Garden Friends

On Saturday morning, I finally decided to embrace the inevitable. Back when I was young and foolish (sixteen or seventeen), I decided to plant ivy in my garden. It was pretty, and looked very nice twining around some posts. But now, due to neglect and ivy's natural inclination, it had taken over about 15 square feet of garden space. It really had to go. So I got out the shovel, the pitchfork, clippers and gloves and went to work. An hour and two garbage bags full later, I had removed all that I could find. Some of the roots were three feet long and three quarters of an inch thick! If you're thinking about planting ivy, please, please reconsider! But it's gone, and I've got a lot of empty area. I'm not sure what I'm going to put there. I'd like to find some perennials that will not require too much care, but will still let me see the tulips and crocus that are still there. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Also, I found two welcome additions to my garden-a salamander and a toad! I hadn't seen a salamander in years, and if it's in my garden, it makes me happy to think that such a fragile creature could live there. I was happy to see the toad too, because he'll eat slugs for me! (Not that I normally eat them myself.)

They grew! or so I thought

This afternoon when I got home from work, I had the joy of being greeted by a plethora of leggy, growing seedlings. I thought that my hard work (mixing soil, putting in boxes, shoving seeds in the ground and adding water) had been rewarded! But as I looked a bit closer, I realized that none of the seedlings were where I had planted seeds. I'm guessing that this is the unfortunate result of using compost in my soil mix. But there was one tiny, verdant seedling bravely making its way in a world of strangers-it looks like we have a leek! (Hopefully)

The Beginnings of a beginning

I finally got around to starting some of my seeds. It's been two weeks since I first planned on starting them, but somehow (always somehow) I managed not to do what I wanted to. So, I have the beginnings of a vegetable garden-onions, leeks and tomatoes. I'm not doing as much variety as I want to this year, just trying to keep things basic. However, I cannot buy boring (normal) varieties, especially when there's so many interesting ones to choose from. So I've planted Paul Robeson tomatoes, Cipollini Onions and Bleu de Solaize Leeks. In many ways, I'd much rather have planted purple tomatoes, and red onions, and all sorts of exotic varieties, but I'm not sure that anyone else would eat them!

While I was planting the seeds, I started dreaming about later this year, when I can start saving seeds. I'm learning more and more about how to select and save seeds-for suitability to my climate, robustness, fruitfulness and so many other qualities. I've been reading this book called Botany for Gardeners, which is an amazing book, and I absolutely love it. It starts at the basics-cell structure, plant structure, growth and all that, and then moves on to reproduction and adaptation. The next chapter that I haven't read yet is called Strategies for Inheritance. It should be a good help in understanding how to be the manipulator in my own little microcosm of natural selection.

Oh, and I also started some Echinacea, because life's really not complete without flowers!

Bare Branches

I love the way the smell and feel of outdoors lingers even after you've been inside for awhile. It seems to pervade the entire house with its presence, wrapping green tendrils around lamps and couches, covering the carpet with loam. Somehow, it makes everything happier and lighter. I'm realizing more and more how much I love plants and all things that grow.

I pruned out all the dead canes of raspberries today, and now the rows stand tall and erect-like a garden should be. I love chaos and disorder, but a garden should be a place where nature has a little bit of help, at least a vegetable garden! Flower gardens are another matter. They should run wild and rampant and the plants should tumble over each other with joy. I've already seen the first tips of green pushing through the soil, and very soon, (but never soon enough) the gardens here at the house will start to bloom with the first crocuses and daffodils. I heard ducks back at the pond today, so spring is coming! I can't wait for it get here.

A note about links

Places to go and things to do. We all have them. Mine are conveniently located to the right side of this screen. I would recommend taking a look at them, especially the Free Rice site. It's a vocab-building, hunger reducing sort of site.

Notcot is a design/ideas/interesting things site, where I can easily waste a lot of time looking at beautiful things, and some very weird things. Relevant Magazine is a Christian publication geared toward idealistic young people who want to make a difference in the world, and enjoy life along the way. Flaming Waters is the blog of my cousin Ryan who is currently working in Malawi, along with his family.

Marine Reach is the site of organization that I worked for while I was on the boat. Stop the Traffik is the site of an organization aiming to do just that-stop human traffiking. Narnia Web follows the news of the making of the Narnia movies, and has a thriving community of Narnia and CS Lewis fans. Save the Words is just plain interesting-thanks to Teal for that link! and Manchester Community Church need I say more? Well, the guy opening the door in the photograph is my dad! :D