gardenthoughts

our garden grows so fast ..  it’s hard to believe it’s been just seven days since i took pictures of it .. we’ve already been eating green onions, and little onion bulbs .. and for me, the days more or less flow one into the other .. full of abundance .. growing things all around me .. the veggie garden taking top spot, at the moment ..

here’s a shot i took last week ..

the beds in our neighbour’s yard  have lain (a word?) fallow for many years .. one after another, after another .. beds enfolded with falling leaves .. falling needles .. blackberry canes .. salmon berries .. years of decomposition .. the soil so fertile .. so ready to grow something again .. in comparison, the bed frank built this year is much less prepared to take the seed and nourish it in quite the same way .. that bed is just starting .. there’s topsoil, two or three bags of manure, and a few handfulls of organic fertilizer .. the seeds we’ve planted grew, but the lettuce was bitter almost right away .. beautiful to look at .. lovely little lettuces .. no sweetness to it, though .. a reflection of the substance of the soil ..the radishes, too, were small, and tight .. dense .. there isn’t the lushness that we see coming from the seeds grown in the beds planted after years of being filled with rich composted material .. they retain moisture more than the new bed, as well .. so, we’ll work on that new bed .. likely, we’ll fill it up with more manure, and plant fall rye later on in the year, to be dug in in the spring .. in the meantime, the lettuce and radishes have been relegated to the compost bin to make way for more squash ..

now, the tomatoes, on the other hand, growing in that rich, vital soil of the six recovered beds, reflect that richness present there .. the plants started forming tomatoes last week .. beautiful little guys ..

and the peas (my favourites) are beginning to get tendrils .. reaching up for something to climb on .. we transplanted some of the extra corn plants to the outside of the pea patch .. the idea being that at some point the corn will be able to support the twining pea vines .. we’ll see what happens .. a globe artichoke grows in the middle of the pea bed .. you can just see the tip of a leaf on the right .. since this picture, we transplanted four squash plants into the space between the peas and the artichoke .. in other words, we’re filling this bed chock-a-block full of veggies, and we’ll see how they make out ..

earlier in the spring, i bought a couple of four inch pots of basil from a local market .. there were six plants in each pot .. two of the big leaved sweet basil, two purple basil and two thai basil .. i took them home, put them by the garden shed, and then got back to them about a week later .. oh, i’d watered them in between times, but other than that they’d received little attention from me .. when i did return to them i began to think it would be better to leave them in their clumps, and transplant them into larger pots, rather than attempt to separate each plant from the other five .. i envisioned many roots entangled .. less stress for them, i decided, and plantedt them in two gallon pots .. and the basil never looked back .. we’ve been eating basil in sauces, and salads, and i’m about ready to start harvesting for pesto ..

and so our veggies grow .. won’t be long now until we’re eating peas ..

our gateway ..

the next step was cutting and putting up the pickets .. brad nails were used .. i’ve only recently been introduced to brad nails .. pop, pop, pop, pop, the picket is up, and on to the next one .. frank used a 2×4 as a spacer .. i find such practicality delightful, as i’m not so prone to it in my own nature .. this particular side of the fence is in our yard .. the bed frank built is just inside, and the rest of the beds are in our neighbour’s yard ..

across our end ..

over the next couple of days the fence began to take on a shape .. before long we’ll be walking through the garden gate into our garden  .. it already looks like such an inviting space to me ..

looking through ..

at one point, frank started making more pickets .. he figured out how many he’d need to finish and methodically made one after the other .. until he had 105 .. he laid them in bundles of 10 against this arbutus beside the garden .. waiting to be part of the fence .. all the wood he’s using comes from the beach, or from offcuts from a friend’s sawmill .. frank’s so fortunate that way .. he always ends up with the materials he needs to do what he has in mind to do ..

salvaged cedar for pickets ..

a couple of days later, a friend dropped by and he and frank proceeded to finish the fence .. and build the gates .. they started by putting up the remaining rails .. there’s a little jog in the fence because of a stump on the other side .. i like the jog .. it makes the space narrower, which seems just right .. there are radishes (on the diagonal) and lettuce growing already .. and look at the rhubarb .. it filled in all that space in no time at all .. lovely beast ..

it took a few more hours over two days to finish the fence .. two gates were built .. one for us, and one for our neighbour ..  the cedar is so light the gate simply lifts up and slides down inside wooden brackets that hold it in place ..

here’s a view from our neighbour’s end looking toward the rhubarb .. i love the sight of the sunlight on the cedar ..

and now, where there wasn’t a couple of weeks ago, there stands an enclosure for growing veggies .. how wonderfull .. i’m looking forward to what jewels might come from this newly created space ..