Someday, this might happen. This year, Rose kindly brought me to my senses about just how much was reasonable to plan for a real first garden. Last year I was reasonably succesful growing herbs (basil, dill, oregano, parsley, and chives) in the porch flower pots. So probably digging up all the back was too much of a jump. So, with her words in mind, I went through the catalogs again and made a new plan. I will have two people working with me this year -- Sean and Carrie also want to garden. So here is the new plan: (pictures will be added as they become available)
In front of the house:
Currently, we have a very bumpy, hard to mow, small front lawn, with
some evergreen hedges and two fir trees. Eventually, one of the fir trees
will be removed because it is almost blocking the driveway, but more importantly,
I'm really tired of running our little push-mower through all those ruts.
Also, every spring, a pathetic little line of tulips pushes their way up
by the walk, and are blown to shreds by the wind, which is just too sad
to contemplate. So this year, the front will be radically redone in a colorful,
yet low-maintenance (hopefully!) way. I'm taking out all the grass, and
putting in periwinkle. Along the border, where the tulips where, there
will be lavendar bushes, so our front will be purple and fragrant (goes
well with the pink paint, n'est ce pas?)
Along the side of the house:
There is wonderful mint just growing wild, which Carrie demands as
a summer staple. She's a southern girl, and likes mint mashed in her iced
tea. Since mint and tomatoes are good companions, I'm going to corral
that area into a raised bed, and (trans)plant mint, and three kinds of
tomatoes: beefsteak, roma, and orange cherry. (They just add so much color
to a salad. I love that.) The blueberry bush and the rosemary may go here
as well.
Against the back deck
Sean and I will either run string and build a trellis for the sugar
snap peas -- we're going to plant a lot, since that way maybe some of them
will actually make it inside the house. The cucumbers will be interplanted
with the peas. I'm going to plant nasturtiums around the base of the (already
established) winesap apple tree, and around the golden delicious if we
decide not to take it out.
On the upper deck
This will be our culinary paradise -- it would be nice if it was the
deck closest to the kitchen, but there just isn't enough space there. Here
will be the strawberry pots, and most of the herbs: Basil, Thai Basil,
Parsley, Dill, Cilantro, Chives, Sage, Lemongrass, and more Lavendar (so
we have a pot that can live inside and smell good during the winter.)
Techniques
And there will be marigolds everywhere, for their lovely pest-repellant
properties. In case it wasn't obvious, I'm really into this companion planting
idea, which really isn't that hard. The sort of "vegetable Langdon chart"
of my garden, companion-wise, looks like this:
Peas love cucumbers. Marigolds are absolute sluts, they love everything. Fruit trees love nasturtiums circling their trunks. Rosemary loves Sage. Sage hates Cucumbers. In fact, Cucumber and most strongly flavored herbs are a way bad idea. Roses love Garlic. Tomatoes love basil and mint. Mint, left uncontained, will go everywhere.It's barely even soap-operatic. Especially since I get to keep my garden in about four different places. I wonder if shallots count as onions for this purpose? I don't know where they will go yet. I better not put them by the peas, just in case.