Putting Down Roots
This is my backyard with a productive vegetable garden.
But it didn’t come that way. When we first moved in, it was a depressing swampy slop with rotten mossy fences. There was a lawn, but it had quickly shrank to a wasteland, reclaimed by nature. I rejected the gardeners’ suggestion to fertilize it, since the backyard is adjacent to the water district conservation. The first change we made was to replace the rotten wood fence with a cattle-wire one, so we could enjoy the forest as our extended backyard, and the passing animals could enjoy seeing us in a human zoo.
With my amateur garden design skills, I laid out the plan for the in-ground garden beds, and later added a trellis (yes, project scope creeping). But right after the construction workers broken the ground, Seattle was hit by a snowstorm. The ground was frozen and the work was halted. But that didn’t stop our visitors from coming to see us (touch the photo icon to enlarge).
Finally in the late spring, the ground was leveled, and the construction was completed. But the planting season has already started, and we have to catch-up. I still don’t know a lot about where to grow what in when. I googled about growing vegetables, and planed a garden on my notebook based on the sun exposure, the plants’ occupation preference, and the number of days to mature.
As the result, this gardening experience has been stomach satisfying…
… and artistically inspiring!
And, occasionally I have to play match-maker to help the nature to get the result.
We did get a lot of visitors from none-human society, this one is mouthful from his garden: watch video
And a mother brought her babies for a field trip (coming soon).
Now let’s take a break from gardening and enjoy sitting here to read, to think, and to observe how the bees, humming birds, and dragon flies claiming the garden!
