Shiny floors, gardening

Last week the office/sewing area was cleaned out. Miraculously, it still looks pretty clean, despite sewing projects and moving furniture to continue painting that lovely pub green on the walls. J's color choice. This week the shed area (dining room) was cleaned up, as well as the thicket out front.
It's nice to see our shiny floors. I'd say there is no storage space in these old houses, but the apartment we just moved from, built in 1915, had 3.5 closets the size of our current bathroom. We're not really messy people, but our only box-worthy storage space is the attic, average humid temp of 103, and the closet with the attic door.








There was a tree under the vines! And I'm elated that the trash collectors picked up all that extra tree in one visit. We're only allowed as much rubbish as will fit in a pickup truck bed. And everyone 'round here should know how much stuff you can cram in a pickup bed. Are we talking Nissan? Dodge? Half-cab?

It seemed that much of the ungroomed tree was old suckers, which I didn't cut away because then we'd have no tree.

Then I planted 4 broccoli, onions, 6 pinto beans and 4 zucchini. I'm worried that it might not be cool enough for broccoli yet; spinach doesn't grow well down here because of the warm temperatures, in containers or otherwise. I bricked in the compost pile because dog-walkers could see rotting melons and tomatoes from the street, mmm, and continued with the shredded cypress mulch. I've heard it's better than eucalyptus chips; its shredded state doesn't harm plant stalks and eucalyptus somehow retards growth, which you'd want for your weeds but not for the useful plants. Plus, it's cheap (I'd get the free stuff but where do we have space to dump a pile of mulch?). Most landscaping companies around here use cypress. I gave up on the aluminum flashing edging, it wouldn't stay straight, and bought black plastic edging instead. In the butterfly garden (the grave-shaped plot closest to the fence where the bags are) will be strawflower, some sort of bushy shrub with red stems and white flowers that bees like, and sweet potato vine, amongst other plants as soon as I can make up my mind. Someday it will all come together. I'm just making it up as I go. More and more, I'm thinking, why not get a professional consultation? Or at least try a rental tiller.