A collection of well tended allotments is a magical place. Although I would never again wish to live in a city, I have a fascination with small urban gardens and allotments. There is such an abundance of charm in small gardens with their clever use of structures and strategic plantings. The victory gardens on the Fenway create an oasis in the midst of crowds, cars, and chaos.

I love the rusty nails and thorny branches all over the posts and gates. I know they are there to discourage vandals and thieves but I find them so beautiful and sculptural in this context.

Sometimes we have to say goodbye though. I said farewell and all that to one of my favorite works titled Rabbit, pictured in a new frame chosen to match a lovely new home. This has been a running theme for the past few weeks. I wonder if the “rabbits” are trying to tell me something.

The Divine Hermaphrodite

Gnome and nastursiums…

…and bees

Potted thingies inside the sun shed.

Lovingly bundled sage waiting to be hung up.

The spiral path is overgrown and bursting with color.

Alpine strawberries, wild celery, and parsley are in their prime time. The hot peppers show no signs of stopping. They are still producing generous bounty in spite of the much cooler weather and early frosts. The combination of hoop houses, raised beds, and lots of compost is like a small season extending miracle.

Lettuce beds

Newly planted garlic beds and my mum foraging for lettuce in the background. :)

The head mason is my mother who is 70 years old and loves to build walls and paths out of stone. She doesn’t just design and supervise. She does the actual lugging and building. Crazy woman. Now you know where I get half of it. My father was crazy too so there is the other half explained. The stone path leads out to the sandy beach road and we’ve left the entrance open. No gate. There is an enclosed fence around the main garden in the back so I’d like to leave the front open if possible. It’s friendlier. We’ll see how well the neighborhood dogs behave.

I’ve also photographed our medicinal plants since it’s harvest time. I’m about to take most of them out of the garden to dry or otherwise store for the winter. Many will last through the fall a few will live through the winter in cold frames. This is my kind of health insurance. Build your own and grow your own. Self sufficiency and simplicity. I learned this from my parents. Hopefully, if I follow this path, I’ll be lugging big rocks around and planting trees when I am 70. Hmm. That didn’t come out quite right but I think you know what I mean. I’d like to keep that option.

Sage

Mint

Wild Strawberries. They look homely but they are so good.

Echinacea

Dandelion Greens.

Oregeno

Cat Mint!

Raspberry Leaves.

Lavender

Comfrey

Rhubarb

Heavenly Blue Morning Glories. ;)

Purslane

Chamomile

Basil

Jalapenos & Cayenne

Parsley, Rosemary, Chives, Heather, Lavender, Garlic, Dill, Mullein…

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I love these little orange “sungold” tomatoes. They taste like candy.

Pesto!

Bees love sunflowers.

The new front garden planted with evergreens, heather, and mums for fall.

Hibiscus flowers as big your face. Kids love these.

Foxglove

Marigolds and clover.

Hot hot hot peppers. Cayenne, jalapeno, chili, and banana peppers. We do so love our peppers.

We haven’t had to purchase herbs or produce all summer with the exception of limes, lemons and avocados. We’ve had parsley, basil, mint, chives, onions, garlic, lettuces, wild celery, raspberries, strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, hot peppers, grapes, dandelion greens, radishes, nasturtium, purslane, and rhubarb in abundance. We may get a few eggplants and figs in the fall. Blueberries and sunflower seeds are a possibility if the birds will allow. We’ve planted pear trees and I have one little avocado tree that may survive in a cold frame. I’ve been saving up all the excess for winter like a good little squirrel. Canning, drying, and pickling. C.P.’s next project is the cold frame. Between that and the new shed, I’m fascinated to see what I will be able to grow and harvest through the winter. Last year, we harvest mache, beets, radishes, and parsley through the winter in open beds with nothing but a frost cover so I think we will squeeze quite a nice harvest of fresh food out of a cold frame.

Every year the tulip bulbs are planted in clusters according to color and every year the squirrels rearrange them for me.

Evening primroses growing up right through the mulch under the lettuce bed. A mystery. I would never plant anything red in my garden deliberately. Everyone has an opinion and the general opinion seems to be that I need more red plants in my garden.

Johnny Jump-Ups jumping up around the Tulips.

An overview of the back garden in development. It will eventually be an edible landscape, a mix of wild perennials and self seeding or saved seed annuals.

I love dandelions and don’t understand why people spend so much time fussing about them and trying to kill them. It makes me happy to see them peeking out everywhere. They are such useful plants. Every part is edible and medicinal.

One of these creatures guards the gate and the other guards me.

One of the joys of gardening are the little surprises that happen when nature asserts an opinion over whatever I’ve planted deliberately, like the wild violets that sprang up all around my tulips or the red and yellow mystery flowers growing up under the lettuce bed. I don’t even know what those are. I always listen and work with what I am given. It’s a delicate balance between cultivation and chaos that makes a garden come alive and so much more interesting than the neat little rows of widely spaced heavily mulched alternate color annuals that landscapers seem to love. It is also the best way to slowly build up a healthy eco-system.

Herbs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables are all planted together using deliberate companion plantings and working with volunteers. Everything eventually works out, as in who which plants compliment each other aesthetically and practically. Two of my favorite books on companion planting are “Carrots Love Tomatoes” and
“Roses Love Garlic” by Lousie Riotte.

A lovely way to start the first morning of May is with a reminder of Lord Whimsy’s post about David Brenner’s moss garden. I love moss and don’t care much obsessively trimmed blandscapes. There is a small cottage up the road with a moss path to the door with a big stone at the end in front of the door. It’s like an anti-welcome mat. I love that. C.P. McDill and I turned up every stone with moss attached and tucked them under shaded places.

Lack of mossiness aside, the rest of our garden is thriving and the micro-climate we created has held up well to the elements. We are still working on the dry laid stone wall that will go all the way around the garden and up the hill. Last night we had an unexpected frost. It’s an ironic May Eve gift for gardeners, a sort of literal “May Day” for the seedlings and bulbs just beginning to bloom. I put tomatoes, peppers, and basil in the potting shed and lit all of the votive candles I could find.

The mossy path and spring tulips in the front garden.

The dry laid wall in progress.

The beginnings of a strawberry patch and phlox with rocks.

Pesto and salsa hiding in the potting shed.

We live on sand. The bare space is 24 x 24 feet with nothing planted on it. Purslane grows there every spring and every summer we eat it and then the patch is bare again. My plan is to lay out a spiral path with flagstones that I’ve been collecting and then to see what will grow there other than purslane.

I’m still floating in the mist. I think it’s called a brain fog. The signs of life I refer to are (unfortunately) not mine. Not yet. They are outside, here on the coastal homestead among the flora and fauna and wildlife. Spring flowers, mint, oregano, garlic, purslane, parsley, dandelions, sage, spring onions, rhubarb, and asparagus are all peeking up now. My fig tree and wisteria survived the winter and have new buds. There are signs and indications that I will join them soon. Last week began the long slow tease of a spring which never quite arrives. Then it will be summer. We’ll sneak in gardening days whenever the sun miraculously appears or the whip winds of a sudden storm off the Atlantic. I love it though, living and gardening on a cliff by the sea. It’s like resistance training for the spirit.

The compost came out better than I had hoped and there is plenty of it. Rich and black. Nitty gritty down and dirty with the earth is what really wakes me up and gets me going. Solar power also helps. My cozy by the fire evenings and lazy daze of winter woolgathering are over though…until December.

Wild turkey trot through the garden.

Nemo is fascinated.

“Those are the biggest chickens I ever saw!”

Starting the season.

Transplanting seedlings from greenhouse trays to beds and containers.

Daffodils and driftwood.

We created a micro-climate by hollowing out a bowl for a sunken garden and surrounding it with a stone wall, then installing raising beds filled with generous amounts of organic compost. We still need these walls-o-water to plant tomatoes and peppers. Otherwise the season would be too short to yield fruit. Everything else grows fine in the beds with just an occasional frost cover or extra windbreak.

Garlic! Planted last fall and ready to eat soon. Repels vampires too. So very handy.



Dandelions for dinner.

Layer, glaze, layer, glaze, cut apart, reassemble, layer, glaze, layer, glaze, cut apart, reassemble, and repeat indefinitely…usually until the rare moment of lucidity or financial inclination motivates me to stop long enough for something to be released from this eternal cycle of construction and destruction. It hasn’t happened lately. Now if only I could combine composting with art making. That would be heaven. Hmmm…

Take a walk down the stone steps into my garden.

Quietly sneak past the guard and under the driftwood arch.

Hot peppers galore.

Abundance

A field of cosmos 10 feet tall.

A fig tree grew out of the compost. Surprise!

C.P. made these birdhouses out of the mahogany scraps from our new front porch.

ucumbers gone wild.

Another volunteer. This basil planted itself on the brick path outside of the parsley bed.

The garden will be fading soon. The lush late summer and early fall glory is captured here. I think I have a few more months but who can tell? This is the New England coast and the weather has been so unpredictable everywhere else. I had a dream last night that I woke up and looked out the window and it was snowing. When I really did wake up, I thought it would be snowing. I jumped out of the bed and planned to go outside and grab everything I could harvest. C.P. McDill is thinking of building a studio in the garden since that is where I spend most of my time for almost half of the year. I always feel split down the middle as to where I want to be.

C.P. found this orange rose bush at a plan nursery for a bargain price. It’s my favorite color. Hopefully, it will grow wildly and climb on the fence.

A teepee made of driftwood for our cucumbers to climb on.

Many of the plants growing on the paths are volunteers, seeded by the birds and the wind. I see what grows here easily and on it’s own and then collect the seeds. Of the vegetables and flowers that I started deliberately, I flag the healthiest looking plants with the earliest flowers and fruit. Then I save the seeds from only those plants. Eventually, I will have a garden full of plants acclimated to this particular climate and soil.

I like the composting structures but the “greenhouse” really functions more as a potting shed. I wasn’t able to start plants as early as I would like. The beds surprised me though. We had mache, lettuce, radishes, and cabbage growing right through the winter. We recycle and reuse everything. C.P. built the gate, bins, beds, bird houses and other structures out of scrap and driftwood. All spent plants, trimmed branches, weeds, leaves, grass clippings, vegetable and fruit scraps, egg cartons, egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, and a lot of paper and cardboard gets recycled back into the compost. Then it serves a dual purpose as mulch and fertilizer. It keeps the soil warm and holds moisture. I am absolutely passionate about compost. It is the secret to a healthy garden and cuts down on waste. I’ve begun using composting methods in my art.

A volunteer tomato plant is growing out of one of our compost bins. I am curious to see how the fruit compares to the tomatoes I planted.

Seaweed collected from the beach. We put it into the compost, use it as mulch, and also leave it in buckets in the sun. The buckets fill up with rain and then warm in the sun. The seaweed water makes an excellent organic fertilizer. I washed it thoroughly to remove most of the salt and sand. Sea shells and beach stones also make an effective and attractive mulch. Our “lawn” is still scrappy. It’s mostly crab grass and clover and I just don’t care. Lawns really do not interest me. The bees love the clover but it’s on pure sand. C.P. keeps seeding it and it just keeps getting washed away.

Healthy tomatoes grown in raised beds and filled with compost.

The steps on the side garden are built of stone that was found on the beach. We brought the rocks up one by one and built them into the hill. My mother designed this project. She is the Queen of DIY masonry. She also built the stone wall on the other side, the one we are extending all around the garden.

Most of the front and side gardens are comprised of perennials and self seeding annuals, wild flowers and herbs that are either local or volunteer. They need a lot less water, attract more birds and beneficial insects, and are more resistant to disease.

We still have a large section of land (not photographed) that is yet to be cultivated. We started out 2 years ago with an empty 3/4 of an acre lot comprised of sand and scrappy weeds. Starting from scratch was actually a blessing. We had the opportunity to have a completely organic garden from seeds to soil to compost that is sustainable and bio-diverse. No chemicals. No tilling. We are now capable of growing most of our own plant foods all year round by eating only what is in season. The garden currently produces blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, wild strawberries, oregeno, parsley, mint, basil, chamomile, dandelion greens, lambs quarter, lettuce, mache, cabbage, radishes, swiss chard, spinach, nasturtium, onions, grapes, scallions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, asparagus, thyme, sage, green beans, a small fig tree and more. It is a peaceful oasis of flowers, butterflies, dragonflies, and birds. There is a cute little chipmunk living behind our compost bins.

Our next project is to build a real greenhouse and two cold frames. We need to level the land on the other side of the back garden and extend the stone wall around it. It will be a combination of wild patches and circular paths as a counter balance to the grid of raised beds. I’d like a spiral path if it will fit. The greenhouse will be in the middle. The combination of the raised beds, compost mulching, strategic wind breaks and stone creates micro-climates and pushes us up a zone. Eventually the stone wall will extend around the entire back garden and will extend the seasons even further.