Not Your Mom's Ashtray

So I had this herb garden that I built completely out of recycled wood and word got out about it and some friends of mine asked me to included it in an art show. Sweet, I thought. No one's ever asked me to put anything in an art show. Andrew and Val even offered to pick it up and transport it in their truck. On the way there it fell apart in the back of the truck. Bummer, right?

Well Andrew offered to let me rebuild it at their studio, since I had enough recycled wood to re-create another herb garden. Here are some of the photos from that day.

Since I had more of everything, in a sense, plus the proper space to build in, the new box came out wayyy better. By the time this happened I had accumulated much more wood to start with. Plus it was better quality. The first box was made of plywood and brads. Not strong, plus it was poorly designed. Thanks Andrew for the screws! I had some of my own, but this contribution came in really handy.

Funny story about the paint. Back in June of 2009, Mel and I were packing up to move. To find boxes, we drove around a couple of times a week behind big stores and strip malls. One Saturday morning we scoped out this huge Asian shopping area on the corner of Story and McLaughlin. It felt weird to me, so I drove and made Mel go into the dumpster compounds looking for boxes. After the second one I asked, "so did you get any boxes?" "Nope but I got some paint!" So anything that needs to get painted, gets painted with this paint. Would you believe that it matches our house? It's a little darker, but our house is orange with green trim.

The original herb garden box started off with "Not Your Mom's ASHTRAY" painted on one side. I did this because Mel and I are always making "your mom" jokes and because I didn't want people who might be partying at our house to put their cigarettes out in our herb garden. On another side I painted "TASTE ME". On the front I painted "Herbage" and on the back, Mel's idea, "Spice Up Your Food With Love, Add Me".

One of the problems I had was with the soil and unfortunately that carried over into the exhibit. Around the time that I built this box, a friend of mine dug out some of his basement. I didn't realize at the time that, duh! this dirt is mostly clay. I had some major drainage problems. Plus another friend had over watered it while we had been on a road trip a couple of weeks earlier. The exhibit lasted for 2 or 3 weeks. When I Mel and I put the dirt back in while setting up the box at the gallery, we put a layer of rocks and tried to take out chunks of clay, while mixing in dry, fertile soil. Still no bueno. Most of our herbs made it through the show and made it through the replanting of the box. After the show, I took out all the dirt again and put it back in small layers in order to let the soil dry out.

Since then, only the Italian flat leaf parsley and the chives managed to survive. The tarragon, sage, pepper plants, garlic chives and thyme all passed. However I have since replanted other herbs and plants. Right now I have spinach coming up and looking good. The drainage issues seemed to be resolved and recently with the storms that have moved through the bay area, have had a healthy amount of water.