The Little Red Wagon For Grown-ups

A few weeks ago I won this awesome Troy-Bilt garden cart in a contest hosted by Elizabeth over at Garden Rant. Thanks again, Elizabeth!

Well, being the lazy bastard that I am, it sat (in its box) in the living room for a while, then got moved (in its box) to the patio for a while where it endured several monsoon-type storms.

Yesterday I finally mustered up the motivation to assemble it. The main reason yesterday had to be the day is that I had about 12 new plants sitting on the basketball court that I needed to plant in the front yard garden and It was either assemble this thing, or walk back and forth about 6-8 times cursing myself for putting off assembling the cart for another weekend.

The cart wasn't particularly difficult to assemble but given my crabby mood, I decided it'd be a lot easier if I was a rocket scientist. What a pain in the ass! I seriously needed an assistant but finally finished it after a little over 1.5 hours. The funny thing was that I ended up with a couple of "extra" pieces including a bunch of screws. I agonized all day today about how I could have possibly assembled this bad ass looking cart but somehow missed these two huge pieces. Then, after I'd loaded all my plants into the cart and started toward the front garden I thought to myself, "I wish there was a place to carry tools on this thing." SHAZAMM! So, that's what the extra pieces were for! They are tool holders! That's genius!

I am so in love with this cart already. First off it's red which rocks. And second, the really big tires make for a really smooth ride. I rode over my uneven walkway effortlessly - I hardly even felt the bumps! It made me remember back last year when I ordered the load of topsoil and bitched and moaned with every single load that I struggled not to tip over as I moved it only a few feet to the flower beds. Now I want to order more dirt (or mulch which I really need) just to try this sucker out. It's got a removable front door for easy dumping.

Technorati Tags: garden tools,garden carts,troy-bilt,gardening

I'm A Winner: Garden Rant Style

Speech: First of all I wanna thank God, and my momma...

No, seriously, I still can't believe I won this awesome cart!

Last week over on Garden Rant, Elizabeth held a contest to give away 5 of these cool red Troy-Bilt garden carts.  I entered because the only garden cart I own is a very cheap crappy plastic one that I don't even use anymore because it's tipped over one too many times while I was carrying a load of dirt. 

The contest was to list the 5 plants you'd rescue in a catastrophe.  This was my entry:

What an awesome cart! I don't own a proper piece of equipment for toting heavy stuff so this is just what I need.

I don't know what kind of catastrophe you had in mind but my catastrophe is a bad ass one that is earth-altering. All the trees have been destroyed leaving full sun for my fab 5 to grow in.

Here they are:

1. Echinacea purpera "Purple Coneflower". I'm madly in love with coneflowers of all kinds. But, the purple gets saved because it drought tolerant, beautiful, and I might even be able to meet a medicine man who will show me how to use it medicinally.

2. Heirloom Brandywine Tomato gets saved because there is no way I could go on in a tomato-less world. I rescue the heirloom one because I can save seeds for future tomato seasons.

3. Daffodil because they remind me of my grandma (I'll probably be sad and need that family memory, yes?) and because they naturalize so easily.

4. Magnolia Ann is a vanity save I spent too much damn time agonizing over which Magnolia to pick (and returning a few) to just let it die.

5. Rudbeckia Goldstrum is saved because it's the one plant in my garden that, when in bloom, takes my breath away every time I see it. Plus, bees love it. Wait, I sure hope somebody saves a couple of bees!

Elizabeth liked my "there is no way I could go on in a tomato-less world" statement.  Another illustration of the power of the tomato!

Congrats to all the other winners and a huge thank you to Elizabeth and Troy-Bilt for hosting the contest.  It was a lot of fun.

Technorati Tags: garden carts,contests,tomatoes,gardening,garden rant,troy-bilt

Bad Gardener!!

I can hear my mother now. "Why don't you pick up after yourself? You're always leaving your toys laying all over the place it's no wonder you lose keep losing stuff!" It snowed yesterday. One of the things I love about Chicago is that it always seems to snow on Thanksgiving. I left these outside after cutting back my shrub roses the other night. At this rate, all my tools will be rusty next year. Mom is right - I should be more careful with my toys.

GB gave me some of her excess mulch and I almost had enough for every rose to have it's own bag. This was Monday evening and I was working feverishly to cut back the roses and get the mulch on them before it started raining.

I don't know if I did it right but I cut back the roses and piled the mulch around the bottom. I thought I might have done this too early but today it's freezing outside!
Regarding dirt:
I went to buy dirt today and was amazed that Menards had already gotten rid of their topsoil. No more till spring. Home Depot had it but it was frozen solid! I got discouraged and went home. I'll just suck it up and have it delivered.

I still have bulbs to plant! I'm thinking big patio pots at this point.