Beginnings. One of the things I had to let go of when I left the mountain was the garden I had worked in and grown with over many years, endlessly raking rocks, and building up the soil. I left behind well established berry patches, fruit trees, a fledgling grape arbor, and an abundance of flowering perennials that showed up every year without fail in ever greater glory. But as I found out, leaving one garden behind leads to the discovery of another.
There was a small vegetable patch in my backyard when I moved to my place in Ashland, tucked in behind the barn, planted by the previous renter. The rest of the yard was a tangle of grass, weeds, and plum trees. On the other side of the fence that borders the alley is a huge force of blackberries that forever push their way into the garden, over the fence, under the fence, sometimes knocking over a fence board and coming right through.
My backyard got little attention for the first few years I lived here. I always planted stuff, I couldn’t help myself, but as a part time single mom, with a full time job in the next town, I didn’t have a lot of time to devote to gardening.
INSPIRING NEIGHBORS
It was my neighbors who inspired a serious backyard garden. They approached me with the idea of a neighborhood garden that we would all share. I loved the idea and opened my backyard up to the toiling and tilling and planting of a small community garden. Several of my neighbors participated for one or a few years but eventually everyone’s focus shifted to other things, leaving me with a very large established garden space in my backyard. I still look at it as a truly remarkable gift from my neighbors, and look forward to resuming our annual end of the summer garden party.
A TEAM PROJECT
By this time Charlie was on the scene and earning another checkpoint for sharing a passion for gardening. As a lover of flowers, he didn’t mind dedicating half the space to them, and giving me free rein to play. He has devoted himself over the years to building up the soil, and perfecting the growing of garlic and onions among other things. He builds and plumbs the beds and I plant them. And he builds infrastructure; trellises, a bench, walkways, a birdhouse. At the moment he is building a greenhouse where a cold frame used to be.
A NEW PALETTE EVERY YEAR
The garden is different every year. Charlie and I usually have a rough outline, what and where we want to plant things. But in the end, like an emerging work of art, she creates herself. At first we try to define and contain things, but by the end of summer, when so many plants have spent their flowering and fruiting energy, when the morning glories have taken over and the blackbirds are ravaging the sunflowers, what we’ve got is a beautiful, chaotic garden putting the finishing touches on another annual masterpiece before fading into quiet autumn senescene.
I know, lots of flower pictures. However, we do plant about half the garden in vegetables every year. And where the fresh food is nourishing for our bodies, the flowers are food for our spirits and imaginations.
I’ve grown a lot of different varieties of flowers over the year, and there are some that have become what I would call endemic to the garden. The sunflowers and morning glories got started in the early years and heavily reseed every year, along with other annual volunteers; poppies, bachelor buttons, nasturtiums, cosmos, delphiniums. So my task is always to transplant and weed a lot of them out with some selected to remain and fit into the overall garden scheme. I have also been planting perennials around the perimeter of the garden that come back and spread every year, and so the garden ends up mostly growing itself. What gets planted in the remaining beds is whatever inspires me; a new variety of seed, flower starts at the farmer’s market.
One flower that does get planted every year are zinnias. I originally planted zinnias because they are a favorite of Charlie’s. Then I discovered their super butterfly attracting powers and I am a big fan of them now myself. Sunflowers, though, will always be at the top of my favorite’s list. Their bright, joyful heads reach to the sky and rein over the rest of the garden. The bees and birds love them and the morning glories clamor up their thick tall stems.
POLLINATORS WELCOME
Bees, birds, butterflies, and other critters enrich and add to the texture and color of the summer garden. Some birds come for the mixed seed in the feeder, but some, like the red-winged blackbirds and the hummingbirds feed on the garden flowers. The sunflowers are especially popular, not just to munch on, but as tall perches from which the birds can survey and position themselves for their turn at the feeder.
FOOD FOR THE SOUL
Charlie and I appreciate the ideas of the slow food movement, eating locally and organically, and in our case, garden to table. We have an organic food coop two blocks away where Charlie shops on a daily basis, and grower’s markets twice a week. So the purpose of growing vegetables for us is mainly to enjoy the fruits produced from our labor. Digging in the earth gives me connection. Weeding is my meditation.
