Evil Water is Falling Again

My plan for today was to continue clearing space for my herb garden. But it's raining. All day. See what I mean about weather not cooperating? If this was spring, I'd be worried about not getting seeds into ground on time.

I have already scaled back my garden plans. Not only am I have starting early, I'm trying to be realistic. I wanted these:

I pictured several whiskey barrel planters along the house, all filled with herbs. I could have lemon balm, three or four mints, lavender, sage, and I don't know what all else. But I don't own any planters like these. They are expensive. Even if I bought the plastic imitation barrels, I'd still be shelling out a good bit of money. I have this kind of planter:

I have six of them. My herbs won't know the difference.

As I debated how things would look with several long planters by the house, I realized I had another problem:

Once a month someone comes to read the meter. There is no guarantee he won't stomp all over my plants. The ideal solution would be not to have anything under the meter. Maybe I should lay down paving stones, create his own walkway, so his big clumsy feet stay out of my garden. It's not just the meter guy, if I ever have another land line phone, the repair will come straight to the telephone box. Every once in a while, either my landlord or myself needs to open the breaker box.

If the garden is now divided in half, does it really make sense to have all of it dedicated to herbs? How much am I really going to use anyway? I can't even decide what exactly I want to plant. Maybe the second half should be something else.

I decided on a rose bush because I already have mini roses around my porch. A full size rose will be a nice balance. There is a good possibility I can get a free bush because my father is always rooting cuttings. If I admire something in his yard, he'll give it to me. Roses need a good bit of nutrients. I have fertilizer makers on the eave of the house, right above the spot where I want to plant the rose. They're barn martins.

Barn martins (also called barn swallows) build mud nests against walls. They love open spaces where they can swoop down on insects. Barn martins leave an awful mess under their nesting sites, but because they eat so many bugs, I've never bothered to tear down their home. If their waste actually goes to use then I am benefited twice by letting them stay.

Here's the future garden site. In case you're wondering why I am clearing so much space for a container garden, it's because I have what I call 'sneaky grass.'

It took me a while to find a picture because I don't know what the stuff is actually called. It's the spindly grass on the right side of this picture. When I try to pull it up, it breaks in half. Everywhere it touches the ground, it forms roots, thus new plants. It grows really long and wraps around whatever is nearby. Since it lays on the ground, instead it growing up like normal grass, it doesn't really get cut by the mower. Several times I have used various weed control and this stuff always peers over the edge of the mulch/plastic/cardboard, then rapidly grows over it. I'm trying to eradicate as much as possible. But since it's raining today, I'm just reading and researching.