Slow progress...

Back in November of last year, I decided to transform a small space in my mom's backyard into a garden.
With the holidays, and back-to-back dog-sitting jobs....it is still a work in progress.

Rains came, and by February, dirt had become grass.

(click on photo to enlarge)
You can see a small area on the left where I was starting to pull the grass out by hand.
Beneath and around this, however, is decomposed granite.
Rocks are everywhere.

Another view, from the right hand side.

All that brown twisty stuff is dead ice plant (or, as my family calls it, "pickle weed").

Still I had no time to work on it, so the grasses grew knee high, and the hillside was covered in flowering weeds.
My mom hired some guys to weed whack (for fire hazard, as well as to keep people from squatting on the property), but I asked them to leave my area alone.
Grass is easier to pull if it's long.

Another issue is my family's lazy habit of tossing green waste over the side of the hillside opposite this area.

Seriously, what were they thinking?
They weren't, obviously.
Yeah, it will decompose, but it takes a long long time, and this hillside is visible from the road.
Lame.

I started removing this stuff, but it was so time consuming that I went back to my garden area for now.
I removed all the grass, old ice plant, and the remaining blackberry bushes (so invasive, and nasty thorns).
Now, THE AREA IS CLEAR!, I am just waiting for my brother to show me how to use the rototiller.

I did plant an herb bowl with cinnamon basil and epazote, and dwarf peas (my dwarf peas are sprouting!).
I planted the back area of the garden space with Nigella (Love in a Mist) seeds, and I did artistic things with rocks.

More progress pics soon to come.
So so much more to do, but I'm getting there.