Gardening bug gone mad
Gardening is slowly consuming my life.
It started out small with a few journals and memoirs of life on small farms, from Tuscany to Kentucky.
Then I began learning about companion planting, composting, permaculture, urban homesteads, living walls, green roofs, gray water, landscaping, seed saving, soil improvement, creating habitats for beneficial insects and birds, and getting back to basics.
A trip to a nearby nursery, where less than $20.00 bought a cart of herbs ready to be planted; a browse through online seed catalogs rareseeds.com and seedsavers.org, where $30.00 bought years of potential food; and our house became a depository for seed catalogs and ever more books.
My angel-man built me two raised beds in which to plant the fun new toys I'd acquired and the game was on.
This is my first year actually trying to garden--doing more than just giving dollar store seed packets to my children to dig and dump where they choose. In my two beds, I've planted 4 different types of tomatoes, a dozen edible flowers, celery, chard, arugula, spinach, ground cherries, sunberries, watermelon, Amish muskmelon, strawberries, lettuce mix, and assorted herbs.
I've expanded this to some container plantings of high-sugar cherry tomatoes (Aria's own garden), plus sugar snap peas along a portion of the fence line (and I think some cucumbers, too,) a wildflower line along another portion of the fence, and some strikingly colored sunflowers in a back corner.
Mind you, right now my garden, such as it is, is the stuff of which hopeful dreams are woven. Little green sprouts and shoots, and at least one half grown tomato plant, are visible in both beds, all containers, and the random fence line plantings I've done. Some meager little peas are struggling up the fence and slowly gaining strength now that they're no longer forgotten.
Not at all deterred, I'm now dreaming up a full permaculture for the front yard -- a glorious multi-layered, multi-season edible garden with bench and birdbath, herbs and flowers (and milkweed prairie plants) to attract beneficial birds, butterflies for the girls to watch that won't be tempting to said birds' appetites, and some companion plants for the trees on the sidewalk strip down in front as well. Why waste time, water, energy and fuel on maintaining a lawn that looks like a putting green when some healthy labor on my part will establish a self-supporting ecology that no-one should mow?
Shhh...don't tell Jesse. He'll think I want to do it all RIGHT NOW, spending a great deal and asking much of him. Truth be told, I'd rather go slowly, in small steps done all by myself, endure the inevitable ribbing and criticism for the next couple of years and ultimately enjoy the effect with my beloved down the line.
It started out small with a few journals and memoirs of life on small farms, from Tuscany to Kentucky.
Then I began learning about companion planting, composting, permaculture, urban homesteads, living walls, green roofs, gray water, landscaping, seed saving, soil improvement, creating habitats for beneficial insects and birds, and getting back to basics.
A trip to a nearby nursery, where less than $20.00 bought a cart of herbs ready to be planted; a browse through online seed catalogs rareseeds.com and seedsavers.org, where $30.00 bought years of potential food; and our house became a depository for seed catalogs and ever more books.
My angel-man built me two raised beds in which to plant the fun new toys I'd acquired and the game was on.
This is my first year actually trying to garden--doing more than just giving dollar store seed packets to my children to dig and dump where they choose. In my two beds, I've planted 4 different types of tomatoes, a dozen edible flowers, celery, chard, arugula, spinach, ground cherries, sunberries, watermelon, Amish muskmelon, strawberries, lettuce mix, and assorted herbs.
I've expanded this to some container plantings of high-sugar cherry tomatoes (Aria's own garden), plus sugar snap peas along a portion of the fence line (and I think some cucumbers, too,) a wildflower line along another portion of the fence, and some strikingly colored sunflowers in a back corner.
Mind you, right now my garden, such as it is, is the stuff of which hopeful dreams are woven. Little green sprouts and shoots, and at least one half grown tomato plant, are visible in both beds, all containers, and the random fence line plantings I've done. Some meager little peas are struggling up the fence and slowly gaining strength now that they're no longer forgotten.
Not at all deterred, I'm now dreaming up a full permaculture for the front yard -- a glorious multi-layered, multi-season edible garden with bench and birdbath, herbs and flowers (and milkweed prairie plants) to attract beneficial birds, butterflies for the girls to watch that won't be tempting to said birds' appetites, and some companion plants for the trees on the sidewalk strip down in front as well. Why waste time, water, energy and fuel on maintaining a lawn that looks like a putting green when some healthy labor on my part will establish a self-supporting ecology that no-one should mow?
Shhh...don't tell Jesse. He'll think I want to do it all RIGHT NOW, spending a great deal and asking much of him. Truth be told, I'd rather go slowly, in small steps done all by myself, endure the inevitable ribbing and criticism for the next couple of years and ultimately enjoy the effect with my beloved down the line.
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