Last post for 2013: Don’t Get Daunted

I just spent some time looking back at old pictures from our first garden in Arkansas. I think of it as Larrapin West. We’d just arrived the autumn before and for Mendy’s birthday party in March, we had a bunch of folks out to help shovel the pile of topsoil I’d purchased, since topsoil didn’t come with the place, into the plank siding of the beds.

We’d put in six or so raised beds, 4 x 8 inside the lawn of the big circle driveway. At the time (pre-ice storm ’09) that big circular area was on the only place on the property with full sun. I grew a lot of food in those few beds and have the blog pics to remind myself, though the one above helps remind me that it’s hard to know that from how a garden looks in winter!

Which is good because there are days I feel a bit daunted with my new garden spot. Something about that really big, mostly blank space feels overwhelming. I should be counting my blessings as the soil is nice there’s no bermuda grass and hardly any rocks. Since those first beds I’ve learned I don’t really need the plank sides for raised beds. A gently mounded bed will do. And in this case, I can edge with a shovel to keep grass out, once I get the grass out in the first place. Bermuda grass, I don’t miss you a bit.

But I do miss the comforting fence line of the later garden —after the ice storm took out the tree canopy inside the former goat pasture —at Larrapin West. That boundary, even though not that aesthetic as it was just woven wire, created a nice feeling of enclosure. A garden fence can make you feel as if the job at hand is clearly outlined and defined. There will be some fencing in the future here but it will take some time to figure out where it should go. In the meantime, it’s a big, mostly blank space.

Maybe I feel daunted because it’s winter, the beds I’ve dug so far are just covered with straw when they are not covered with snow, clouds or rain. I don’t have the vision of those beds full of vegetables in my mind to pull me through winter. The new bed I put a cover crop on — being so late in the season when I did it – didn’t really cover and it has more grass resprouting than the straw covered beds. Note to self: plant cover crop much earlier or just use straw. The beds are on the north side of the house and while they are backed off from the house enough ( I think ) to avoid that shadow in the growing season, for now they are often in shadow during these short days and that is somehow disturbing to the veggie gardeners psyche even if I remind myself that’s not the shadow that will be there come planting season. I will have to consider that shadow on crops that either go in really early or stay in really late. And I reassure myself I can always make more beds further away from the house if that gets annoying.

Maybe I feel a bit daunted because I’m back at home where the reliably frost-free season is only June through September…even though the official frost day is around mid-May. That’s 120 days..and the last of September can be iffy. It’s a lot of pressure to grow everything in that window after the luxury of an extra month and half of spring and an extra month of fall growing in Arkansas. Add that to the price you pay for cool summers here is sometimes really rainy and cool summers and tomatoes, peppers aren’t fond of that…much less our beloved purple hull peas. Anyway, I remind myself that every place has gardening challenges and the upside of that is you can grow brassicas all summer long when it’s cool like that. In Arkansas it took me a while to learn to deal with the mid-summer heat lull, when things were so hot nothing much grew and it was NOT fun to be out in the garden. As for early and iffy frosts: This is why God made row-cover fabric.

I know as spring approaches I am likely to get that surge of garden mojo that leads to growing more transplants that I can possibly plant on the light table in the basement then a bunch of crazy digging to make room for them all. I remind myself that mid-winter is a time for resting, rooting in my new place. I remind myself I have a plan to try for purple hull peas – I have found a variety called “Fast Lady Northern Southern Peas.” They were developed by Carol Deppe in Oregon who loved the flavor of souther peas but had the northern short growing season. We’ll see how that works out. (They are not purple-hulls. May have to make a road trip to South Carolina to buy a few bushels to put up for winter to feed that addiction!)

I remind myself how incredibly, ridiculously lucky I am to live here in this glorious place and to have a sweet home and this big blank garden spot on the eve of a brand new year.  I look back at the photos of gardens I’ve started from other blank slates – and how in a few years they were overflowing with more food than we could eat. Good reason to bring in those goats and chickens in the spring! So gardeners starting for the first time or old hands starting anew including myself: Making a garden always involves a leap of faith, an envisioning of something you can only create in conversation with the soil and sun and water. It’s a dialogue that require attention and listening and flexibility as well as laughter—either that things went so well or so awry. Don’t get daunted dear Gardener. After all, If we are really lucky, it’s a long conversation over a lifetime and just keeps getting better with time.