Oh, won't you be my neighbor?

So I'll admit it, LA's Urban Farm Girl is a bit of a myth ("lie" is a little strong for my ego.) Pull back the curtain and I'm not so much"girl" as 30 is knocking loudly and I grew up in the Valley (which by its own admission is a suburb of LA.) The Girl Scout in me would like to call this blog Adventures with the Valley's Suburban Farm (Almost) Woman.

A Brief History:
The San Fernando Valley stole water, thank you William Mulholland, to farm and build a community from nothing. A million things, ideas and people would get their start in this Valley including orange groves, Hollywood and this Urban Farm Girl. Growing up, I had the most amazing neighbors and someone's kitchen always smelled like cookies. We played baseball in the streets and rode bikes between pool hopping escapades in the summers. I can smell the peanut butter and chlorine now...

Present Day:
So the hero boyfriend and I live next door to these wonderful, domestic partnership-ish and possibly foreign (Italian?) middle age neighbors. They are sweet, type A folks who like to sweep the streets with borderline neurosis. This past Sunday the neighbor woman and I were chatting about the trees/bushes that separate our lawns and how she has plans to trim or reshape them soon. She was decidedly unsure of how to manicure her yard and, believe me, I was of absolutely no use in this conversation. However, I did share her sentiment on one thing...cubed bushes. While I was trying my hand at diplomacy she observantly shouted, "they don't want to grow that way!" I couldn't have agreed more and secretly cheered as she defended shrubs and bushes everywhere. That's right, real foliage have curves. I bonded with the neighbor, success.

Moving right along, the neighbor woman was witness to the sidewalk sowing that went down on Sunday and saw me again yesterday after work in the same spot where she had left me the day before. But now more than 24 hours had passed and my little patch of sidewalk looked unchanged. You see, the sidewalk soil is clumpy, it has the consistency of clay and the scent of failure. It seems there's no amount of chopping, hoeing, or stomping that will break it up. The ensuing conversation went like this,

Neighbor: "Wow!"
Urban Farm Girl (UFG): "Yeah, I know. The soil isn't so good here."
Neighbor: "No, it's not. It's ok, you can always try again."
UFG: "Yeah...Thanks."
Neighbor: "Good luck!"

End Scene.

So, she's wishing me luck (and offering some doubt) and I'll certainly take it. Thanks neighbor!
Below are pictures of me attempting to make the patch of sidewalk dirt into something vegefruitful.




Dear $7 bag of soil,
Please be magic.






















Confused, frustrated and saying a little prayer.