It grows quite well thank you

Last year when I was not living here full time yet, I had dreams about how the outside space could be cultivated and made beautiful. And now that I live here I have gotten the opportunity to start making our outside spaces something wonderful.

I grew up watching my mom garden. When we were older she really got into cool perennials. So much so that she ran a plant nursery for a while out of our garage. But I think what I was most impressed with and what I think of when I think of my moms garden is a garden where every where you turn there is something interesting growing. It was a cool relaxing place. It actually was a few degrees cooler in the summer in some areas because of the shade trees. What I liked most about watching my mom garden was how she searched out interesting or rare plants and nurtured them and then took such pride in them, which I should mention is still something she does today.

I am starting small, but I am surprised everyday by my plants when I come home. Currently I am growing potatoes, some herbs, strawberries (that my mom gave my for my birthday) and then various flowers. I wasn’t sure that my potatoes would grow at first because I thought I had left them sitting too long and the little sprouts they were putting out were no good anymore. But a week after I planted them little sprouts came out of the ground and they are now growing very hardily. Oh and the blueberry bushes, we can not forget those.

This weekend I got some tomato plants and will plant them tomorrow.  I am very excited at the prospect of having cherry tomatoes in abundance.    I think that this is all of the new stuff I will plant this year.  I want to focus on making sure they grow, and scheming about what to put in next year.

In addition to the fun and pretty plants we also have the disfortune to be plagued with dandilions, blackberries, and bamboo.  The dandilions seem to have just been festering for the several years that The Boy has lived here.  But the other two evil weeds are another story. The man on the other side of the fence is sort of a hermit.  We call him The Crazy Man.  his front yard has three cars which I don’t think work, his house is in a quite a state of disrepair and his back yard is FILLED with bamboo and blackberries.  While I think that bamboo is nice in principle (after all it is a very renewable resource that can be used in green design and building) the problem is that it is renewing itself in OUR yard!  Last spring the city came in and cleared out all the bamboo and weeds from the yard (yippy now we could see what a trash heap the yard was) and it has now grown back completely.  There are stalks of bamboo that are taller than the HOUSE!  and then of course there is the stuff that has infested a portion of our back yard.  And of course its the Running bamboo that goes in every direction.  It is very tricky.  So part of this summer is supposed to be about digging that section of the back yard out. I wish my dog was more prone to digging.  At least then I could teach her to dig up bamboo.  But as it is, I get to dig it all out and try to figure out some way to keep it from reinfesting after all my hard work is done.

So thats my garden.  I might just take some pictures and post them.  maybe, if I get around to it.