We have a PLAN

Last weekend my friend and I officially broke ground in our garden this season. The weather was just gorgeous for being outdoors all day, and perfect for physical tasks that would’ve been much more strenuous in hotter weather. She used this great garden planner program from Territorial Seeds that allows you to plot out everything and make a grand master plan. Based on this plan and our desire to expand the garden, we realized most of the current beds needed to be shifted a few feet to reestablish the walkways. This involved moving a lot of dirt and mulch. Once the dirt was shifted and we went for the first pile of mulch, I suggested finally buying a real wheelbarrow this year, and we dusted ourselves off and headed off to the hardware store. Can I just say, wheelbarrows don’t get enough props for their usefulness. They should be listed among the simple machines kids have to learn about. You remember - screw, lever, pulley, ramp, wheelbarrow! Levers were always my favorite. Their ability to transfer force is so impressive, and it was really a mind-trip to understand how moving the fulcrum altered the force. And who doesn’t like the word fulcrum? We got the current garden beautifully laid out with string denoting beds and chives guarding the corners of the beds. The expansion will involve a lot more mulch – yay more opportunities to use the wheelbarrow!

Our garden has always had a casual idea of what we want to do, and we adopted a very fly by the seat of your pants attitude towards it. Last year it officially became known as the Garden of Lost Tools. But not this year! Now that we have A PLAN our garden is being whipped into shape. And it’s amazing how different it is already, as if it knows there’s no fighting against THE PLAN. Tasks that languished for a full year, such as extending the grape trellis, were easily accomplished in a spare moment. All hail The Garden With A Plan!

                                                          

I also discovered how fantastic it feels to garden barefoot. All the soft warm dirt and cool moist mulch underfoot was a treat. And ironically my feet were much cleaner at the end than my mud-caked shoes. I did put my shoes back on when working near the raspberry bushes – I may be crazy but I’m not stupid!