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March 11, 2004

Great Garden Plans

I've been working out things I want to do with the gardens (front and back) this spring and summer.

First of all, once we have bought the greenhouse kit, I want to set up a lettuce bed that is inaccessible to slugs (in other words, in a copper-covered container). Because having fresh lettuce was great last summer, at least until the slugs got to it. I'll also plant hot peppers for Noel, because that's half the point of the greenhouse.

The other half the point of the greenhouse is growing a clementine tree (they need a lot of heat to get sweet). But first, I need to find a tree to buy.

I also want to build raised beds for the tomatoes, filled with all sorts of nutritious compsty stuff for the plants. With luck, we won't have the nasty verticulum wilt problem we had last summer. Near the raised beds, I'm going to build a trellis for Mikey's rose (actually, I need to get cracking on that because that rose is growing NOW).

In the front, I'm going to dig up the grass around the street tree and plant some kind of durable ground cover -- maybe a prostrate rosemary or thyme. Something that doesn't look so untidy, and doesn't require mowing. This is what the street tree looks like now, sort of sad (and overgrown, because this heat made the grass explode yesterday):

I'm also going to plant the lavender that survived Great Plumbing Mishap of last summer (in which the sprinkler setup is disrupted by somebody trying to fix a leaky faucet) along the sides of the front walk. The front walk, today:

And I'll clear the grass around the baby magnolia and put down bark mulch, mainly to make it look like there will eventually be a tree there. If I can find one I like, I'll also plant a hydrangea to hide the ugly 1950's gas meter by the front porch. If I can't find a hydrangea, I may plant a big fluffy old-fashioned rose bush.

Along the alley between our house and the neighbors', I'm going to remove the grass and plant thrift, to deal with some of the lead paint that got into the ground. Thrift is a lead-fixer, and a California native, which is even better. Plus, it's got a pretty pink flower. I have to get approval from the neighbors, but I think they will be fine with it as long as we buy the seed and maintain it.

That should just about eat up all my free time and energy this spring.

Posted by ayse on 03/11/04 at 12:39 PM