Mission control

I almost succumbed to the everybody’s-doin’-it peer pressure of making room for a dedicated vegetable bed in my garden this year. Instead, I’m probably the only person on the planet who is not planting arugula. And I’m totally ok with that because now I have a plan.

At work we have a mission statement (preserve, educate, inspire, yada-yada) and a master plan in the works. At home it was the debacle of the nicotine patch/grave site bed that made me realize I needed to develop a mission and a master plan for here too. (Only I’m not going to seek grants to pay professionals many thousands of dollars to draw something up.)

It was when I started thinking about my garden’s mission that I remembered that vegetables are not really my thing. They’re too much work. My garden’s mission is much lazier than that. I want it to be beautiful – there should be a place for every orphaned plant that comes my way – including whatever pretty vegetables – and anything that causes me to bust out the wallet because I can’t possibly live without it. There should be very little lawn because I don’t enjoy mowing. It should not cost much because I don’t have much to spend. I want to sit in it with a book or a bevvie in my paw and feel like the weeding can wait. I want it to be visible from the road and welcoming. I want it to be a habitat, not a yard. Yesterday a kid passing on a bike called to me – “Nice garden!”, he said. That’s what I’m talking about – that’s my mission.

As for a plan…  No matter how much I want it to be a gorgeous tour worthy grown-up garden now, the seedling trees that will provide shade and a feeling of enclosure have years to grow and we don’t have the money for every major project so we’ll pick one at a time – a vine arbor for the deck, first – and save the others for later. Lawn eradication will be a process of years too but I’ve made some strides in determining what stays for the dog’s sake and what’s slated to go. I know it’s important to live in a place for a while before making major changes but indecision was making me crazy. With a mission in mind, I can see the garden more clearly now. – And I have a better idea of what I want to see.

This weekend I took out the last of the horrid foundation shrubbery on my hit list; Z and I filled up the truck and came home again from the dump with an enormous load of town compost (free). With that, I made two new beds with the lazygirl lasagna method and enlarged and amended others – I have plenty of room now for a growing collection. I had my soil tested this spring and am low-lead-level free to graze so I’ll be sure to tuck in a few good looking veg in the established beds and ride on the bumper of that bandwagon too. (Everybody’s doin’ it.)

Does your garden have a mission?  Do you have a master plan? (-Does it keep changing?)

Taking my own advice

You know the adage “do as I say, not as I do”?  I’m the worst.  I did a little research for my post at work about citruses which pretty much confirmed what I already knew.  I am a plant slayer.  And I don’t like to take my own advice because it’s generally tedious or time consuming or otherwise inconvenient.  I have been keeping my ponderosa lemon orphan out in the plantry because it looks good out there showing its fruit off to the neighbors and because it would take up too much room inside.  I knew it was the wrong place for it.  Citruses, as I reminded myself the other day, can take temperature dips into the 40′s but prefer to winter at about 60°.  The plantry’s average nightly temperatures are in the 40′s but sometimes drops into the scary low 30′s like when I forget to turn on the heater or when it goes into the single digits outside – which has been a fairly frequent occurence this winter.  And the lemon doesn’t look so good.  Although, since I’ve moved it to the livingroom, scattering lemons, branches and leaves in my wake, I’ve decided it looked a lot better before.  Now it will be a daily reproof sitting sickly at the end of my couch, taking up half of a much darker room and plagued by horticulturally fixated kittens who don’t realize just how thorny the thing is.  But what’s a plant junkie to do?  I can’t bring it back to the greenhouse – the only reason I have it is because we don’t have room for it there.  And I can’t put it out in the very cold to die quickly.  The only thing to do is to do as I say, not as I do.

Frigid air

It’s freezer-ish out and fridge-ish in.  Especially out in the plantry.

The outside temperatures have been forecast to plunge into the singles and inconceivable negatives for windchill or “feels like” temperatures for the next and past couple of days and I’m a little worried (a lot, a little) about the poor kids out there.  Yesterday morning I got up at 4am when the howling wind woke me (an hour before the alarm) to make sure they weren’t all frozen.  — As if I, barefoot in my bathrobe, could have reversed the process at that point.  (My great-grandfather, so I’m told, was just as nutty.  Plant Anxiety is a hereditary trait.)

There is a heater running – an electric oil filled radiator – when I remember to turn it on.  Lately I’ve been leaving it on even on sunny days just in case there’s too much crème brûlée in my evening and I might forget.  And yesterday Z stopped at Ace is the Place on the way home for some clips and hooks so that I could hang dog blankets in front of the drafty crappy doors for a little extra assurance.  (I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes the latest trend in home decor and I’d leave the blankets up indefinitely but the dog might protest.  He’s been very generous though, so far.)

But that’s my only plan for this terrifying temperature dip.  I have no back up.  If the power goes out, those plants could become icepops in a matter of hours.  Hours that I’d most likely be spending down the road making sure more important plants don’t die.  It’s ok.  I’m resigned.  I love my kids but almost everyone in the plantry is an orphan from work – I’ve already given them a second chance; a third might be too much to ask.  And mostly it’s ok because it would be a lazy gardener’s nightmare chore to move them all inside – especially after my trip to Logee’s.  It was difficult enough to find flat surfaces for a few 2″ cuttings – where the fershlug would I put the enormous lemon or the agave?   It’s so much easier to cover the doors with dog blankets and hope for the best.

In honor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day hosted by Carol of May Dreams gardens, here’s a list of what’s in bloom at Champignon (that’s our fancy name – means mushroom, yo – for the house and gardens):  Pelargonium sidoides, Pelargonium – something scented and variegated – maybe ‘Apple’?, Lavandula dentata,  a new Begonia from Logee’s – ‘Candlelight’, an old Begonia maculata var. ‘Wightii’ or “Polka dot” from Logee’s and an aphid ridden African violet.  Everybody but the begonias and African violet are in the plantry.

Stay warm this mid January and worry free (unlike me)!