When your perfect home comes with a magical jungle-like garden it is a challenge and a blessing rolled into one. The combination thereof becomes a marvellous transformation journey when a soul sister is a botanist, ecologist, environmental warrior, scientist, and passionate gardener extraordinaire and takes on your garden as a personal project and therapeutic reconciliation with the universe.
From the moment she saw the garden from the first time last year, the wheels in her creative mind began turning and we had to wait until winter passed until she could get going on this monumental project. Just to remind you, this is what we are starting with:
Vendy arrived yesterday and got to work right away (she is the cat mom of Dorotka and Matylda, see related link at the end of the entry). By the end of the day, she had cleared my terrace, weeded the sidewalk, and started the initial work of the first vegetable bed.
In the bottom lefthand photo, you see the sprouting pot for peas, black cumin and string beans. In the small round pot is chilli peppers and you also see branches of bay leaf rooting.
Today she went full-on power gardener and sawed branches off the walnut tree, and created a biodiversity microcosm:
Starting from the top lefthand photo and going clockwise:
1. The carefully layered compost bin (here the scientist was undoubtedly at work)
2. The Lily of the Nile (agapanthus) which now has breathing space, in addition to a little patch with cat grass seeds that has just been planted.
3. The edge of the vegetable bed that has been cleared as bio barriers to prevents bugs, parasites and herbivores from invading the vegetable patch. These barriers are a natural alternative to pesticides.
4. The stone steps that I love but have now been weeded. She said she planted a few surprises which will reveal themselves in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned for that!
5. The vegetable bed which has been planted with rucola, radish and mint. The small embedded boxes that act as dividers between the varieties, contain wildflower meadow mixes that will become a biodiversity habitat for bees.
6. One of the thousands of nasturtiums that will create natural barriers between the terraces. We harvested the flowers last night for a salad.
Missing from the photos is a small patch of sunflowers that have been planted to the side of the vegetable bed. So summer will be stunning in this garden! Because of the natural formation of the rocks around here and the varying levels that will help with the multidimensional designs for the garden, there is plenty of room to create little crevices for insect hotels. Vegetable beds, flowering plants and fruit trees (new and existing) will be planned into the grand design, so exciting things are about to happen in the Frobbit garden!
And wouldn’t you know, just as Vendy finished for the day, it started raining, just in time to water the new beds. This is the beginning of a series, and I will keep you posted on the transformation of the garden as it happens. I feel incredibly blessed and am fascinated by the developments.
Related entries:
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