Build It And We Will Garden

A true friend once remarked "Nothing says 'I love you' like back breaking labour" and I see the wisdom in his words (I hope he isn't reading this or they will have to widen the doors at his house to accommodate his embiggened ego).

This weekend, Catherine and I, with help from MJ and Angus, dug lilac and cedar roots from our vegetable-garden-to-be, chainsawed, sawed and axed lilac and cedar limbs, weeded around lilies and transplanted some to boot.

MJ and Cat started some Cat Grass seedlings. Cat helped paint garden stakes I made.....

....and I finished our Deck Rail Hanging Garden Lattice with some assistance from the rest of the team. The design was mine. And I had the idea to incorporate garden tool storage.

The lattice will hold 6 box planters each 30" long, tool storage, and later some extra plants in pots may hang from it. 

Deck-Rail Herb Trellis

Construction is select-grade 2x4s and 2x6s held together with 3" #10 wood screws. The coating is one coat of Thompson's Water Seal with a sort of grey tone (the card in the store looked much grayer than the final look with one coat, but a second coat may darken it down).  The structure is semi-permanent (movable if I untie a rope to an anchor point on the house wall and the bungee attaching it to the porch pillar) just as a precaution against a need to work on the porch.

For now, herbs are the starting point : Rosemary, Sweet Basil, another Basil, Dill, Mint, Sage, Lemon Balm,  and Stevia from seedlings. We will add, from seed stock: Chives, Garlic Chives, Microgreens, Cilantro, Parsley and Lavender.

Lemon Balm, Basil, Dill, Rosemary 

Sage, Stevia, Mint, Sweet Basil

The tool storage came in the form of screw on rails with spring clamps to hold implements and a bag to hold other things (we are going to make a lid to help protect the contents versus inclement weather...). It'll let us store common garden tolls mostly out of the weather (if rain come sideways, maybe not as much) and in a handy location. 

Tool racks and a utility storage bag

Rakes, a fork, hoes, a manual cultivator (non-branded Garden Weasel), and a Dandelion puller plus the broom for MJ's trampoline with gloves and hand trowels in the bag

Given we just bought a hose that's 37.5' with pressure off and 100' when pressurized, I might need to mount a hose storage rack somewhere on the back side too as an enhancement. Maybe another bag off the bottom of the bottom rack or off the top rack and the house rack in the other location. 

I worked, I tore up my left shoulder (shoulder-breaking is close to back-breaking), and it made Cathy happy.I check one off in the win column!

It is great to do projects with Cat, MJ and Gus. We are trying to reclaim about 1000 square feet of garden from the likes of stinging nettle, burdock, dandelions, grasses, a runaway lilac and it's ground cover, creeping cedars, Manitoba maples, and lilacs from across the back fence, and the list goes on. It's not a one year proposition nor is it entirely cheap, but if the house eventually is sold, it'll help the resale value a lot not to have all that garden space over-run by weed, hedge, bush, and sharp things that burn your hands and legs and stick you with burrs all the time.

We've reclaimed about 200 square feet for a vegetable garden which we should see planted in the next 2-3 weeks (a bit late, but we've still been getting frost on recent nights) and have partially reclaimed about another 250 square feet for flowers. About 100 sq ft is in the back (in a former sandbox cum flowerbed and next to the vegetable garden and the other 150 sq ft in the front. The front has Hostas and the back has some Hostas and Lillies. 

There's about another 400 square feet of back garden mostly dominated by burdock and stinging nettle. Roundup is our friend! It seems to work on the nettle and the burdock will likely take a 3rd and 4th dosing as it is a hardy plant. Then to help wage that war, we have 12' x 100' 6-mil black plastic I plan to double (12-mil thick then, 6' wide, 100' long) and I'll lay that over the burdock and nettle once I have finished nuking it with Roundup and then mowing it near to the dirt (and/or tilling it in). The black plastic will starve the remains of sun and water.

Next year, we can either haul that soil out and get totally new soil down about 6" or we just get some 4x4 and build a raised bed (say 12-18") and get all new soil and leave the burdock and nettle root buried under the new bed and the 12 mil black plastic so it doesn't come up again. 

The side garden needs rebordered - it has overflown historical borders but we've decided just to reborder around its new extents for the most part. We can cut back the huge lilac there after the Robin moves along (we found a nest yesterday). 

The garden along the fence near the shed has another lilac that needs some trimming as well as a lot of dandelion, burdock and other greenery that must die so that something else may one day take its place (even it if is just mulch around the lilac. 

And then there's the fence repairs, building a cat enclosure to give her outdoor days, plumbing work on the back faucet, electrical work on all outdoor sockets, flamethrowing the patio (plus Roundup too), and then the garden beds along the wall behind the back patio.... and finding a way to cause about 12-15 small stumps of trees coming up under the fence or next to it to rot away (and the same to some other stumps leftover from large trees). Then there's putting a raised bed around the big tree in the front. 

Yes, Catherine my Love, I hope you too understand that nothing says I love you like back-breaking (shoulder-wrenching) effort! ;0)