The September Garden

As I rightly feared, this year the garden suffered from a string of distractions and a lag of enthusiasm. I threw myself into a design project that overtook what was left of my life (after work, kids, church, being a wife) and used up a great deal of creative energy. We split a CSA share from Turnip Rock Farm, which is always a dream, but it gave me little reason to rely on my own growing space to feed our family throughout the summer. My neighbor and I started a corn patch in back which was poorly planned and poorly tended, and ultimately yielded next to nothing after squirrels and rot took their respective toll. I threw a bunch of plants down where bare earth appeared, without much thought to how they would detract from the overall garden vision - or how they would contribute to the creeping charlie nightmare. Finally, a I think a suburban laziness overtook me. Using the rain barrel seemed an exceedingly tedious task. And not once did I resist the urge to ooze in front of my computer, watching bad TV and scrolling through Facebook (yes, I am on Facebook now; yes, it's everything I thought it would be, and I want to die).

if you look very closely you may see a revolting supper club of beetles, wasps, and flies.

let's hope it grows back 

Needless to say, my first year vigor gave way to a sophomore slump, though a few good deeds were still accomplished. For example, I grew my first decent-sized beets (almost by mistake) in my pine mulch blueberry bed. I had my first successful brussels sprouts, and I had green beans to feed a neighborhood. I put them into excellent use as pickles. I also managed to expand my native perennial border (still without being ticketed by the city!) and experiment with perennials in the kitchen garden.

a few thoughts:

Watch out for that anise hyssop. It spreads like a pernicious weed.

Start your broccoli out in march if possible, and eat real heads, not stringy flowers,

Grow more cabbage and eat, eat, eat sauerkraut.

Finally, don't get too cocky about those tomatoes you saved from seed. They won't be quite what you hoped for.

The Midnight Garden

DEVASTATION

Zack and I were so proud of our corn patch. It grew up beautifully despite the odds, set back by a late start, a weedy early period, and a mere 5.5 hours of daily sun. We saw sweet ears of corn, perfectly formed; blackened silks to alert us to their ripened perfection. A priest visited, commenting on the privilege it would be to put water to the flame, pick ears of corn, and drop it in the pot to cook having lost not a single sugar to starch in the interim.
The next morning, our visions of greatness, hopes, dreams - they were dashed, chewed up, digested, gnawed away. The vile vermin of Heights alleyways! As if on cue, they were collectively possessed, compelled, all at once, to nibble and shred every last ear of sweet corn on every last stalk, leaving us absolutely nothing to enjoy but the wry commentary of Neighbors Randy and Mark.

Zack has taken up his pellet gun against the neighborhood squirrel population. It's genocide before us.

Potato Day

Potato Day in the Hansen garden is fun! Kids and Moms alike love the thrill of digging up tubers. This year our 5-6 potato plants yielded two good potato dinners. Hardly worth it.

NOTHING GOES BETTER WITH POTATOES THAN DELICIOUS GARDEN ONIONS

FENCE DAY

Ben did this today:

The fence. No, those are not our Priuses. Priuii?

tangled native mess

The native garden, finally looking like a garden and not a weed patch. Still pretty weedy though.

I've been growing these since late February.

It's Infectious, Until it Gets Too Hard

Neighbor Zack is a pretty great neighbor. He introduced himself right away to us as we moved in, offers all kinds of neighbor help, lets my kids tear through his yard... and even forgives me for the creeping charlie which has dominated my lawn and is poised to challenge his. He has not only tolerated my garden zeal but taken a bit of his own interest as well - he and his kids grow a thing or two in their dappled shade raised beds.

This year he approached me with an offer I couldn't refuse: to let him dig up my backest yard into a cornfield for us to share. Did I refuse? No, in fact I did not; and also did most of the work involved in cultivating, planting, and tending our little corn and pumpkin patch.

poof, now you see it. 

The new garden is doing quite well, despite endless heckling from Neighbor Randy and Neighbor Mark. We have tall stalks and tassles, which are surprisingly beautiful; and what's more, pumpkins on the way. 

ah yes, quite nice.

It pleases me to see less grass and I'm already plotting for the start of my restoration project next spring. Admittedly, though, for every square inch of sod I remove, I get six cubic inches of charlie. And what's more, pumpkin vines look like creeping charlie with elephantitis. It's a bit disturbing.

It's the end of July

Isn't summer nice

I don't know who put these in my garden

Brassica city starring Too Many Collards

Stuff just grows here

Views from mid-June

Timber

We slept on it for a number of months. A maple that seemed to have grown up by accident was casting a dense shade on the front yard garden, stunting our new raspberry patch, and threatening to join up with the lindens to create a canopy of cool darkness where we want to have light. Was it okay to cut down a tree? We had a good goal in mind - a place to grow food - but even cultivation is a human invention, with a long history of habitat destruction (depending on whom you ask). Maybe taking this tree down would be an act of hubris, human folk once again making the outrageous claim that "the buck stops here," whatever, that we are in charge and nature can suck it.
Maybe debating the ethics of cutting down a tree in the suburbs is pointless, since most trees have been placed there by a human. Almost every tree up here is somehow related to a human act or a human omission, excepting a few mighty old maples and cottonwoods that seem to have been in the so-called "Columbia Heights" since creation. We live in an artificial landscape, not even a shadow of its original form, so maybe eliminating a young maple is not much different from a preschooler knocking down a tower of ABC blocks.
In any case, we consulted a priest, a farmer, a poet, and our tender inner conscience, and knocked the tree down.

We replaced it with this little beauty, a true dwarf Liberty apple from RainTree Gardens in Washington. It came bareroot via UPS in a triangular cardboard box, and for the first month after planting looked pretty much like a stick in the ground. Here, finally, we have some tender first leaves.

Glamour Shots

Before I knew anything about gardening - much less ornamental and perennial gardening - a florist I knew arranged flowering forsythia as a table centerpiece at our wedding reception. I couldn't believe I was looking at what was essentially blooming sticks. In those days, my idea of home decor was random groupings of bare sticks throughout the house, so forsythia was an amazement to me. I decided then that I would one day own a home in order to have my very own forsythia planted near the front door.

Well my friends, I've done it. Today I am enjoying a first meager bloom of my wildest dreams.

The Archpriest Jonathan has assured me that the bloom will get better year by year, so I'm resisting the disappointment in this pathetic show.

ARISE O GOD

Tulip

Forsythia

Peony

Day Lily

Garlic

Rhubarb

I Have Two

I don't know if houseplants count as gardening, but these violets are really special. Besides, there's not much else to comment on in the dead of a Minnesota winter. The plant belonged to Grandma R., and I adopted it when Grandpa R died and she moved into her new home. I almost killed it once when I thought it would like to be transplanted, but it pulled through - much to my relief! Here it is now, blooming vibrant against a snowy picture window. Who knew we would get flowers in January?