I used to think gardening was as simple as turning the soil, sowing some seed and waiting for bounteous harvests. Boy, was I an idiot! A garden (especially a flower garden or a potager style garden) takes a good ten years to develop to its fullest. That’s an awfully long time. But if you jump in immediately, or if you’re like me and you just want to see results NOW, you will end up doing and redoing your growing spaces as you learn.
Our main garden area is now in its final stages. Do I mean that it finally has had enough years to develop and grow lovely and prosperous? Nope. I mean that the main garden area at the top of our half acre homestead has gone through four transformations to get it where it will now stay. Four! Jeez, if only I had taken the time to think, plan and study I could have saved a whole lot of labor and a whole lot of frustration.
I’ve written a couple of blog posts before about how we like to re-do and re-do and re-do and….. well, you get the idea. But at least I can now say that I have learned to slow down and not rush into things. Here’s an example: three years ago I started planning an apple/plum guild in the front yard based on permaculture principles. And guess what? The only thing in that guild is a lot of grass (still) along with the apple tree and the plum tree. Oh, and a few flowers at the very edge because I didn’t have anywhere else to put them. But now I know for sure what goes in that guild once I move forward – hopefully this fall. The overstory will be the apple and plum and the understory will be comprised of small fruits – blueberries, blackberries and groundcherry. The vining layer will be nasturtiums and winter squashes and so on and so on.
If I had started this apple/plum guild three years ago I would have planted entirely different things which I would have ended up ripping out this fall instead of just planting the foods that I know will work based on sunlight, soil conditions and spacing. I guess you can finally teach an old dog new tricks. And in our upcoming Grow Your Own Food classes, I can teach you and save you years of redoing and redoing and ….
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