We have a defined garden space now, thanks to the chickens. Chickens are very hard on garden plants, and they love tomatoes more than is good for them. Last year we just grew tomatoes with the chickens running free in the space. We had to fence off the tomatoes, and it made it hard to get to fruit in the center of the bed, through the bars. And the chickens kept trying to get to them. They stand there, beaks pointed at the sky (or the tomato they are going for), then they hop up, maybe using their wings if it is high. It’s almost cute enough to let them get away with it. This year we have a fence around the whole garden, and the chickens are offended that they are no longer welcome in there. I don’t blame them, but they have taken over spaces I hadn’t planned for them to, so it probably evens out somewhere.
Anyways, now that the garden has boundaries (I’m astonished that I feel this way), I have been able to decide where things will go, and how many beds we will have eventually, It’s all very exciting for me. I have been working on this garden for 8 years now? I started just cleaning out the horses’ stalls and putting the wheelbarrow loads on the ground and I let it sit till I got around to digging it up. I have had some success and even more failures.
I kill thyme. This year I went to the place I had planted it before and I looked and I looked but I just couldn’t find the thyme!! Same with mint. I kill it dead in less than a year. I did plant some black peppermint several years ago that seems to be migrating to where it is happier. Very little is remaining where I planted it. How exciting it is to see it coming up so many other places, after years and years of killing it all dead every time. I’m happy that this one feels free to move about. Granted, the area it is cropping up in is a pile of horse dookie that I haven’t turned under yet. I don’t know what will happen when I do turn the stuff I need to to create these gardens. Will I kill off this 5 year old dark, aromatic mint? I hope not!! I plan to leave plants in places where I can. I have also brought in more mints–chocolate mint, catnip, lemon balm, and a spearmint. What wonderful teas!! And I thought I saw where the bergamot was growing, but I couldn’t find it yesterday. Oh, and I got two more Corsican mint and planted them where they would be protected from the hottest part of the sun. This is on my list of usual murder victims. I keep trying, more and more intentionally as time goes by. Now that the garden is protected now, it makes it so much easier to do!! Woo Hooo!!
There is a bed that has been planted using the square foot gardening technique, and another that has been prepped with those ratios in mind. Those are where we planted our seedlings that we have gotten. We got some basil, parsley, rhubarb, jalapenos, and that might be about it. There is room for more!! I am experimenting with the distances between plants, like whether parsley belongs tightly together in 1 square foot or does each one need a foot? And Steve insisted that we get a dozen more tomatoes, so they got one of the beds themselves. We have gotten 3 more beds dug and mixed up with horse poo so that in a few months, or by next year for sure, the beds will be ready to be planted with something delicious!! I want to do 16 square feet of onions!! That’s 256 onions, give or take! How cool is that??!! Oh, and garlic!! Must have several places of garlic!! Some permanent!! And I have 5 kinds of lettuce, two heading varieties and 3 leaf lettuces!! Heck yeah!!
I’m an air force brat, so I never grew up with gardens, which are more a sign of stability and roots. I’ve read about gardening for 20 years. I’ve been preparing the soil and getting everything ready here for almost 10 years, and I have an endless supply of horse poop, and now chicken poop as well. Just having worms should make everything thrive, shouldn’t it? Even I shouldn’t be able to kill everything?
I have this keyhole that gets sun, hopefully more than 6 hours, for the raspberry bushes that need planting. There are wee baby plumlets all over both plum trees, although a lot are falling now,–Nature’s way of making sure they don’t over do it. They have been there four or five years. I just planted two pear and a tartarian cherry tree. I’m seeking a bing cherry tree to replace the other cherry I got that died. The fig has baby figlets started already. I found it fascinating that fig trees flower in the stem, and the figs come out fertilized and fruiting. I wonder what a fig flower looks like? Does it resemble a flower that opens the “normal” way? Is it one blossom, or is it a series of tiny ones that the plants juices flow over, doing the deed, as it were?
It’s very exciting to me to grow food for us. I’m newly able to, so I have those born-again, self-righteous images of what we’re doing. I want to create a homestead, not something to be sold off for lots, but a place that has value because of the food it produces just by existing. It even makes having livestock be a valuable part of the cycle. Everyone contributes to the whole, and receives from the whole. Also, I think this is my Scandinavian blood activating in me. I’ve been here long enough to have a history with the place, and now it’s time to make it more than just a house in the woods. It should provide and be provided for. Birds, bugs, plants, flowers, herbs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, critters, and us. We’re all neighbors, friends, and we depend on each other.
I want to grow some critters for food, like chickens and rabbits, maybe some sheep…a pig a year, I don’t think we have enough room, with two horses. I cannot remotely imagine selling the horses, so they are here for the duration. I have just been toying with the idea of moving to a place where my values are shared, my values as an artist and a writer, and my need to reconnect to the Earth and write about that. I’m surprised to feel this way, but I believe that it follows the path that leads to my dreams. Life is good!!
