#43 Planning Our Garden
Time to put the holidays behind us because we have to start planning our garden. Actually, the holidays aren’t quite over. Due to sickness around Christmas, we had to push our family celebration into the new year. Mike and Harley are bringing Teddy down from Maine. They will be joined by Chris, Jenn, Liam and Patrick for the madman’s family celebration.
We packed away the trinkets and do-dads, but since the tree came from the madman’s collection of conifers, he is afraid to put it out into the cold. It may live with us for another month or so. We need to keep it cool and watered. Since we don’t know its state of dormancy, the madman is afraid to put it back outside. We haven’t seen any signs of life, but we don’t want to put the tree in any danger. We’ll play the waiting game.
Time to Get Going
But, our upcoming celebration aside, it is January now and time to start planning our garden. We like to do several walk arounds in the garden. Our final walk-around before winter hits ensures that everything is tucked away for the cold season. During the winter, we like to wander through the dormant landscape—partly to inspect and partly to brainstorm for the upcoming season. This year the above normal temperatures made our strolls a little more pleasant. We even had cocoa in the treehouse one day.
Spotting Needed Repairs
During our winter strolls we identify sections that need work before the growing season. The madman calls this his Gardening Resolutions 2020; I call it the good old planning our garden. Let’s start in the vegetable garden. The madman has noticed a few broken irrigation pipe connections. It’s too cold now, but we’ll have to fix them before we need water in the beds. This may require a discussion with master gardener Tom Kalal on the best way to do it. We’ll straighten a few supports when the ground finishes its freeze-thaw cycles. Our strolls take us past the folly, brambles and behind the new cactus bed. The madman has found grapes, brambles and pear trees that need pruned. He knows that this is normal maintenance that is still too early to start.
Leaving Things Natural
I particularly like wandering around the beds and meadow area because this is the first year we have left plants in their natural winter state; no cutback. Other than routine straightening of posts used as hose guides there isn’t much to do here. We always stand at the old cactus bed for a while. The madman has spotted some timbers that have started to rot. The trees surrounding this area are growing, actually that’s why this is the former cactus garden (too much shade). The madman is not sure what we’ll want to do with this area in the future. His mind is throwing around ideas, and I know something will emerge. No time to worry about it now, so we always move on.
The back beds look pretty cool. I like the dead flower heads and apparently so do the birds. But this year, I have noticed that the pavers surrounding the beds are sinking into the ground. We will have to raise them up in the spring – not a major task, just time-consuming. The maintenance walk-arounds this year have been pretty low-key. Great, we won’t spend a lot of time on maintenance, so we switch to a discussion of bigger projects. We like to make a couple of major changes each year to keep the garden fresh.
Time for a Change
Over on the side, next to the driveway we have a couple of trees to deal with. In the late 1990s we spent a lot of time at Farmington High School because of kids’ activities. A bunch of Locust trees that lined the parking lot were being cut down for a school expansion. The madman gathered some seedpods and started growing Locust trees – remember, he has always had a fascination with seeds. He planted a couple of the trees in a small bed next to the driveway. They took off. When the trees were small, it was pretty cool. We thought we would enjoy the reminder of all the time spent at the school. Fast forward to now, some 20 years later – the trees are overgrown with vines. We have to clean up the area.
Most of the vines are English Ivy and Wisteria, but somehow a Bittersweet snuck in. In our current thinking of planting native, none of these belong even though the Wisteria is beyond gorgeous when in bloom. So, the plan is to cut the Locust trees branch by branch, taking the vines with them. We expect to be left with two straight tree trunks that will form the framework of our future night garden. It is still in early planning stages, but we know for sure moonflowers will be growing on trellises.
Planning our Night Garden
Between the trunks, we’ll need a garden bench – the specific details of the bench haven’t been exactly worked out. The bench will be rustic and most likely made from found materials. Speaking of found materials, a couple of years ago during a wet spot of weather, a long 4×4 wooden beam floated down the brook and got stuck by the bridge. The madman dragged it out and it has been sitting on the floor of the woodshed ever since. He has been dying to sink this into the ground someplace and grow vines on it. I wondered why he bought that post hole digger, now I know. By the time the ground thaws we’ll have the Locust trunks ready, then the project really starts. We will need to have it ready for planting in the spring.
2020: the Year of the Vine
While we were talking about this 4×4 beam, the madman happened to mention that he has been saving some large, straight logs that he would also like to set in the ground. “This is 2020 – the year of the vine,” he announced. At one time, he figured the treehouse would provide all the vine supports he would need. But the Hops serve as host plants to a number of insects and the Morning glories attract a variety of insects and hummingbirds with their nectar – no room for anything else. So he began collecting logs.
To you this may not sound like a major project in the offing, but to me it sounds like I had better find a place in the garden for a bunch of tall logs and I have to find a way to make them look like a cohesive unit instead of just a bunch of logs stuck here and there in the ground.
Let’s Make a Shelter Out of Vines
We aren’t done with our hashing, but we do have a solid idea. He wants vine supports, I want a shelter that my grandchildren can sit in. You see where this is going, right? That’s why we work so well together. He comes up with a crazy idea and I have to make it workable. We might need Bill to make sure it is structurally sound – after all this CAN’T cave in. The more I think about it, the more I think it may replace something I saw last summer on our way home from Craters of the Moon. Scattered along the Idaho countryside were what looked like buildings buried in the ground – mounded root cellars for potatoes.
Since then I have been looking for a place to put one on our property – slight problem, our land is fairly flat and has a high water table. I can’t dig deeper than 2’ without hitting water. I can’t dig down, and forget making a high enough mound to create a “root cellar.” A tri-pod vine-house may be just the thing to take my mind off my cozy root cellar. I have to revisit my idea folder; I think I saw something at Longwood Gardens that might help me.
So, it looks like we have two major garden projects to hash out. The madman will carry in another bag of wood pellets for the stove and I’ll heat the milk for the cocoa. Once we’ve planned the hardscape, we’ll think about the seeds.
But, first things first, the the cocoa is ready.
