Time to Bring in the Tomatoes from my Cottage Garden

It's amazing the difference it makes when your tomato plants like their habitat.  My one plant by the house in my cottage garden produced a bigger crop of tomatoes than all seven sister plants that I grew in the little garden plot across the road.  These tomatoes were huge.  I almost hated to bring them in; I wanted to show them off instead.

I planted it along side the bench arbor and it decided it would be a climber instead of flopping like some of my plants did.  It grew till the tip reached the top of the arbor and then became to heavy and slid down, so I gave in and tied it up.

I had thought that it might not do so well there this year since it was the second year in the same spot, but it liked it there so well last year that I decided to give it a try again, and I'm glad I did.

Last year's preparation involved burying bone meal, ashes and vegetable scraps in a deep hole in the thick bed of pure compost.  This year I had no time for babying my plants but I knew that there would still be nutrients in the soil decomposing from last year.

I think one of the keys to that tomato plant's success was location. It seemed to love the warmth of that west wall.



The photo on the right shows the tomato plant on the arbor in my trailer cottage garden after I had picked the tomatoes off.

I gave most of the tomatoes away.  With my husband in the hospital, there were way too many.

A Garden Calms the Soul

When my life is unsettled and all I feel like doing is crying, I look at my cottage garden and think of the Creator and my soul is calmed.  I hope these photos bless others as well. 

A Two Year Process

I was asked on a comment on my last post about how long I had been working on my garden.  I couldn't quite remember.  So much had changed that it was hard to remember back to what it was.  I had to go back to my photo files.

 This is the way it looked when we had our first look.  There was lawn under the snow, on both sides of the fence.  The clothes line was the dominant feature of the side yard.

In May of 2009, a little more than two years ago, before we even took possession I was pulling the weeds away from the few daffodils hugging the side of the house.  I remember the former owner asking if I wanted to buy her grass trimmer.  My answer was that I wouldn't need one.  There would be no grass to trim.


As soon as we moved in we got rid of the fence and the tree stump and the tree whose roots were causing damage.  I started digging up the grass, and planting what I could scrounge up.  I also bought a couple of rose bushes on sale.

I knew a field where flat rocks were available and our city has a compost site not far from us.  I used newspapers underneath the raised beds of compost to discourage weeds from coming through.

I was able to get quite a few annuals for next to nothing when the beds were done because the season was half way over.

I also planted a few vegetables like cucumbers in the planter and beans, both as a border and for climbing.  We picked up the bench arbor at an outlet that had it cheap because it was missing a couple of caps.

It wasn't until the second year(last year)  that I painted the deck white.  Last spring I was able to get one of the grape vines that I had started at the last house we had.  I didn't expect it to do much the first year, but it took off.

Even though during the summer of 2010 I was at the hospital with my husband most of the time, the garden continued to mature and bless me when I came home exhausted at night.  And even when I was away for almost a month in Toronto while Bruce had his heart valve replaced, the garden kept up a cheerful front.

I thank the Lord for the outlet of my garden during those trying days.  The beauty of God's creation can really be a healing balm in times of trouble. 

This year I have expended a lot of effort into vegetable gardening in two different plots, but my flower garden continues to bless both my husband and myself, as well as being a way of interacting with my neighbors and their children.

Quick change from logs to Rocks in my Cottage Garden

When we moved here, there were two tiny raised flower beds enclosed by poles.  I didn't like them much, but my initial chore of turning the lawn into more garden consumed my time.

That was two years ago. 

Last week we arranged to trade our SUV in for a very small Kia, Rio, and I decided to get some rocks from a near by field while I still had the SUV.

  I removed the rotten wood from around the beds, and stacked the rocks without doing much damage to the creeping flocks and rock cress.




I love the results and it didn't cost me anything but my time and the Gas to get the rocks.

 

Tulip Time

I love them all: Tulips, sweet scented hyacinths

and drumstick primroses

Are my dreams bigger than my stamina?

As we moved from place to place my cottage gardens got bigger and bigger until they were almost more than I could handle.  The garden in Paisley was lovely, (The people who bought the house said it added $10,000.00 to the value of the house) but keeping up with it was a full time job.

The next place had a smaller lot and I loved working the cottage garden I created there, but then we got called to teach at a  Reservation up north for part of the time and I started to wonder if I shouldn't cut back some more.

When we finished on the reserve we bought a mobile home on a tiny lot and I immediately got rid of all the grass to satisfy my garden craving.

But it wasn't quite enough, so I got a 10 x 30 ft garden plot across the street, and helped a daughter with another.

This year spring fever hit me hard.  I offered to help one of my daughters revamp a small garden bed, another daughter is going to let me work in her big back yard adding some of my own plants and making the beds bigger, and the twelve year old across the lane wants me to help her start a garden in front of her trailer.

I may be as busy this year as when I had the big garden in Paisley.

Always wishing for that little piece of Heaven

The other day I told my husband that I wished I had a little piece of land with some chickens and a cow and plenty of space to garden.


The only problem is that I could barely handle it twenty years ago when we had exactly that.  I worked at the market garden from before dawn to after dusk; we could never find where the chickens hid the eggs; the cow broke out of her stall and got into the corn mash and died, and the flowers got eaten by the goats.


I never had the time I would have needed to putter in a flower garden anyway.

At sixty two and sixty nine years old, I doubt that we could do much better than we did back then when we were in our prime.


I do long for my own little piece of Heaven, but at sixty two I guess I can hold off a few more years and wait until I get to garden in the real thing.


In the mean time I do have a little bit of Heaven - sort of.  The weeds do keep coming up and the rose leaves do get eaten by the nasty little green worms, but beyond all that there is just a teeny tiny glimpse of what Heaven must be like.

The Best Winter Medicine - wandering through my past Cottage Gardens

When I have winter fever I know where to look for help.  Here are some of the views of my former cottage gardens that act as medicine to my spring-hungry soul.

Something Amazingly Crazy Happened After I Found Blotanical

It was incredible.  One of those one in a thousand chances that just happened.  It all started when I found a fantastic garden community online called blotanica. 

No, actually it started before that when I moved to the last place where we lived.

We moved in spring, and of course, I was busy turning a burr bush weed patch into a garden, but whenever I had to go downtown I would choose the scenic route to get there.  I would tour my neighborhood to view some of what I knew must be Owen Sound's best gardens. When there were no impatient cars behind me I would slow right down and enjoy my driving garden tour. 
I often thought of stopping to talk to a gardener along the way, but I never did.

Back to the present and my new found favorite e-community, Blotanical.  I had no idea there was one site where I could find so many garden blogs from literally all parts of the world.  I started checking out a few of the garden blogs, occasionally commenting or picking a favorite.

One gardener sent me a message back.  I had commented on her beautiful blog and she had seen where I was from.  "Where abouts in Owen Sound are you?" she asked. 

Believe it or not, from a community of thousands of gardeners from all over the world, I had connected with a gardener not only from my own town but from one of those beautiful gardens in my old neighborhood.

If your path should lead to Blotanica be sure to look me up there at my plot

Planning Changes in the Garden

February is my favorite garden planning season.  I go through my photos and check the different seasons for gaps in the floral display.  What will bloom during that specific time that will enhance the whole feel of the cottage garden?

Is there a wee bit of available ground where I could add a new perennial?

The pot of flowers looked good on the garden hose box; I'll have to do that again but planted with something pink this time.

I wonder why the delphiniums were so pale compared to these old fashioned ones I had at the last place.  Can I find some of those deeper blue delphs this year?  Putting the two together would be sharp.

It looks like the delphiniums bloom at the same time as the pink rambling rose I used to have (in the background).  My daughter kept a slip of that and now has some new plants from it.  I could take one if I could just find a spot for it, but I would have to be careful not to let it get out of hand; those thorns are treacherous.

It might work on the other side by the front walk.  There were quite a few annuals there and even some onions on the other side of the path.  I did plant some roses along there so the rambler might fit in quite well as long as I could keep it from reaching out and grabbing someone on their way to the front door.

The other thing I need to do is to decide if some of the perennials need to be moved in spring. 

Were some of the colchicum (autumn crocuses) too crowded to peek out from the thick vegetation?

All these are fun questions to think about and work with when the bitter winds are blowing outside, and the garden is covered with all that white stuff.



March is only a week away though, and that means spring is just around the corner.  The dreaming, planning time will not last for long.  So get out the pictures, or flip through mine and enjoy yourself.