The Side Garden, Part 1

When we first moved into our house the previous owner had a cute little strawberry patch in the side garden.  The house was framed with peonies and a forsythia bush.  It was adorable and picturesque and by the time we moved in, the lawn and garden had not been weeded or watered in a month, and that month happened to be July, the second hottest month of the year.  We tried to save the strawberries but instead we murdered them slowly over a year by viciously weeding and leaving them stripped, naked and bare all winter.  *sigh* Oh, well.  No time for regrets let's push onward.

I decided to put the Fig, Kiwis and Paw Paws in the side garden (and if there is room okra, eggplant and peppers), on the East side of the house.  It is one of the only places in our yard with a reasonable windbreak.  Recently we acquired a chain link dog run, with hopes that we will house dairy goats in the near future.  That will also go on the East side as well.  To increase the temperature I plan on utilizing a lot of rock and cement in shaping the beds and to hopefully add a little humidity I want to have some kind of water feature, like a bird bath or twenty.  Adam and I recently acquired a generous stack of cinder blocks via Craigslist Angel, Sherrie which led me to investigate how I could incorporate them.  During my research I found this really cool cinder block wall garden:




I think it would be crazy, wicked and it would kind of act as a rock garden too, plus it would provide gardening space while helping to make things feel "cozy" instead of "cramped".

The space designated for the side garden is approximately 14' x 25' (by approximate I mean I just thought about it for a minute and said "yeah, that sounds right") and I want to dedicate half of that space for the dog run.  So the actual garden would be 7' x 25' which is not a lot of room to work with but what some may see as a disadvantage I see as a bonus.  The less space there is the more bio-intensive the garden will be and therefore the better the microclimate.  At least that is where my logic has taken me. 

Previously the fence all around our yard was waist-height chain link.  Our neighbor to the East has a six foot tall white wood fence and we plan on matching what she has when we move the fence line.  Changing the fencing material should add an additional windbreak, provide more privacy and give some shade to the Paw Paws.  Paw Paws are understory trees and grow best in partial shade their first few years.  So right now I am planning of putting them right up against the fence.  The following is a sketch that I just whipped up. 

 

Right now it is tabula rasa, just flat dirt and old sod with some peonies and crocus popping up along the side of the house.  First thing that needs to happen is that we need to put this dog run together and see how much space it will take, then build a new fence, then take down the old fence.  I already started to dismantle the old fence but luckily I thought about it for half a second before I tore it all the way down.  Hmm, I thought, I have toddlers and ducks that like to free range...if this fence isn't here then they won't be here either.

So that is on my personal honey-do list for this weekend. 

Eclectic Gardening

I know what I said, I was done! I had moved on from my seed purchasing phase and moved into my land prep phase. Well, at this exact moment that is true but three weeks ago I had a moment of weakness. My order of seeds from Territorial Seed Co. arrived and a day later I received a Burgess Seed catalogue.  Those seed companies sure know how to time things.

Hello, my name is Katherine and I am a shopaholic.  I cannot pick up a seed catalogue without poring over the pages and coveting anything green and grow-able in Zone 7.

As you may guess after that confession I made another purchase from Burgess.  I needed to get seed potatoes.  When we were living in our Stead apartment we grew potatoes in a terracotta pot on our porch and were rewarded with Lilliputian results. At the time I had not purchased "seed potatoes" I just used some that had started to sprout in our cupboard.  This time I wanted to do it right.  So under the guise of making a wise purchase, I mean, we did NEED potatoes. I took the opportunity to add a couple other things to my cart.  If I'm already paying shipping might as well make the most of it...right? RIGHT!

Enter my mini orchard.  In addition to the Fruit Cocktail tree (super cool, they graft two kinds of peach, a plum, a nectarine and an apricot onto one tree), and 5-in-1 Pear that I had ordered and planted in November, I was now in anticipation of an Hardy Almond, a pair of Kiwi vines, Sugar Sweet Cherry (a self-pollinating variety of Nanking), and two Paw Paw trees.  Say, what's a paw paw?  That is exactly what I was thinking but when I heard that it was also called a Sweet Custard Apple I had to satisfy my curiosity.  True, its also called a Poor Man's Banana in some places but that's hardly as delicious sounding.  Add in my pre-order on that Negronne Fig and my excitement level is bordering on unhealthy.  Now all I have to do is pray that each lives through its first 3-5 years and I will be up to my eyeballs in exotic, eccentric, delectable fruit!

This seems like a good time to fill you in on my fruit list.

 

Cantaloupe
	Hearts of Gold
	Minnesota Midget
Grape
	Canadice
	Niagara
Raspberry
	Canby
Trees
	Almond
	Apple
	Cherry
	Fig
	Fruit Cocktail
	Paw Paw
	Pear
Vines
	Kiwi
	Vine Peach

Not that I am not "real" with you all, all of the time.  But I just need to take a time-out and "get real".  My fucking stupid laptop did it to me again, again!  I had a sweet ass paragraph all typed out and I was just going back an re-reading it for continuity's sake and then somehow my stupid, fucking, remedial, ar-tarded laptop hi-lighted and deleted the whole thing.  WHAT THE FUCK LAPTOP! But this stupid, asinine piece of equipment cannot silence me! Nay! I say! Nay! WHAT IS DEAD CAN NEVER DIE! WINTER IS COMING! A PETERSON ALWAYS PAYS THEIR DEBTS! (Adam and I just watched the third season of Game of Thrones in like two days, too much?)

To continue, if my laptop permits, I was saying that I had kickass plans for a fruit collection that would make Adam and Eve's mouths water.  But then something happened that tempered my excitement.  I went to a work bee with my Perma buddies (shout out to Northern Nevada Permaculture!) and mentioned my grand plans.  I knew that a fig tree was risky, time consuming and potentially a waste but as I said before I am a romantic.  My buddies, who have been facing the subtleties of Reno's intermountain desert climate for most of their lives, informed me that while cold was a problem it wasn't the only one.  Fruits like Fig, Paw Paw and Kiwi can live in the cold but they don't do great in excessive wind, drought, or aridity.  Hmm, my neighborhood sometimes feels that a wind tunnel, and I wasn't planning on buying a dehydrator because it gets so hot and so dry here.  I think this is a bad sign.  I knew it would not be easy, so even though this news deflated me (only a little bit) it also encouraged me and gave me insight on where to place my new plants and how to prepare the area.  My ingenuity and inherent, innovative genius will surprise you when this exciting subplot is continued in the upcoming chapter "The Side Garden".  Don't touch that dial.