Orchard Supply Hardware Woodland Hills Grand Opening March 21

When you think “home improvement store” you might not imagine this:

IMG_8441

But this is my favorite picture from a preview tour of the newest Orchard Supply Hardware, opening in Woodland Hills this Saturday.

IMG_8440

Since 1931 OSH has provided service to customers who are shopping for home improvement supplies and materials. This new 40,000 square foot location has a Workbench right inside the front door that is meant to help you even more: get things cut, windows and doors re-screened, keys copied, and more. The layout is friendly and the signage is quirky. There’s something lovely to look at wherever you turn.

orchard supply hardware woodland hills

IMG_8406

They even have a special aisle for “What-cha-ma-call-its.” After my own heart.

IMG_8407

The personal service extends, of course, to the staff. Everyone I met during the tour has been at the company for years, even for decades. They learn a customer service philosophy called C.A.R.E. that encourages them to not just help the customers but inspire them. A worker even did a little craft demo, inspired by Pinterest (she loves Pinterest) in the paint department.

IMG_8438

This is a wooden board painted with chalkboard paint and then festooned with knobs and stickers and outfitted to hang on a wall. Materials for this craft were provided in the gift bag that OSH sent home with the bloggers on the tour. Even though I am not crafty, I felt like painting something after walking through the store.

But my favorite part of the store is the nursery.

nursery

There is a certified organic gardener on staff who stopped what she was doing to answer my many questions – why is my cilantro dying? How best to nurture the nasturtiums I planted to attract aphids away from my magic kale? As eye-catching as the beautiful plants are, the nursery’s stars were its staff members.

The store will have its grand opening this Saturday starting at 6:30 AM. Instead of a ribbon-cutting they have a board-cutting with a chainsaw and everything. And the company will make a donation to a local charity in honor of this day. You’re probably working around the house this weekend anyway, so if you need some supplies, I encourage you to check out this beautiful new store!

Woodland-Hills

Vegetable Garden, Week 2

IMG_1561The herb section at Sperling Nursery

I just got off the phone with Nancy, who agreed to let me pick up a bag of horse manure from her farm tomorrow at 3:30.

Horse. Manure.

To think I could have simply purchased some from one of the kind gentlemen who has come calling in recent years

But I digress. This sorry (well, it is free, so there’s that) state of affairs is all due to the helpful worker at Sperling Nursery in Calabasas who convinced me to try a cockamamie sounding method of gardening that I had not ever considered before.

Cardboard.

I told him that my dirt patch is made of clay so I was thinking of building a raised bed. In truth, I was dreading that process, because of course I want to skip all the work and just have vegetables. But that’s called grocery shopping, and it’s what I’m trying to avoid, so work I must.

Richard suggested I place cardboard over my dirt, which worms just love – they come up through the soil, eat the glue and decompose the cardboard, and put nitrogen into the dirt and loosen up the clay. In a month, he said, I would have nice rich vegetable-friendly soil. I didn’t even have to wait that long, he said! I could cut holes in the cardboard and plant some legumes, which will leave behind nitrogen-rich roots after they are harvested (harvested! that sounds so farmlike!). I could also plant some hardy others, like kale and rosemary.

IMG_1570

So I did. That was that. I spent less than $10 on seedlings and took them home. I pulled the large boxes from Christmas shipments out of the garage and cut them open and laid them on the ground. I cut circles and used a Dora, the Explorer plastic trowel to hack shallow holes in the ground for the seedlings. I even discovered a papery clump of daffodil bulbs, one just starting to push out new shoots, and relocated them to the perimeter of the space.

IMG_1574

IMG_1568

IMG_1569My son hunted for earthworms under the old bricks and seeded the cardboard holes with them!

I wanted to get the plants into the ground before the rains came, and they soon did. The rain started Thursday night and continued through Saturday. Plenty of water to welcome my new kale, rosemary, and fava beans. (The chianti bush comes next.)

IMG_1571

IMG_1577

Richard advised that I get some manure and mix it with topsoil to spread upon the cardboard to enrich the soil and weigh the cardboard down so it doesn’t blow away.

And so off to the horse farm I will go. But I’ll make my husband actually deal with the manure. Gardening is gross, y’all.

Just Do It: Vegetable Garden

Okay, Agoura Hills. It’s time.

I’m going to take this gray, sad, lonely patch of dirt and turn it into a vegetable garden.

vegetable garden - before

Pros: growing my own vegetables! I am consuming a ton of vegetables now because I have changed my diet (long story, more on that some other time) and I think it would be convenient and possibly cheaper to just walk outside, pick a fresh bell pepper, and enjoy.

The kids could get into it with me. I’m not holding my breath, but I think they might like to help, and I know that in the past when we’ve grown tomatoes they have loved going outside every day to check on their progress.

It’s an outdoor activity that the whole family can enjoy.

And the satisfaction of knowing I did this myself would be wonderful.

Cons: This spot is right where the boys throw their footballs, baseballs, etc. Baby vegetable plants can get trampled!

backyard wide

Cost could possibly be an issue. The soil has not proved to be the most hospitable for growing vegetables. In the four years we’ve been here, we’ve managed to grow some sad little tomatoes and a bitter cucumber or two. Right now there are two citrus trees fighting for a permanent home – a blood orange and a kumquat.

side of yard

I’m kind of lazy. I can totally see myself planting vegetables and then getting sick of all the work and saying “screw it” and giving up, leaving the work to my husband, who enjoys yardwork and gardening, but he has enough on his plate already, and besides, this was my idea.

So, this could be a great and bountiful thing for us, or an epic fail. I don’t even know where to start. I’m sitting here Googling “How to start a vegetable garden.”

LOL.

Do you have any advice for me?