WiseAcre Gardens

 When I first saw the “vegetable garden” I thought it would make a perfect skating rink in winter. The previous owners had a good 12 years practicing chemical gardening. From the road their gardens always looked great. Seeing it one would wish it for themselves. That is until you got a close look. The soil had seemed to evaporate. The whole garden sat at least four inches below grade. It was in fact a rocky mess of thin mud with the subsoil only a couple inches down.

Over the last 10 years I’ve been building up the soil. Dug up sod, composted horse bedding and even foot deep layers of leaves have been piled and tilled in. In the photo you can see part of last years pile of sod left to ‘compost’ itself back to soil. (upper left)

 I may have gained 5 inches by now but the area remains a cold wet muddy mess usually well into May. Lucky for me this year everything dried out fast and I was able to get in and do some digging. After a couple of days the ‘project’ is starting to take shape. The rows run slightly downhill and will empty into a catch basin that’s not much more than a wide ditch with drain pipe covered with crushed stone. The ditch will be lined with landscape fabric and the stone will also be covered with a double layer. The pipe will eventually extend to a low spot to discharge all the runoff.

 Of course I say I’m doing this because of the poor drainage but really my wife needed a place to plant strawberries. I at least managed to get a row finished enough for her to plant. I haven’t measured it but it’s long enough to have planted 60 some plants in the fabric covered row with plenty of room for runners. If I had to guess I’d say the row was about 30 feet long. On the outside holding everything in place are 120 pots.  I figure next year they can be pulled and a new strawberry bed easily established. It might be an odd combination but this year’s plan is to plant peppers in the center of the strawberry bed.

  Who knows what the ‘front’ half of the garden is going to turn out like. I don’t but I am making steady progress. I at least got away with putting some curves into the garden.