Unassuming Patch of Dirt

By Brian • 7 June 2016

So here’s this little patch of dirt that exists under our back steps.

I doubt other people who come to our house pay any attention to this insignificant patch. They walk up the steps right over it and never see it. It’s one of the most unnoticeable, unassuming portions of our exterior landscape. Nobody cares or pays it any mind. Why would they?

Naturally, I can’t stand it. It serves no real purpose and is completely worthless. These are the things it seems capable of doing:

  1. Growing weeds
  2. Attracting leaves
  3. Attracting Honey Bun wrappers

The little patch of dirt has therefore become a nuisance and must be eliminated. But what am I supposed to do with this thing? I could be heartless and just pour concrete over it, but I feel like surely this patch can somehow be put to good use. So I had some ideas. I’m not much of a lawn and garden kind of guy, so the ideas are probably horrible, but I thought I might think out loud for the purposes of collecting my thoughts, as well as entertaining you, my thoughtful readers!

  • Grow some vegetable that doesn’t need much sunlight – Something like lettuce or spinach might grow here. It’s perpetually in the shade, but greens don’t tend to need much sunlight. The only problem is that this dirt is incredibly rocky, and I tend to blow a lot of dust and yard clippings into this spot when I mow—it’s pretty difficult to avoid doing this. The vegetables will be covered in dirt and yard clippings all the time and taste terrible.

  • Mulch it – And maybe put some kind of pretty plant here that could thrive in the shade? I don’t know that it would add much noticeable attractiveness to the yard, but boy, it sure would be nice to look at any time I walk out of the basement door. But again, it would have yard clippings in it all the time and wreck the whole mulch aesthetic.

  • Add lava rocks, and some kind of wooden box or landscaping stones to contain them – Without a container, I will stick my lawn mower right in there and launch those lava rocks everywhere. Stay out of my yard when I’m mowing; I’ll run right over anything—trash, giant rocks, scraps of metal, even children. (But only if they’re not fast enough. I’m just in a hurry, not sadistic.)

  • Install a firepit – It’s the perfect plan. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

  • Install a hot tub – Pros: my wife would really appreciate it. Cons: seats one.

  • Kill a man and bury his corpse here – There may be just enough square footage here to accommodate one body, assuming there’s not a slab of concrete two feet below the dirt that I don’t know about.

  • Summon an interdimensional gateway – I don’t know where it will go or what might come out of it, but I hope they don’t mind if I dump used cat litter into their dimension.

I dunno. Maybe I’ll just leave it as it is.