat, Flora Norton, Miss Willmott, the Incense blend, and the Spencers, and here's a link to Swallowtail Garden with 33 delightful varieties. There is still time if you hurry! 

Renee's Garden seeds are here.

Beloved for centuries, this farm in Southern California celebrates an April Sweet Pea day!