I cut my finger pruning today, I was so eagerly (and glovelessly!) trimming the garden in the front yard and it was especially dangerous with Chas underfoot. Nothing serious, just a battle scar, a merit badge for my work. It felt invigorating to trim the seeded grasses and the long, thin dead stalks off the perennials; not unlike the liberation I feel whenever I have a thorough haircut and bound out of the salon, leaving piles of medium blonde locks on the floor behind me staring up at the ceiling like fish beached after a red tide.
I was surprised to find tiny green veins thriving inside much of last summer’s dried stalks. Seeing this as I explored each plant gave me all the hope I needed to dream of starting another garden this Spring with the kids. I thought of the new book I bought myself for Christmas, still waiting for me to put it to use: Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy. Not for lack of inspiration, I bought the book to validate my eccentric enthusiasm about growing gnome-infested theme gardens and cultivating what land we’ve got to best use. Thinking of ideas, I took all the clippings and reduced them further, sprinkling them over the soil like little golden confetti.
While I dream of having another vegetable garden, we don’t have the means to create a large plot. We haven’t enough graded, sunshine-filled yard or protection from the deer and we sure don’t have the backhoe we’d need to cultivate a righteous bed atop the kaliche. But we have the perfect woods for little surprises, and a corridor between the house and the forest for a fragrant moonlight garden path (we had a resident bat last year). There’s room for a teepee, and I already purchased the heavenly blue morning glories for the tarp, and Mexican Sunflowers to play off the blue and create a haven for swallowtails. In fact, I am thinking of planting the entire meadow beside the driveway in a swath of yellows and white, a sort of homecoming parade.
As far as our land goes (where we are building, down the road), I still have to research rainwater harvesting, although I’ve been putting this off knowing full well that I’ll need a couple thousand to build a cistern, irrigation system and fence. Thinking ahead to another long hot summer, shopping for new fridge easily trumps those plans.
I’m sorry to hear you hurt yourself, but it gave you time to reflect on the beautiful garden plans you so eloquently described. Thank you for the book reference.
Oh, the book is a great treat. There’s another book by the same author that I also love, called “Sunflower Houses” or something like that. I was leafing through it the other day at Barned and Noble while the kids played trains. It really entertained the little girl in me.