Lift Off! Seed Starting and other things.

It took an act of faith and some serious rearranging to accomplish this weeks goal.

With the weather so cold and unpredictable I realized I couldn't trust the hoop house to act as a cold frame for seed starting this year. And with the house heaters not able to stand up to the job I knew my usual spot in the living room simply couldn't be trusted. My living room/office space is just too cold this winter so I decamped to the kitchen where I set up my laptop and my space heater. The living room simply has too many drafts and the cost of heating that room to a suitable temperature for both me and my seeds was far too exorbitant. 

Ah but the kitchen!! It's small, it's air tight and there's that great spot on top of the refrigerator. But I was using it for storage, so I had to move a great deal of items. Then there was a question of the light, it's in a very dark corner, so a of cup hooks  and some daylight bulbs and I was ready to go. Between the heat from the back of the fridge and and the rising heat from the rest of the room, temps were good. So the trays went up. And today, only 5 days later we have lift off!

These are tomatoes and leeks. And below in my very sophisticated milk jug system are sweet peas. The seet peas were really just a test to see if the seeds were viable but now I have consider where they are going to go. I'll have to build a tee pee for them

I'm very happy but I'm even more delighted by what I saw when I went out to move more wood chips:

Yes! My first crocus of the year! Considering that my landlord dug up this area to plant some monks grass, I am thrilled to see even one crocus never mind two.

Wood Chips permaculture and camoflage

So my biggest dilemma in turning this space into a full fledged garden is that there is a tremendous amount of grass, and even worse, kudzu that has been growing over the area for years. The good news is that there is a fifty foot pin oak that has been dropping it's leaves on this space for over thirty years. Underneath the mat of grass and kudzu vines is a rich humus. I need to kill off and control all this overgrowth in order to make the most of this rich organic material.

Permaculture to the rescue. As luck would have it, adjacent to my old community garden, a tree removal company was cutting down two old maples. I approached them and asked them what the were going to do with the wood after they were done. They were going to chip it and cart it off to the city
and pay them to dispose of it. I gave them a better option. They chipped it and left it all in a pile next to my old garden.

It's hard to tell there but the pile is about 3 feet high and 15 feet by 15 feet. Fantastic!

I have been hauling it off ever since and depositing it in my new space.  And so my adventure with permaculture begins.

What exactly is permaculture? Well it's a philosophy of working with nature rather than against it.  It can apply to agriculture and architecture and strives for sustainability. For instance, instead of using pesticides, establish healthy plants that can withstand and repel pests on its own. Use companion planting to assist in repelling pests while attracting beneficial insects.

In my case the wood chips are going to smother and starve the grass and kudzu. Right now I'm laying it out to define the paths while leaving my leaf and compost piles exposed. The leaf and compost piles will make up the vegetable beds while the decomposing wood chips will tie up any nitrogen that might feed the kudzu and grass. Eventually the wood chips will break down,with the aid of the worms attracted to them, turn to soil and release that nitrogen. At that point I'll utilize the soil in my beds and start the process over again.

I have to move a great deal of chips by wheel barrow and bucket and it's putting a lot of strain on my back. But by doing a bit every day I've managed to move almost half the pile.

That's Dingus my tortie cat in the middle picture. She's loving having a new place to blend in, Camoflage is her specialty.

I plan to use many permaculture practices in this garden, going organic seems a no brainer considering that this is virgin territory so to speak.  If you have a hankering to learn more about permaculture there is a wonderful documentary on it called "Back to Eden" and can be found here. http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/ As I see it permaculture and organic gardening are a passion.

Snow

Well it just keeps getting crazier and crazier.

This is what I woke up to:

 Very pretty, very scenic. But not good for composting!!! Grrrrrrr. However catching Sophie The Monster finding out that some other cat has been  in her garden was very amusing!

Frozen!

It's cold here!!!

For the first time since I arrived here nine years ago we are having two weeks of consecutive freezing temperatures!

The compost piles are stalled. It's just too miserable out there with the windchill to really do any work.

All  my buckets are frozen and the hoop houses are just barely keeping my greens alive.

Normally this time of year here in the Piedmont I hope be noticing buds and small flowers on the forsythia. The first crocuses would be popping up and the daffodils wouldn't be blooming but their stalks would be climbing fast.

Not this year. Even the weeds are struggling. My plans are stalled. So what is an overeager gardener to do?

Watch TV!!!

Netflix to the rescue!!

I'm getting my garden on by watching the wonderful British TV show, Rosemary & Thyme.

These two ladies, Rosemary Boxer, a trained horticulturalist and her friend Laura Thyme, a retired police officer, run a business refurbishing and rescuing abandoned gardens. While solving murders! Where ever they go bodies turn up, usually in their garden spaces. Not  the type to let the police do their work, Laura and Rosemary stick their noses in places they don't belong, question people they shouldn't be approaching and disturb evidence in their quest for justice and good compost. People should be afraid to hire them as invariably a relative or friend winds up dead and even the employers are not above suspicion. It's a wonder they ever get paid for their services!

No honestly I love this show. They visit beautiful locations and gardens. They've been to medieval gardens, walled kitchen gardens, cascades, allotments, cemeteries, all sorts of places. They delve into plant disease and exotic varieties and  it's all just enough for me to get  my very needed gardening fix this winter.

So if you need a fun gardening lift, give Rosemary & Thyme a chance. The scenery is beautiful.

 

The Plan

As luck would have it the news of the loss of my community gardening spot came at the end of the 2013 growing season. Just as the temperature dropped, the days got shorter and plants were concluding their production, construction on the house began and I had to face the reality of my situation.

But this gave me the idea of starting my secret garden. And knowing that I would need two months to move all my paraphernalia, it led me to decide that I should start my project in January. This pleased me greatly because my favorite gardening show for all time is the spectacular Victorian Kitchen Garden produced in the 80's for the BBC2.

This series followed the incomparable master gardener, Harry Dodson, as he managed a walled Victorian Kitchen garden at Chilton Foliate. The format of the series was month by month and he started with January, where he demonstrated the preparations that went in to the soil, seed selection and formulating a plan for the entire season.

So in honor of the late Harry Dodson I decided to start in January.

If you've never seen this program catch it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOF49wIxDrA

January 24, 2014 Welcome!!

Welcome to Mrs R's Secret Garden's first blog post.

Let me introduce myself. I'm an experienced gardener in zone 7 without appropriate gardening space.

I share a yard with another duplex mate and her dog. Because of this I cannot completely control my gardening space to suit my needs. As a renter in the past ten years I have had 3 gardens that have been destroyed by people who's needs and interests superseded mine. The painting of a fence was the first horror. The landlord's worker took no notice of the border garden's perimeters and mowed it down in order to access a fence for painting.  I was disappointed by carried on. Next a house mate decided to take some bulbs with her when she moved. Her sister misunderstood her instructions and dug up the entire garden. Sigh.

My next location was the rental I am currently in. The dog presents a problem because of her digging and the lovely treats she leaves behind. And the garden in front and on my verge was dug up when my landlord needed to refinanced this house and decided to make it more like suburban landscaping than the free form flower and vegetables I had been pursuing. I watched in despair as his workers removed two huge mats of creeping jenny that had taken 3 years to spread. My dianthus plants followed next, replaced with four inches of bark mulch.

But all was not lost. I had a community gardening patch just around the corner from my house. As one of only two community members I had a great deal of space. 23 different varieties of vegetables and herbs in rich soil I spent two years developing and cultivating. A bounty.

But I face another disappointment. The land for this garden is being sold for houses. One is half constructed and encroaching on my allotment. I may get one more year out of it but that is risky.

But all is not lost for me. Because two doors down from my house is the new location for my next garden.

A secret garden.

You see the city I live in made plans for an alley which they subsequently abandoned. 30 years ago.The land lies next to my next door neighbor and a rental property owned by a local ministry. It belongs to no one. The city doesn't care for it. It's too small for anything to be built on it and neither neighbor has any desire  to pay taxes on a piece of property that is beyond their fences and useless to them.

So I'm going to build a garden on it. An urban guerilla garden of sorts in the form of a formal English garden. It's blocked from view by a large ornamental grass on the south side, some bushes on the north side and fences on the east and west sides. It's about the size of a small British allotment and has 7 to 8 hours of direct sunlight passing over head.

Month by month I am going to tackle this project. There are a few restraints. I can spend almost no money on it. I don't have much at any rate and because I don't own the property I am reluctant to invest mush cash on it. But also I am very adept at finding supplies for either nothing or very little. I have all my tools and notions and potions and seeds and I will trade with other gardeners for plants. I don't expect to accomplish a completely bountiful garden in just years time. There will be set backs and mistakes.  I expect 2015 will be when I truly see the results from my effort.

Please,join me in my new adventure!