blackberry winter comes without a warning
just when you think that spring’s around to stay
and you wake up on a cold, rainy morning
and wonder what on earth became of may
Hilary Kole singing Blackberry Winter, which was written by Alec Wilder. I have a hunch @tezmel, fellow gardeneress, would love this soulful song.
On to my garden, my yard, my piece of the earth, my sustenance and my protection.
or did May flit by like a swallow -
purposefully
and out of my hands?
The Trees
My previous yard was much larger than this one, but mostly shaded and oddly shaped with a huge house smack dab in the middle. I longed to plant trees, and had nowhere to put them. This tiny yard, which is barely 900 square feet, has offered up a few places for dwarf varieties. So far, I've gotten in one peach, Contender, and one crab apple, Sargentii, in a barrel.
I fell in love with Sargentii crabapples forty years ago at the Brooklyn Botanic gardens. Their trees were many decades old, craggy, low, wide-spreading and extraordinary. While my little tree won't do that and will have to be planted in the ground in a few years, it is growing like the dickens and seems quite happy in its half barrel, which is on a dolly so that I can wheel the tree around for its requirements (sun) and mine (shade and privacy). I'm hoping I can train and prune it into an interesting shape, so that it spreads wide and will provide a canopy of loveliness and tiny fruits over a seating area.
The Raised Beds
I'm determined to grow a good deal of my own food, even in this tiny space. This is my fourth year growing veggies, and my fourth season blogging about it. I think I am getting the hang of both, thanks in large part to all of my fellow gardening blogger!
Three raised beds are filled with composted cow manure. I was a bit hesitant to use pure cow manure, as I had read that roots do not develop well in it, but several local organic farmers assured me that this stuff is different. So far, everything is growing really well, there are few weeds, and it's really easy to work with, much easier than planting in the ground has been. I'm working on getting more hay for mulch, because watering these raised beds is a water guzzler. The middle bed has all my nightshades in it; if blight strikes, I can empty that whole bed for next year.
The Challenge, The Pest, The Love
I was terribly worried about groundhogs, deer and rabbits because those three critters gave me quite a lot of trouble in the last yard. But it turned out my primary challenge in vegetable growing is going to be my puppy, Hazel. She's a digger, and a marauder, and, well, a puppy. I had to think up some containment options, and fast. These turned out to be a few dog training pens from Tractor Supply, and a couple dozen handy-dandy small green trellises, all barely visible in my photos above.
With everything changing spectacularly nearly every single day here in the northeastern United States, I found this post to be particularly challenging. Choosing what to show you, from the great many things I would like to show you, was daunting. Hence, I'm posting this entry just a few hours before the deadline. And now that it's finally done, I have time to properly peruse the others.
Thank you so much for reading this!
Much love to you all!
This is my entry to Hive Garden's monthly garden journal challenge. Come join us!!!
Thank you for sharing this amazing post on HIVE!
Your content got selected by our fellow curator @priyanarc & you just received a little thank you via an upvote from our non-profit curation initiative!
You will be featured in one of our recurring curation compilations and on our pinterest boards! Both are aiming to offer you a stage to widen your audience within and outside of the DIY scene of hive.
Join the official DIYHub community on HIVE and show us more of your amazing work and feel free to connect with us and other DIYers via our discord server: https://discord.gg/mY5uCfQ !
If you want to support our goal to motivate other DIY/art/music/homesteading/... creators just delegate to us and earn 100% of your curation rewards!
Stay creative & hive on!
Thank you!
First, I’m so glad you got a puppy to love 🤗❤️💕❤️🤗💕
Wow, everything looks verdant and damn healthy. That’s a lot of work there that you’ve made look effortless. Beautiful veggies. Bet you can’t wait to cook them all up (waiting in anticipation).
You’re so uniquely lovely and your garden sure demonstrates that❤️❤️💕❤️💕❤️💕❤️🔥
Aw... You are a very supportive blogger, the best kind there is! Thank you for your lovely comment.
I was getting a bit depressed, and not leaving the house much at all. The instant a puppy crossed my path, I knew that what I needed to snap me out of it was a puppy. I was not wrong!
❤️🤗💕🤗❤️❤️💕
🐶 Puppy love
Yay, progress looks great!
Thank you!
You have a lovely garden. And you do have a lot of vegetables planted.
Good luck with Hazel and the containment, hehe 😄
Thank you!
Those raised beds are very impressive. When it's harvest season?
Hazel looks sharp!
I'm already harvesting kale, arugula, and spring onions. I should have radishes, spinach, and lettuce soon. There's no food better than the food you grow yourself!
Glad you could contain Hazel before she did much damage! Impressed your Contender has 14 peaches it's first year. Mine only had 10, but mighty tasty they were!
Oh I was so hoping to hear from you - you leave such valuable info. In this one, it's that Contender is tasty. Happy day! This one was past flowering when I got it at a nursery, so had already been pollinated. Do you have more than one?
When I got Hazel she was so tiny I thought she would never be large enough to get into one of those beds. Then, one day all of a sudden, she could do it. I had to delay planting until I figured out how to keep her out. For now.
No, the Contender is a self pollinating.
I really like this kind of post OWASCO, have you ever try doing cactus or something ?
Not really. A couple of succulent growers on hive are getting me into it though. They are astonishing shapes and colors. Do you grow them? Thanks for stopping by!
offcourse ma. why not , this is amazing post. and ya I i grow some in my garden. You mmind if I follow you ?
Of course not! No one has ever asked me that before...
hey owasco , i just got lttle bit confused here. it is written 50/50% for the payout hbd and hivepower. From the post I made name The story of finding a name(32.66) I only receive (8.269hbd ) and (14.69 hp) , I dont understand why its not 16 hp and 16 hbd.. please I dont know who to ask , nobody replies my messages.. could u lend a hand ?
OH goodness @owasco, you may have been last minute but you still produced a cracking post! Hazel sounds like a handful, haha. Your space is growing great - well done with the dwarf varieties. Have you contemplated espalier? YOu've learnt, and created, so much in the short time you've been a gardener! Thanks for joining in - you are a real treasure xx
I'm thinking of espaliering witch hazel along that back fence, so yes! Might not get enough sun, but I have grown it in even deeper shade conditions.
Thank you for that sweet comment. I've learned so very much from the gardeners on Hive, that's the real treasure.
But to be clear, I've been a gardener for nearly forty years, but I only planted perennial flowers. I started in with food four seasons ago, and boy is that ever a whole new ball game.
Ahhhhhh you know that's me being a dick, just seeing food gardening as proper gardening ahahahaha..not that I really feel that way, I'm just blinkered from my own efforts to grow food. Lol, slap me. I'll add 'food' to the first time gardening to be clear, which I should have done in the first place! Facepalm.
I somehow just knew you were going to do big things in your new special piece of land, but wow you've already gone above and beyond what I imagined!
I'm so excited to see the progress you've made @owasco, and I hope you will share plenty of progress reports with us as this amazing garden flourishes as I know it will!
Hazel is looking so cute and happy!
There you are! I've been by your place a number of times, but no one was there! Thank you for your, as always, super-supportive self. What have you been up to?
Just been growing weed and haven't felt like posting lately, sometimes I just don't feel like it and then weeks go by in no time.
Last night I planted a lavender, marigold, bean, and tomato seed.
I'll probably post again within the next few days, have to get motivated again.
I am crying on a Saturday morning thanks to all the feelings that songbird has dug up. Eleven years and not once had ever heard that song yet I am sure in another she is or was me or had a close friend or a sister that reminded her of me in a strange telepathic way.
I love how even the smallest of spaces can nourish our bodies and spirits. Love the way your pictorial narrative is posted, share the secret formula as my phone is begging me to get rid of them and I can post them here.
Much love from this end 🔆
I knew that one would speak to you.
Now what is this about sharing my secret? I finally figured out how to use a template for formatting those spiffy side by side photos, are you talking about that?
Much love back atcha!
Yes. The template please :)
hahaha I don't know how to do that! I did the work, using a markdown editor guide, for one post, then saved it as a template. Now I just replace the photos and the captions for those nifty smaller, side by side photos. The first time took forever, the rest are much faster. Lemme see if I can figure out how to send you code.
Lol! Why am I even surprised that you have no clue how to go about it? Thanks for the giggles, I'll be fishing on the how too.
Here's a screenshot of the draft of two side by photos and their captions. Then I repeat it for the second tier of photos. I just replace the photos and the captions. It's confusing at first, but eventually it becomes quite easy.
And so that you can see what this posts as:
Your garden is looking beautiful and productive. I love the idea of having a tree in a container on a dolly so that it can be moved around. I'm not sure that I will attempt doing it as container plants don't do too well with me. A tendency to forget to keep them watered does help!
I know! I try to keep containers under ten so the daily watering doesn't take quite so long, but I didn't do well this season, I have closer to twenty. I was watering the tree an awful lot until I thought to mulch it with hay. Now I only water it every few days in hot weather, but I water it very deeply. It's doing very well. Thanks for stopping by!