Accessible Gardening: #19 Practical Matters for Physically Challenged Gardeners , 5 by Agavegirl1

Agavegirl1 wrote:
Gooooooooooood Morning! :D

O.K. to finish. I am more than delighted the "squshing sound" has gone away and my yard no longer feels like a sponge. Yes, there are some small benefits to 112 degree days! It quickly dries soil to bedrock status. Here it depends on where you live as to what soil you get. My last place we had caliche. Impossible. Rock, dirt, gravel and basically when wet forms a sludge that makes cement. Think of the stuff the Pueblo Indians made adobe bricks with. Well if you can wet it down, scrape a few inches off at a time, YOU CAN actually form bricks. This stuff is so hard unless you have a professional landscaper or a back hoe to dig it, it will take months to get a hole in your yard. NO JOKE.
It literally took me 1 to 3 months to dig a hole for every plant I had in the yard at my last place. Never saw anything like it in my life. I put the wet sludge in heavy duty trash bags where it stayed wet. If it dried just add water to make sludge. When the plants were in I made brick and put it around my plants. The sun baked it to cement!
The brick I bought at the garden center to ring my plants I used the wet sludge to cement them together so they'd never come apart! Quite effective. When I moved 6 years later both the caliche brick and the caliche I used as mortar on the store bought brick were still intact and never crumbled. Un-freaking-believable! By the way we do have a cement plant out here called CEMEX. It was located 12 miles up the road from my old house. Imagine that!
After three holes I got smart. I did all raised beds of store bought brick and only scraped a little bit of "dirt" to make mortar to cement them together. My whole back yard with the exception of 3 plants was all raised beds!

Now here in my new place I have sand! The moment I found I could turn a shovel was the moment I went stark raving plant mad! I started on a gardening binge. It's been a joy. My only complaint with it is that it holds water. When it gets wet, it gets WET! It also stays wet. Although the surface is dry when you turn a trowel or shovel it is very, very damp/wet in there and will be for a long time. I found usually throwing in a handful of the landscape rock is helpful for drainage---or at least I think it is.
So it can be a bit deceptive on when, how often and where to water because depending on where the sun beats on the yard it will dry out at different rates and plants need different amounts of water. Here it is easy to root rot your plants.
All in all I am over joyed with this soil though as I am planting like crazy and growing (trying to) things I never have before or could.
It's always a mixed bag out here though. One house could have sand and your neighbor could have caliche. You could have both in your yard. Just don't know until you start digging. :D I read some of these descriptions that say, "Plant likes sandy, well draining soil." Uhm...how bout plant likes whatever soil I can shove it in + bag of cactus/palm/citrus soil from store!

JIM.... CHLORINE BLEACH IS NOT GOOD FOR HUMAN SKIN!!! Hear that? It wasn't meant to kill mold, mildew or fungus on people! That's dangerous. Actually it can burn and ulcerate skin and cause infections. It's for cleaning and laundry! If you're getting something nasty please go to a doctor. HE will give you something appropriate. Vinegar is a good cleaner but it is also acidic. While it won't hurt you internally I don't think over exposure to external skin is good either. I know humidity + rain + heat breeds some strange things but you really ought to have this looked at.
Do you have a dehumidifier for the house? Gold bond medicated powder works well. (Don't over use as it is medicated). Anything in the baby aisle to help control diaper rash is pretty good too for the body as well as regular talcum powder to keep dry.
Ask your pharmacist at the drug store. They can usually recommend something. They make a lot of good OTC anti fungal creams now. Take a picture if you have to and show them.

I use baby wipes regularly for a quick freshen up on really hot days or if I've been out gardening until I hit the tub/shower. Trick from the military I learned when we were out in the field and couldn't shower! (I even wipe Zoe down with one on occasion). :D

Also if you're planning on selling/giving away your house I'm not sure what the inspection or building code laws are. Here they have what they call red and green fix it tickets. When you put your house up for sale the appraiser determines the value of your home not only on the average of what all other homes sold for in your area BUT ALSO on the condition.

If you get red fix it tickets you CAN'T sell your home or must fix them during the sale of your home BEFORE the sale is completed. Otherwise your house is pulled off the market and you can't sell it. These are things like electrical, plumbing, foundation, pests, MOLD, etc..
Green fix it tickets are things that should be fixed or are beneficial to fix but won't necessarily affect the sale of your home. For example a cosmetic crack in the wall (not stress/structural fracture), missing ceiling fan, hole in your yard because you pulled out a tree and didn't replace it with another plant, oil stains on your driveway, a missing screen door, etc. Mostly cosmetic and non structural stuff.
Of course one wants the most bang for their buck. As fussy as I am DH and I had 4 green fix it tickets! No red. Do you have "fix it" tickets in AL?
Our H.O.A. is really liberal too thankfully. There are some that are real Nazis right down to what color flowers you can plant and what side of your house you can hang a flag or welcome sign! Also the prices of them vary depending on what they claim they do for you in terms of cleaning common areas, providing services, amenities offered (i.e. golf course, kids play ground, club house, pool, gym, tennis court, etc.). I've seen H.O.A. fees up in the hundreds but that is usually a swanky neighborhood or one with ridiculous amenities and outrageously landscaped common areas that look like national parks and club houses that resemble spas and resorts.
DH and I lived in a modest neighborhood on a golf course (not a big deal here in AZ, almost every place has one) and had a play ground and free common area maintenance and a club house and our H.O.A. was $47.00 a month to give you an idea. My new home it is $36.00 a month. We have no golf course but a discount at the nearest one and we get weekly street cleaning/sweeping free!
The thing I like about them is while they're liberal and don't complain about what I plant or where in my yard or what side of the house my welcome sign is on they do keep things from getting all crazy and ghetto. You know how people can get. No matter how much money they have or where they live there's always that few that have to do something really bizarre and off the wall or just want to live like trash and act like they don't know no better. And of course....one of the has just got to live next to you!

And YES the H.O.A. will hand out "fix it" tickets! (LOL). If you don't "fix it" and your hot mess or rowdy behavior, dragging furniture out of your house and having literal Hawaiian luaus in the front yard and blocking the whole street with orange cones so nobody can drive down it, manage your 4 screaming, disruptive, destructive kids from tearing up the neighborhood and everyone's yards and your dog that barks at the wind non stop for 8 hours straight every day for a month, or quit partying in your garage every night with the door up and the car stereo blasting until 3:00 a.m. like it's the local bar, or sauntering nonchalantly over to my house and stuffing my trash can to the brim with your trash because you have too much garbage to fit into your own can, then YOU WILL get fined.

And yes these are all scenarios I've dealt with...and complained to my H.O.A. about ! To the H.O.A.s credit they shut this crap down fast! Put a screeching halt to it two days to 1 week after I complained! I've come to see the value of them and now really don't mind having to pay for one. It keeps me friends with my neighbors because I don't have to go deal with them or their crap. All they know is they got a complaint and violated rules. They don't know who generated the complaint. Usually if there's complaints it is from more than one person.

If you don't pay it you get fined higher. If you don't pay that they can...and will...put a lien on your house! You sign the contract when you move in along with the mortgage saying you will abide by the rules of living in the community/area/subdivision just like everyone else.
We live like people. If you don't want to live like a person live some place with no H.O.A. Good luck. Unless you live in a literal ghetto, on the Indian reservation or own your own stretch of land there isn't one.

As for giving the land away to the Indians you still can. It's yours to do with what you please. There is such a thing as caveats and terms or conditions. They may have it providing they are good stewards, allow an apiary, and there is no gambling. This is a condition for the next 25 years (if ever) in terms of gambling. The bee keepers and stewardship is indefinite. Should the land ever fall into disrepair or not be maintained it goes to.....(person/organization) you name.
Now you'll have to define rigidly and iron clad what constitutes disrepair, and maintained and what the standards of that are to be. Someone may think picking a dandelion once a year constitutes maintenance. You may think in terms of national park. You'll have to be specific.
If they don't have money to maintain to your standards what can they do. You have to give them "permission" to do certain things or generate income somehow.

You'll also have to define if and when they could sell the farm ever and to whom. Also specify to whom they could never sell it (person, org, affiliated businesses of persons and orgs, etc.) You can also state you would like so much produce or whatever donated each year/month whatever to certain types of people or organizations.
Basically it's like setting up a trust. It shouldn't be hard. I'm sure a lawyer could handle it. I don't know which kind but there are ones that deal with estates, property, deeds, management of businesses, etc.

Hey...the place is yours. You want to give it away or sell it for $1.00 you can. Or you can sell it for the max it's worth. It's your prerogative. But you also have the right to put some conditions on it.

You can even make it a non-profit org as a tax deduction in which it is a "mini reservation" for the Indians and a working farm and you are on the board of directors as CEO (chief executive officer) along with a leader from the Creek tribe as COE (chief operating executive) and one who is CAO (chief agricultural overseer) and on and on it goes. Create your own little "non-profit org." Have them pay you a $5.00 salary a year for your consultation, expertise, and knowledge about the farm!

This way you can still be involved with all the things you love about the farm without being involved in the business of the farm financially or owning it! Setting up a non-profit org is easy. It's all on the computer how to do it!

O.K. I blathered enough. Time to get busy. Wise cactus said lessons in life do not always need to be serious. Sometimes they are just sitting and enjoying the beauty one can find in the chaos amidst life. Wise cactus is not only a teacher and mentor but a friend. Many times when I visited he had nothing to say to me but plenty to show. He is a lovely and generous gift giver. He asked me to share his gifts with you. Please enjoy compliments of the cactus.

Pic #1 the orange plumes on top of the Ocotillo during Summer.
Pic #2 The Aloe Ferox
Pic #3 some kind of little "hedgehog" cactus
Pic #4 My favorite rock from which I commune with my teacher and his assistants (Notice it is shaped like a brain? Teacher says that is no accident.) Oh...hair a mess. Had hat on prior to picture so all flat, sweaty and stuck to head. Love the bangs right now...eh? Hate it when DH catches me like that.
Pic #5. The nicest gift of all my cacti friend has given.




This message was edited Aug 10, 2015 5:45 AM