Spring is trying to squeeze its way through the cracks in the clouds and I am here to say that our garden is halfway planted.
I know, I said no more gardens until we have our own place... I guess this is an exception. We are trying to go about it as cheaply as possible, though. So far we've spent only about $50 and unless I buy any starts, it will probably stay at that. I'm trying not to buy any starts (unless they're peppers? maybe I'll be some pepper starts?) because I'm trying to be a little less serious about the garden this year. It's the first time we've had a garden in a few years, and it's a house we hope not to be in for more than one summer (fingers crossed, we can buy a place of our own in the fall!).
Still, we couldn't resist scalping the noxious weeds in the back corner and putting in some terraced beds, using cribbing cut from the downed branches we got after winter and spring storms. And I discovered a completely grown-over flower bed in the front that I likewise weeded and scalped and reestablished the bricks that edge it. And I made a little raised bed behind the bedroom window that I anchored the trellis in so that I can have a "green screen" of privacy and peas out my bedroom window this summer. Jack thinks I won't like the darkness, but I think it will add a green tint to the light and make it so that I don't really have to lower the blinds ever. This "bean trellis" plot, as I call it, has been planted already with peas, sunflowers, poppies, and marigolds. And in another couple weeks or so I'll plant some runner beans there as well, I'm thinking (hence my calling it the bean trellis).
The front flower bed, which is already home to a flock of irises, some peonies, a rosebush, and a lone daffodil, has now been planted with sunflowers, poppies, carrots, onions, tatsoi greens, mustard greens, and basil seeds. Today I started soaking some bush beans to add to that garden by the end of the week as well. It may be a bit overcrowded for the space, but I don't think that the soil has done much besides grow grass for the last decade so I it won't be too crazy to flood it with flowers, root veggies, leafy greens, and bush beans!
In the back corner we've got three terraced beds, thanks to Jack's handiwork, and I spent a portion of the day going at it with the "Blister Maker" (hand rototiller tool) and working in some amendment for the clay soil. I'd be planting today, but the post office is holding our roll of weed-blocking paper (a much more palatable alternative to the black plastic that most places sell) hostage until we pick it up from behind the counter. In the past, I've put that roll down and then dumped tons of soil on top of it, but I'm trying to be cheap here! So we're using the soil that's there, plus a little amendment, and putting the weed blocker on top to keep the ivy, blackberries, and dead-nettle at bay. Then I'll plant it with all my leafy greens, more onions, carrots, beets, and perhaps some squashes or watermelons if I'm feeling frisky. (Our neighbor thinks it can't be done, which of course makes me want to try all the more!) I'll cut holes in it wherever I place my seeds and hopefully it will keep my weeding efforts to a minimum in those beds this year. Which is a good thing, because I've got my work cut out for me when it comes to plant destruction here.
What little yard this house has on two sides is bounded by a slope up to a road. It's thoroughly overgrown, a proper little woods. But it's also completely overrun by English ivy, the plague of the Northwest (and elsewhere - an acquaintance here tells me that in her homeland of Argentina they call it "yuyo"). This most noxious of noxious weeds grows up and around living trees until it chokes them to death. We have many large trees around us that I would prefer not to die and drop limbs on our little house while we're here, so I am making it my business to make an effort at reclamation.
I've started by following the internet instructions and hacking away at the vines which go up the trees, disconnecting the upper levels from their nutrient source. Eventually these untethered vines will supposedly whither and die. We'll see if it's true. Further reading on the noxious weed material put out by the state says that, once dried out, ivy won't reestablish. So I think that a good portion of my time this summer will be spent rolling up carpets of ivy and leaving them to dry on a tarp in the sun. I would love to invest in some native plants to help encourage a take-back, but it is hard to spend that kind of money and tlc on something which is not your own and which you don't plan on seeing through a second growing season.
So that's where things stand in the realm of growing things. I will have my work cut out for me, in spite of my attempts at keeping it small. I will be thanklessly reclaiming woods from the tendrils of an evil invader vine, keeping flower beds weeded and watered while harvesting a bounty, and perhaps encouraging the growth of the volunteer strawberries I recently noticed on the part-shade side of the house... It's a good thing that even in April we already have daylight to 8:30 p.m. because I'll have lots of time to work on all this!
P.S. - I haven't forsaken the garden tower. It's got an active vermiculture going in its central column, still, and currently I have two levels of dirt in it. I'm debating if I would like to buy some soil and fill it up more (or all the way). At this time, I'm considering just keeping it at two levels, maybe adding a third if I'm feeling it, and using it to grow my nightshades, since it will be nice and toasty warm. But as of yet, no planting in there. I've got to figure out what my best course of action will be.
Until next time!
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