Growing a Garden

It's been a minute since I wrote about gardens.  Maybe gardening--a slow and stumbling project in the best of times--hasn't been fully on my radar for a year or two.  My garden was always small.  There are couple or three raised beds containing herbs, mostly.  Also, over time I accumulated a massive number of pots...mostly for flowers and weeds.

Now we have a house that we plan on being at for a while.  Of course I do see the irony of the "temporary" parsonage lasting over two decades and--with all the factors of life--the real possibility that we will never live in another place as long.  Here though, I have "permission" of a sort to move things around and plant, not just for right now...but for an undisclosed future.

This area was a mass of various bushes. Next year...berries. You can see our neighbor's old Congregational Church--now a home--across the street.

This was almost impassable with growth. You see on the right, the beginning of the bushes that will be a berry patch.

With that in mind, I have been at work.  Mostly it has been "garden demo."  Many ornamental plants on the property have grown to stupendous size.  The owner before the woman we bought it from loved both lawns and gardens. He put in a number of flowering bushes--rhododendrons mostly--and some of them went feral in the intervening decade. 

​I totally get it, actually.  They are big and beautiful.  However, they were also filled with vines and absorbed a number of other bushes along the way.  I have been trimming some and removing others.  

One massive collection of bush and vine has been completely removed.  Next year I will use it for planting fruit.  I haven't completely decided between blueberries (high bush), blackberries, and raspberries.  That is OK.  The best time to plant them appears to be in late May.  I have a literal year. There are some wild black raspberries peeking out from some of the brambles, though.  When I find one I stake it...and try not to kill it as I thrash about. In any case--given the growth patterns of these berries--I am a good 24-36 months from a meaningful harvest.

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The raised beds and the crops that mostly moved with me from Natick. Also that hot bok choy.

There is a heat wave and a drought here.  This has presented its own challenges.  On the good side, my lawn can be maintained with a grass-whip and some spot mowing with my reel mower.  Reel mowers are what we call the motor-less contraptions of yesteryear.  Mine is made by Fiskar, an actual scissor company. 

This same drought has been hard on the two raised beds I managed to salvage in the move.  Really they are  more the spiritual descendants of the parsonage beds rather than the actual ones.  Each is a third new wood.  However the perennial herbs all survived the trip. Some--like the walking onions--are establishing a new generation while letting the old one pass.  Others need to be trimmed and either dried, or chopped and frozen...maybe next week.

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At some point in the past the Black Eyed Susans jumped their enclosure and made a move toward the driveway. We will keep them.

There are a lot of beasts about.  My kale basically feeds the local rabbit population, who have decided the bok choy is my portion. We have had a front-row seat to two different hatchings of two different families of small birds.  I am fighting a loosing battle with some yard-dweller about who gets to enter the compost bin that the previous owner left.  Now I just leave the little door open so they don't damage my plants.  Carving a human space in all this is a chore.  I knew it would be and--so far--I enjoy it more than not.

Anyway, that is where we are right now.  It took a lot of work but it doesn't seem to take much time to write about.  I have empty pots and big dreams.  I am reminding myself that I also have all the time in the world for this.  Nature moves slowly and so should I.  I should see whatever annuals are still about in the garden centers and bang them in the few pots that have soil.  Basil and parsley seem hard to find now, which is too bad.  I have space left over from harvesting choy. There is always, always spot-watering thanks to the heat.

I have ordered a better composter. This time it is one the critters may not figure out right away. Also, I have a lot of studying and watching to do. I have books and videos and sketches of what could be.  There is plenty going on at the church these days.  It is nice to have this other work that leads to its own kind of prayer.

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The mountain across the street from the perspective of the erstwhile berry patch.