Garden Ideas on the First day of spring « A pinch of something nice.

Well… Here it is. The first day of spring, and only 62 days away from the frost date in Michigan. At least the thought of spring is nice, even if I still can’t plant many of the things I want to. I guess I’ll keep at it as all northern gardeners do, this time of year: with planning, research, sketches and seemingly infinite daydreaming.

We’re moving to our new house at the end of April, which (theoretically) gives me lots of time to dig up the perennials that I’m longing to bring with me. I basically stuck them in the ground at our house now, knowing that within a year or two I’d be digging them up to go to a hopefully more permanent location.

Well, now that we’ve signed the lease on the little cottage of my temporarily modified dreams, I can start planning and sketching and… well… you get the idea.

Here are a couple of photos of the house. It’s a little sparse right now, but supposedly it’s planted with peonies and various bulbs. The photo on the far left is actually an arial shot of the house (bottom right) and the field to the north of the house. The field is full of beautiful apple trees and various little spots of black raspberries and wild rose (though it’s probably multi-flora rosa… phoo). My goal is to … well.. turn the field into a wildflower meadow. I’m not ambitious or anything…

I’ve been reading up on Tasha Tudor again. It seems like once a year, generally around the doldrums of February, I lug out my Tasha Tudor books and set my mind to daydreams. Unfortunately she died last summer, but she lived to the beautiful age of 92 in her handbuilt 18th century reproduction farm in Vermont. Her gardens are the inspiration for my meadow idea. I can’t imagine it will be too hard. The field used to house cows, so I’m positive the soil is wonderful, and the only thing really living there right now is grass, which with enough diligence can be driven from it’s place. My goal is to get a reel mower so that I can plan and mow paths through the tall grasses. These paths will probably later be solidified by dog and deer travel, so I’m going to try to plan them well

I have plans for a vegetable garden behind the house. There steel posts from an old swing set back there and I can’t help but think that they’d make great supports for climbing peas and beans and indeterminate tomato staking, they’re so solid. I’m going to use my peas and beans as a bit of a shade screen and plant cool crops like lettuce and beets to the north of them, while planting warmer crops (peppers, squash) to the south. In theory it’s a good idea, since the lettuce isn’t going to want as much hot summer sun as everything else… We’ll see how it works out in practice.

I also have plans for gardens up by the house, though I’m going to keep them a bit more modest than my wild dream gardens. It’s going to be interesting watering, this summer. The only exterior water at the cottage is run from a pump head that’s in the milking barn (that’s the little rust colored square to the north east of the house on the arial view). Ah well. Live and learn. I’ll see how it goes this summer. I may just run a hose off of an interior faucet and out the window… I can’t see any major problems with that. At least not now.

As far as plants? I’m going to venture into the world of roses. I have just recently developed an appreciation for roses, and since I’m going for a 19th century feel it seems like that’s pretty much standard. I’m looking at the Abraham Darby rose, which isn’t an heirloom (c. 1985) but it’s just so adorable that i want to give it a shot. It’s a mild climber, reaching roughly 8ft, and produces single complex blooms in apricot.

I’ve linked the above image to a great informational site.

In addition to the Darbies, I’m going to try my hand at vigorous climbing roses. I really want to trellis the side of the house (possibly putting a peaked arbor over the entryway, since it’s a fairly lackluster entry right now) for roses and morning glories.

Geez. Now that I’m writing this all out, I think I’m pretty lucky that I don’t have a lot of obligations. During the spring, I teach in the afternoons, 4 days a week. During the summer I work camp and teach 5 days a week, but I always have evenings and weekends to myself. The simple fact that we’re moving closer to the barn (within 2 miles biking distance!) will give me an extra half-hour to 45 minutes a day that I won’t have to spend driving. Whew.

Alright, so that’s a lot of gardening nonsense. I’m so excited. I’m going to start seeds probably this evening, and I can’t wait to get into the new place so I can get my hands into the dirt.

Below is a 10 minute special (in Japanese) on Tasha Tudor’s gardens. It’s really the only video I can find of her online, and it shows a great deal of her gardens.