Cinder Blocks

Today was a big day.  I'm tired.  Andrea and I went down to Home Depot and picked up 45 cinder blocks and an edge trimmer for around $80 bucks.  I know, I know.  I can't believe I spent cash too, but I needed to finish a couple of projects.  Finishing the planter bocks was very important for me because I found a guy that will deliver free soil if I have the room to put.  Now I officially can handle the dirt.  Here's a before picture with a fresh stack of cinder blocks on the left.

The guys at the auto shop told me that they don't want to lose any street visibility, so I decided to plant the raspberries elsewhere.  The tops of the cinder blocks will be filled with compost/soil and brightly colored flowers will be planted.  In the bed itself will be perennial (year after year) all male Washington asparagus.  Yum!  Here's an after shot.

Let's rewind a little. Remember the reason why I asked the owner of the auto shop if I could take care of this little strip of land?  Don't worry, pop quiz over.  I asked if I could take care of it, because no one was.  There was trash and abandoned shopping carts laying around.  I decided to take this land and make it everything it could be.  Well today, I feel like I received a sign... literally.  There were four signs in fact.  I was digging the foundation for the planter box when I came across these four wooden signs.  They just sort off formed a sensible word in front of my eyes and it became my motivation.  Elevate or L-IV-8, any way you look at it, that's what I'm doing to my Sustainable Urban Farm!

15.  That's the number of cinder blocks I had left over.  Not wanting to give them away or take them back to the Deep (Home Depot), I decided to build an unusual planter box.  There's a weird pit just underneath the poster my kids made for the orange tree.  The neighborhood has decided to dump random bits of trash down there.  Since my lemon tree isn't bear enough fruit to make lemonade, I made lemonade out of the pit.  The extra cinder blocks stacked perfectly in front of the pit.  I will fill them with good soil and plant some dangling tomatoes or something beautiful and delicious.