The Compost Bin

I bought three alpine strawberry plants this year and planted them in a stone planter that the previous owners of my house used as some sort of water garden. The stone looked great but the rusty metal bin with odd looking underwater lightbulb housing turned it into an oddity. The electrical line that powered this monstrosity didn't work anymore and was buried underneath a concrete patio. So something had to be done to make it look a little nicer.

After filling it with sand and adding some river rocks it then became a zen garden complete with some small wooden hand rakes that I bought at the dollar store. I had visions of sitting outside and raking nice tracks in the sand like a monk. Definitely much nicer than the mess that preceeded it. But the zen garden didn't last long because the rain turned it back into a water garden or actually a mud garden.

Then after a brief stint as a stick garden, we now have strawberries growing there. The sand underneath the 4 inches of compost that I added provides decent drainage so the zen garden wasn't a complete waste. The monks would be proud.