Another spring. This one kind of snuck up on us, after being stuck inside for so long – voluntary at first due to the gloomy and cold weather, then forced upon us by you know what. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to do much in the garden this year. For one I started a new job and while I am lucky to be working and loving what I do, the circumstances have made it so that the usual wrappers around work (leave the house/commute/reverse commute/arrive home/unwind) are not applicable. So it makes for long days and garden chores being pushed to the next day, the next week and even the next month. It is mid May and I am still cleaning up fall leaves…
Also, I missed getting out and about – I usually get ideas from nature and what others have done with her building blocks, but this year has proved tough- Audubon and the NEWFS sites were (and at time of writing are) closed, and you almost need credentials forged or give a DNA sample to gain access to horticultural places and garden supply stores. And no, I don’t do curbside. I like to pick things out myself…
However, now that the temperatures are going up ever so slightly and the day is stretching past 7 pm I am getting a bit of planned work accomplished. We are in year 9, or is it 10? – Regardless – definitely far enough along in the life cycle of the woodland garden, so that I don’t need to worry about the plants as much. They self seed, they expand by rhizomes, they battle for resources among themselves, they are setting their own rules for co-habitation… I can focus on some other activities that will enhance the experience of the occasional visitor and the folks (us) who live here. I am building out paths to reach parts of the yard that have been overgrown with brambles long before we arrived on Cape Cod a decade ago, while expanding on a berry bush garden that only existed on paper and in my mind for too long. American cranberry, winter berries, blueberry plants along with choke berries, service berries, and elder berry plants. Hopefully a smorgasbord and shelter for birds. I doubt I will bother with harvesting and maximizing yield, although I am looking forward to a handful of tasty treats once in a while. And if I get really ambitious this year I might make some progress on the wildlife pond that will hopefully get some use by some of the amphibian residents around here.
Grand plans that will take up the little free time I have, but I also need to take time to experience what’s been accomplished so far…
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