A new garden and what to do with thinnings
I'd been stuck inside for too long. The sun came out two days ago and the temperature promised to soar above the 60 degree mark at some time that day. It was time to do something with dirt!
My new sockmonkey hat
It was still cold when I stepped outside what is presently the front door of our house. (Ergo the sock monkey hat.) That's the door that faces Page Springs Road. The one to which I've taped a sign that says "We can't hear you knocking. Please come around back". This door disappears in the remodel. Our new front door will be around back.
Sedona, thankfully not helping me
But for now, our present front door gives me easy access to the Lasagna garden (plundered by the raccoons but my herbs are doing great), and to the afterthought garden: my new salad bed. Why an afterthought? Because after I planted out the bucket garden I still had a couple of six packs of broccoli and a bunch of seeds. I stood at the front of the house, staring at this dead and long-empty planter bed with the sun warming my back and had an AH-ha moment. This stretch of ground was going to get the sun all day long, all winter long. Come summer, anything here will burn to a crisp, but not during the winter.
With that I started digging. I went down more than 12 inches, layered in 3 inches of horse manure, topped that with dirty chicken straw, topped that with some of the previous awful dirt and topped that with the last bag of compost. And planted.
I stuffed that sucker. There are peas at the back about every inch, Rouge d'Hiver lettuce down the middle, broccoli and spinach along the front. In between I spread Mesclun mix seeds from Botanical Interests and arugula and parsley and cilantro seeds. (The pot at the end of the picture has sorrel in it. I'm still learning how to use that, so for now it's just a a pretty plant.) And everything grew. More on that in a moment.
So, two days ago there I was with my sock monkey hat and a rake, meaning only to rake leaves when I realized I was missing a huge opportunity. It wasn't only that little afterthought garden that was getting the day's sun, but the whole length of wall that descends the dirt driveway that leads down to the pump house. It was time for a new garden.
My new garden. You can see the front of the greenhouse in the background
Out came the shovels. Six hours later I almost had a garden. I just layered my dirt on top of the piles of branches and debris I'd left there after cleaning out the space for the Lasagna garden. Some of it is already topped in chicken straw. The rest is going to get Starbuck's best…as soon as I can reach Cottonwood and plunder their trash can. The dirt I used actually came from the driveway/cart port that wall protects. (Cart port because Sam had an electric golf cart that he used to keep parked down there behind that wall.) Because that driveway is so much lower than everything else around it, it has collected leaves, runoff, organic debris and whatever else (no doubt plenty of Cadmium from the road but oh well, there's no avoiding that), and it's all composted over the years. Whatever else, it gave me something physical to do.
Now all it needs is something to keep it from collapsing all over the driveway…ROCKS! This is the last warm day for a while. It'll be me, the wheelbarrow and the pile of rocks.
It was as I was trying to avoid thinking about rocks yesterday that I looked down into the afterthought garden and realized how really overcrowded it was. The sun was warm, the kittens were playing along the garage doors and Sedona needed me to throw something so she could work off a little energy (thus sparing Webster and Burtie from being chased relentlessly; Billy refuses to let her chase him, running off to hide instead ). I sat on the edge of the planter and started thinning lettuce in between tossing Sedona's stick.
Tasty!
When I was done I had half a colander full of very infant lettuces and arugula. I considered giving the thinnings to the chickens then changed my mind. They were really good.
