|
|
Mud's long been an interest in my life. In the summer I am often out in the gardens, playing in dirt and mud and smelling the roses, nasturtiums and herbs. My first house in Merrimack, NH had a raised-bed veggie garden, an herb garden, a shade garden with hosta and ferns and the like, a rock garden, a garden that mainly had grasses and wildflowers, and on and on and on. When we moved to Hollis, I left gardens that had been 14 years in the making. Sadly, the new homeowners weren't gardeners. But I dug up divisions of my favorite plants, most of which survived. I moved a lilac that had been in the ground for a few years and was 5' tall. Planting in Hollis required a pickaxe and, after all that effort, I was there less than 3 years. Now I've moved back to Merrimack, where I still live. This time I am at the south end of town, in the curve of a small river. The same ice-age that cut out the river's path left a huge pile of yellow sand behind. My house is atop that sand, with about a 2 foot layer of rich forest topsoil. So I now have a septic system that will probably never fail, and a garden with entirely different growing conditions than any I had before. I can till the whole thing with a little Mantis, because there are NO rocks. The drainage is phenomenal. I water like a fiend in the summer. The place was a blank canvas - no gardens. So once again I dug up or divided all my favorite plants, and moved them with me. Once again I started building. I built a stone retaining wall across the front, taming a gentle slope and giving me a frame for a roadside garden. I had the lilac moved professionally since it was now six feet tall. I planted the roadside garden with old-fashioned sweetly-scented roses, which love the sun and drainage. A dozen daylilies. Multitudes of perennials. Zillions of bulbs. The chipmunks cheered and multiplied. I installed bird and critter feeders, in a vain attempt to divert them. They got fatter. And the garden has become lush and beautiful. I walk in my back yard and smile as the trees enclose me and the shade gardens grow tropical with a myriad of hostas, gently-waving ferns, and bold elephant ears. I plant orderly blocks of vegetables, from the usual tomatoes to beets and kohlrabi and leeks, in a raised bed garden to the side. I putter endlessly in the front garden and curious adults and children stop by and talk. It is exactly what I wanted both for myself and for reaching out to my neighbors; the garden invariably draws people in, giving them an easy starting point to speak (or at least wave) to a stranger.
So if you have any questions about what varieties of veggies or plants will grow in Southern New Hampshire, or want to compare notes, feel free to send email. Talking about gardens and plants is Way Up There on my topics list, along with kids and cats and pretty shiny stones. And it's ok, even though I might be a stranger to you... until we talk.
My winter dirt is clay. I wrote the Newsletter for the NH Potters Guild, the Potluck, for many years. Sometime I'll have to put a few pictures of my work in here. I haven't done much pottery for about a year. Sometime I'll have to start doing pottery again. hm. Gardening LinksI stole many of these links from Growing Colors, a webpage that seems to have vanished. These links are especially good for those dreary rainy days, or when you've seen far too much snow. Last checked Jan 14, 2013. General
Catalogs and Companies
Last Modified: 14 January 2013
This page has been viewed
|
