April Rocks: Put the Girls to Work

Don't just stand there, get to work!

When we moved to Schoolhouse Rocks, I coined a new name for what I did in the yard: Restoration Gardening.

That's what you do when you inherit a garden with a lot of history and a few years of benign neglect.

I discovered asparagus in one area, some beautiful roses in another. I unearthed what was once a lovely natural stone walkway to a traditional rose garden (roses long gone, for the most part). In September of our first year, a flash of red caught my eye and I traced it to some long-lost autumn bearing raspberries that had been hanging on for years.

Then I tried to transplant the roses and discovered the thick layer of gravel lying under 10 centimetres of topsoil.

Impossible to dig through, yet right where I wanted a perennial bed. What was a gardener to do?

Not yet a focal point... wait for it.

When I saw the wonderful pile of straw and rotted manure the chickens had created in their winter enclosure, I had a thought: let the girls make the garden!

So we moved the coop and the enclosure to where I wanted the new garden and gave the ladies their orders. Scratch. Dig. Poop. Make a mess. Enjoy.

In other words, do what you do.

My job will be to toss in cut straw and compost and let the whole thing build up. The end result will (hopefully) be a raised bed that I can plant up. When it's done, the girls will be moved to the other side of the future walkway.

I, too, have some doubts.

I'll report back in a couple of months. Fingers crossed!

Cold frame: success!

The cold frame is wonderful! Arugula, radish, rapini and mache are growing, and I've hardened off some rapini and brocolli I started in the house. The coir pots will get slit (the packaging says they can be planted as is, but I like to give the wee roots as much help as possible) and placed into the vegetable garden. I'll keep an eye on the nighttime temperatures and stick a cloche over the young plants if it gets too cold.

Photo Credit

I have also used plastic bottles to make a small greenhouse by cutting the bottom off the bottle, putting it upright in the ground, and removing the cap for ventilation. Not pretty, but cheap!

Speaking of cheap....

A couple of years ago I bought some white plastic markers for the garden. They were inexpensive, durable and easy. Somehow, though, a lot went missing over the winter and I had nothing with which to mark my spring plantings. I put my eldest to work and he made me these stakes from branches pruned from the apple tree. Aren't they gorgeous? To make matters even better, I JUST saw the chamomile sprouting in the path at the back of the picture. It's self-seeding, bless its tiny tea-licious heart.