Winter has finally taken his steely hands off releasing us into the hope of budding trees and shockingly green fields. I realized with a start that I should have sown my large stock of extra seeds into egg carton cups about a month ago. My garden had been somewhat addressed but mainly in a rebuilding kind of way. Now, in the ultimate insult the gods of irony were doling out pristine, bug-less days during the work week.
But not only am I crafty, I am ill-behaved.
On a Tuesday I put a note on the door of Chesapeake East Company:
Sorry, we are closed due to a family illness.
(not lying folks- we are sick of being inside)
Oh that made me feel much better:)
Driving my car home with the windows down felt like summer vacation. At home John also played hooky and we launched into a day of “outdoor whirling dervish”. Beds were weeded and planted. Vines were yanked, paper egg cartons were filled with seeding mixture, soaked and placed in trays on the sunniest greenhouse shelves. 
I even broke out a jar of rooting powder and although it advised against using it on an edible plants, I tried it on lavendar sprigs I had saved from an over grown woody plant we’d pulled up. NOTE: trim your lavendar annually-Shape them with shears in late August, aiming for a rounded mound of foliage.Never cut back hard into the bare wood. I will attempt to remember to do this with my future lavendar- I promise.
I did not try the rooting powder on 6 lovely fig branch ends that I must confess I broke off as kindly as possible from a monster fig tree we passed enroute to a lively music party at our pal Gary’s. Both sprig experiments are encased in plastic spinach containers- one to hold the soil and sprigs with another on top creating a mini greenhouse. This insures constant- but not too much water. Reports will be submitted on my success or failure in the sprig department.
Lester got his last bottle. Feeding this very animated goat kid had been a side show ride enjoyed by many of our friends on their visits to secrethouse. Frankly the way Lester lunged at and guzzeled from the bottle threw some insight on why his mum, Zelda, had asked him to dine elsewhere.
Here’s a nice circle we found: the massive piles of weeds from our spring beds, were cotton candy to the goats, who replyed with generous offerings of their special brand of fertilizer to encourage new plants from dear mother earth.
Aunt Nancy passed away in Charlottesville, VA. at age 86, so my 81 year old Mom and I took a roadtrip. In a nutshell this was a precious experience, the radio never got turned on as our conversation traveled back to her childhood with Nancy and Mom’s older brother: Jerry, her family’s abandonment by her brigader general father, pushing the young mother to make do on a thread of income- then the many hills and valleys of joy and sorrow coming after, that memory collects like a paper chain. The hotel in Charlottesville, backed up to a wooded area and a community garden-(more on that shortly!) I waited in my black shift out front for my brother who had just arrived in time to go on to the funeral. A pleasant woman and her husband drove up and the woman leaned out of her car in a folksy way,” Oh hello, are you going to a wedding?” “No,” I smiled, “The other end- but we will celebrate her life.” We did, visiting after with new and distant family along with old friends, while sincerely treasuring every minute with close family and cousins rarely seen.
Of course life is mirrored in a garden-the green buds of absolute potential raise their heads to the sun, then each plant wrestles it’s way to be as productive as it can based on the nurturing and resourses it might enjoy, finally the garden grows tangled and leggy, flowering into wisdom and tiny seeds it sends forward on the first chilly winds like scattered stories told.
OK- enough of that.
Here is heaven for someone who is rarely impressed by hotel stays. Endless coffee, quiet rooms and most delightfully- behind the back parking lot-a large community garden.
I filled my mug, sipped and explored the rows. Each square clearly defined the individual that tended it. Some were inventive and unruly, others cultured and precise and some paved their space with cardboard, carpet or straw allowing only regimated growing and no possibility of weeds. I balanced my coffee cup on fence posts to take pictures of the highlights and those I will share with you now:
Plastic sheeting with holes- raised beds/ wood chip pathways pretty basic-but note the metal pipe with string for beans I expect
Great idea for a mulcher. They just extended their rat wire (which is also excellent for climbing beans) and wound it round into itself….
Here is a simple rain catching system… which is helpful when you are far from a faucet. bamboo, string and a tarp- others used the roof of their garden sheds….
fancy shed-utilizing fence sections, tar paper & ribbed tin
covered raised bed- provides shade and a way to tie up plants
A plot in a community garden- or a garden anywhere can be a chance to play again. Fun to repurpous patio furniture, spent rugs and found sculpture. So go outside and play.
Thats the end for now!
Go to danasimson.com for handmade gifts, prints and original paintings by Dana
Garden Warrior 