Sparks in the Soil

The Rocks Upon Which I Will Build My Garden

This weekend was a blissfully busy one in our garden.  One of the most fun activities was cutting in a new bed by our porch.  In the bed, we transplanted two bleeding heart plants that were languishing in the front of the house, a haphazard row of annual flower mix seeds, and....ta da!  Our 4 cloned New Dawn roses that, it seems, have survived the winter and are starting to put forth leaves and generally show signs of life.

The New Dawn triumph aside, my favorite part of this bed is its border--beautiful stones that we collected from the seashore on Cape Cod a number of years ago.  Those rocks used to border our front garden at our condo, and when we put the place on the market last spring, our real estate agent was almost successful in suppressing an eye-roll when I told him that we needed to list the rocks as an exclusion.  In other words, those rocks, they were coming with us.

Now, they line that bed plus two others in our backyard, and they make me happy every time I see them.  The colors that change and come to life when the rocks get wet.  The different shapes that somehow just fit together into a perfect lawn/garden boundary.  And the fact that they came from the sea to us, from us to our home, and from our old home to our new home.  They sit securely against the earth, and they're not going anywhere--unless we decide to move them again, because they are part of what makes our house a home--our home.

This photo was taken before a fresh layer of good dirt was added on top of the bed.  But a thing of beauty is a joy forever, no?

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Who's Out There?

The blanket of snow we've gotten lately was really magical to look at out our back windows--it highlighted the pleasing rectangle that is our backyard, and it had that perfect smoothness that only comes from undisturbed fresh snow.

Over the past two days, though, something has been frolicking on that perfect smoothness, and it's no one I know!  Witness:

and

It's kind of exciting to imagine woodland creatures hip-hopping around our home, very Snow White or Bambi (sans hunter....).  Anyone want to take a gander at who's leaving the tracks?  I think the top left set is from a bird, and I'm thinking bunny for the bigger prints.  I'm stymied by the thin line in the second picture, though.  Mice on cross-country skis?

Meanwhile, um, woodland creatures?  If you could make a mental note to not feast on my garden next spring, that'd be suuuuper.  Thanks.

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New Year, New Home, New Garden

It is currently 32 degrees here in Arlington, MA, a quasi-sunny day where the just-freezing sunlight is bouncing pleasantly off the 6 inches of snow we got over New Year's weekend. 

But I'm not interested in any of that.  I'm thinking about what's under the snow.  Or, more to the point, what will be down there in four short (ha!) months.

Last year, we moved into our new home smack in the middle of gardening season.  I had to abandon my veggie garden and treasured New Dawn rose to the new owners of our condo, and I was too busy with a major kitchen renovation and, you know, unpacking, to get serious about starting a mid-season garden.

All of which makes this New Year the beginning of something truly new--new home, new garden. 

I have big plans for our 0.13 acres, including a mini-fruit tree orchard and a sizable vegetable plot.  I am rehearsing various designs for both of these, various techniques (raised beds?), and of course poring over the garden catalogs that illuminate even the darkest winter day, on the hunt for old favorites and new experiments alike.

There's actually a lot of garden planning (and fun) that can be done in the winter, and my goal is to chronicle the journey from New Year to harvest, hopefully inspiring some of you in the process.

But if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to not flipping through seed catalogs during the workday....

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Hey, There's Compost in My Gutters!

Is it spring yet?  I'm so fired up to dig up my side yard, put in a mini-fruit orchard, and rip in a big old vegetable patch in the back.  What got me itching to get my hands dirty just a week before the winter solstice?  Why, my gutter guy, of course!

The guy we found to clean our gutters out for the winter is, it turns out, a serious gardener who not only grows 60-some tomato plants each summer, but also maintains a stand of fruit trees that includes FIGS!  In MASSACHUSETTTS!  Sorry to shout, I'm just inspired, that's all.

He asked if I wanted to keep the gunk that he was pulling out of my gutters, and I said no because, alas, I don't have a compost bin or set-aside place to keep it.  Next year I will, but for now, my basement red wigglers are my only sources of compost.

At least I know my gutter-gunk will get a good garden home, though - he bagged it and took it away...straight to his home compost pile.  I'm relieved it won't go to waste.

But meanwhile, I wanted to share what I learned today, dear readers: 

1. The stuff that clogs your gutters is not only compostable, if it's been sitting there more than a year, it may already be compost!

2. Many gutter cleaners will charge you less if they don't have to haul the stuff away.  I could have saved $25 if I had better prepared.

Sigh.  Spring seems so far off....but hey, that gives us more time to dream

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Restoration

Yesterday, a van pulled up to my house, and then it pulled away again.  In between, two smiley men loaded a channel-back chair, 4 Greek key dining chairs, and a hope chest into the back. 

They're furniture restorers, and the furniture they took belonged to my maternal (chairs) and paternal (hope chest) grandparents.  The chairs are all from the early 1940s, and the hope chest is most likely from the '20s, if my grandmother got it as a wedding gift, as women generally did in those days. 

Each piece has had its journey--the hope chest, so beautifully named, was my parents' laundry folding table for about 30 years, the dining chairs furnished the "kids' table" at dinner parties when my mom was young, but they later languished in a storage locker, where their blond mahogany finish slowly thinned and faded.  And the channel-back chair sat regally behind the desk where my grandmother wrote her 2 books.

I gave the pieces to the two smiley men because I believe that they can help bring them back to life.  Because in their heyday, these pieces had very nice lives, and they could again.  Because good things happened when people I love had that furniture in their homes.  Because I think that things that were made long ago, like the glowing Chinese lamps below, were usually made to last.

Because, in short, I believe in restoration.

 
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