Warts and All
I’ve decided I am weary of garden blogs that show everything perfect and weed-free. They are like Martha Stewart–making everywoman feel guilty, or the reason Nancy and I never visit the houses that are on show during the Holiday Tour of Homes. It’s all very well to show most plants only when they are in flower. That’s when most of them are most interesting. But the rest of the garden ought to be remembered when it looked terrible, so that we can enjoy it the more when it looks great.
This is the vegetable garden and shed this December, after 2 years of neglect during my arthritic hips stage. I have at least removed and replaced (in concrete, which goes against my grain) the near fence post on the left, although I haven’t yet replaced the lattice in the top half of the fence. This I need to do because a Zepherine Drouhan is destined to scramble through that fence as soon as it arrives at the end of the month
I need to get the vegetable garden ready to plant the pimientos de Padron in late February or early March. The soil is in lovely shape thanks to generous dollops of manure, compost, peat moss, newspaper, and pine straw. But trumpet vine invaded while the garden was unplanted last year, and is a monster to remove. I have (belatedly) planted sweet peas along the dog fence on the north side of the garden.
Karen -
Amen!!! Lets cheer a non-perfect garden. I love reading about the countless little decisions people make to take a plot of dirt and turn it into a garden paradise. A finished garden is a boring one. It all about the process for me. I’m looking forward to seeing the progression of your garden. Keep us posted!
Comment by Wicked Gardener — December 17, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
This past summer Colleen of In the Garden Online challenged garden bloggers to show The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and many of us did just that. My husband is a very private person and he doesn’t want me to include photos of the house (at least not those that would enable one to identify it) and that sometimes limits the shots I can publish. But a lot of garden bloggers, myself included, don’t hesitate to show our problems if we think it will make an interesting topic for others.
Comment by Kathy (New York) — December 21, 2007 @ 7:45 am