Four days ago I began a series on How to Garden, for beginners, with How to Dig. This is sort of part two of the series. More like part 1.1. Until today I haven’t done a thing in the garden. See? Gardening is so easy: it involves many days of doing nothing at all! Today, we continued on with another (under an hour) digging session of the new garden plot.
Baby and the Spy helping to dig.
He was burying a ball in different spots around the edge and she was digging it up. And throwing the ball out in to the garden for her to go…uh…fetch. She’s sort of like golden retriever number three!
The gray area are ashes from our fireplace
We always dump the ashes from our fireplace into the garden. I think too much ash would be bad, but this pile will get mixed in to a pretty large plot. I figure it adds some sort of acid or alkali or minerals or something. I’ve never really spent any time figuring out the pH of our soil or learning about amending soil (yet anyways, not like I’m against learning such things). I’ve heard the saying of “fertile midwest soil” so I just assume it’s pretty good. Mostly what I know it that it is VERY clay. In the sun it will dry as hard as concrete. So what I DO add is a loam/compost mix (to the new plots) mostly for ease of working with it (i.e. planting). If you want a sneak preview of what adding the loam/compost mix will look like in Spy Garden 2014, click here to check out our dirt from last year.
View of the new plot facing west/northwest: where the sun will be setting when the garden is green!
View facing south/southwest
You can see from the photo above that the fence may be able to stop deer, but certainly can not stop the garden. IT’S ALIVE!!! It’s breached the fence!
The fence will be moved about ten feet out to include this little hill.
She has to check every strawberry plant.
Where are the strawberries?
Today was the first day of winter that I was thinking about a little color myself (those are yellow strawberry plants after all). All of the photos I’ve taken lately have the same washed out sandy-grass color,
(aka Golden Retriever Gold)
muted green,
gray, etc.
I like the palette of winter but was longing for a little color!
So we made some collages
Shapes cut out from half-finished paintings, scribbles on card-stock and forgotten sketch book doodles=collage perfection!
In progress
Collage by the Spy
I did this one. Very synthetic cubism. haha
Baby appreciated the colored glue sticks
Since there are no yellow strawberries to enjoy, yet.
Digging and freezing does wonders for the structure of clay soil. Hope you get lots of
frost.
It is amazing how turning over the clay soil over just once (not even actually breaking down the clods) changes the structure. The ground is completely covered in snow this morning so nature’s continuing the work for me!
LOL! The ashes are alkaline. If you have acidic soil it benefits but my mum used to add fire ash all over the place and never tested her pH and always had lovely gardens so it can’t be a bad thing ;). Clay = acidic usually. I love the bright colours of creativity. Might have to get me some creativity going as well methinks :)
Well if your mum did it and she had lovely gardens then I consider it PROVEN! hahah I’ve always thought it seemed like a good idea. Yes! You need to paint/collage/draw! Reread my “How to (art)” posts (there’s a HOw To… tab on my header if you need inspiration!) Aren’t you trying something new every day of the year in 2014? And surely you have some leftover paint from your awesome deck? ;)
I am trying to learn something new each day. Most of my “new” is coming from little home truths like “don’t whizz on the electric fence” (not that I tried this folks…just applying a concept…) and “dogs don’t like fruit” and “ringing your daughters up at 7am when they only went to bed at 3am is NOT a good idea” stuff like that…we have a skerrick of paint left from the deck but not sure that gun-metal (aka “Ironstone”) grey would be a good look anywhere other than the deck. I did paint a large homemade bench that Steve and I made a few years ago sage green…does that count? My creativity tends to work on a needs must basis. I made a leather cover for a stool out of an old enormous leather jacket my daughter picked up for $2 at a market somewhere. I also used that jacket to cover an ex library book that Earl ate the spine from and that we had to pay to replace (mutter MUTTER) but I got to keep the mangled copy (how generous of you library! ;) ) and it now looks pretty shmick in its bondage gear. I used even more of it to make a seat for a beer keg stool that Steve made for his music room. I occasionally crochet but more for the steady rhythm of it rather than actually creating anything useable. My last massive edifice to crochet was a huge double bed sized blanket made out of a huge granny square and some fluffy wool that I got on throw out that Earl took a shine to and spent his days rolling upside down in and removing entire segments with his nibbly teeth…needs must in the garden at the moment so creativity goes by the wayside but I need to make some bean obelisks out of stick and I need to work out some kind of structure to bear the weight of scarlet runner beans and something for a choko (chayote) to climb up as a “forever stake” so my needs must is just about to come out of the cupboard again. I just hope that Earl isn’t waiting in the wings! ;)