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!