Thursday, June 12, 2008

Blicky's Garden

Here's a picture of our attempt at a vegetable garden this year. There is broccoli, zucchini, tomato, pumpkin, cantaloupe, and green beans and I want to add some purple string beans later in the season. We are woefully ignorant about the process so I welcome any suggestions. We've created our ramshackle fence from wire mesh and re bar to keep out the deer and woodchucks. We have left this nice raised bed idle for years because everything we tried one year was eaten or killed by us. Knock wood, all of the plants look happy so far...

Please grow, broccoli! We mixed in nice kitchen compost, cow manure and bone meal in when we planted so hopefully the soil is good. Our gate looks pretty professional, doesn't it?
This is one of my inspirations for our ornamental garden. The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. Not only is is a beautiful place to walk and admire, but they have special events like sculpture exhibits. I love woodland gardens and it's a nice way to learn more about indigenous plants. We have a bunch of pink Lady's Slippers on our land that I would love to move gently so everyone can enjoy them. I'm also obsessed with cinnamon ferns lately and I keep looking for roadside specimens to snatch shamelessly since there are none on our land. They seem to love little brooks so I'd probably need to water them a bit. I'll post more pictures of the garden as it hopefully approaches the images I have in my mind. I keep thinking of Fern Hill by Dillon Thomas when I think about the garden I hope to create.  This is one of our faerie houses that the girls and I love to build. This one we made for the faerie town they have at the Maine Botanical Gardens.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your garden looks wonderful... cool idea using rebar.

We have similar issues with deer. One year I made a moon garden and had everything but the poisonous plants eaten to the ground. Then we got "smart" and created this wonderful terraced garden with a deer fence. We got all fancy with wood posts, with the corners cemented. It took us a year to get it perfect. We were testing the door the finishing touches after a years worth of toil when we noticed our kind neighbor coming over.

Well, this is a little embarrassing... but there was a fence placed wrong on the properties (long long story) we had made a bad assumption that this was close to the property line, and ended up about three or so feet over the property line. Opps...

With heart break and a strong need to continue with harmony with the neighbors, we took our work down. We swore to grow another day...

So, we have been hatching new plans to have another garden this year or next year. We just put in a new well a year or two ago that will allow us to have a garden much farther back on our property. Hoot!

We have a few ideas that we have gotten from our friends, but we are forgoing the wood post ideas, although they are nice. We are thinking angle iron, t-posts, ... we are still in research.

Side note: After the moon garden, for a short while, I thought that bullets might be a better solution for deer. I considered their wonderful diet in my yard, (we share some fruit trees with them)... laughs... then I remembered how I loved to see them in the mornings

Thanks for the pictures, and the wonderful post.

Blicky Kitty said...

Oh thank you for the kind words. Good to know we're not the only ones! We've been plagued by woodchucks in the past too, so we'll see if the rebar holds.

Skillful means is a wonderful and inspiring blog to read for all you gardeners. I have learned so much. Thank you!