1000 Garden Ideas by Stafford Cliff

This is a coffee table book filled with pictures from unidentified gardens around the world. It's organized by specific themes like Walls & Fences, Rocks and Steps and each page is filled with multiple pictures, some only slightly larger than credit card sized. This format is fine for the Pots section, but imagine trying to see pictures of ponds in this format! The details were lost and I learned little.

Eat More Dirt by Ellen Sandbeck

The subtitle here is "Diverting and Instructive Tips for Growing and Tending an Organic Garden" which pretty accurately describes the book. This is a quick read because most entries are short, some only a paragraph long, and the longest are only a page or two. The organic gardening information was fine, but not my favorite part. That honor belongs instead to the chapters on tools and gardening as exercise. Sandbeck revolutionized how I will use my pruners from here on out. No longer, will I crouch to one side of a sapling, supporting the pruners against my chest and pulling as if on an oar. Instead I will use them as if they were a thighmaster! She suggests crouching in front, pruners between your knees, arms inside them. You then use your thighs (and arms) to close the pruners. I tried it and it worked! Once I got the awkwardness of the position down (knees wide) I could feel the burn AND it was much easier for me to use this tool!

Elements of Garden Design by Joe Eck

What started as a series of articles in Horticulture became this book. While not the practial, how-to manual I expected, I enjoyed these personal essays. Divided into two parts, theory and practice, Eck waxes philosophical on everything from structure and harmony to foundation plantings and utility areas. Sometimes funny, sometimes condescending, frequently informative I enjoyed the book overall. My favorite, 'Wood to Garden' I read shortly after we trimmed part of our woods. He offered some practical tips that I can use; some of which Iwish I'd known before we did our cutting; such as his recommendation to leave at least a 30 foot distance between native trees to allow them room to grow to their full glory. His article entitled 'Water in the Garden' was the most irritating. While he accepts and seemingly embraces that "gardens of any sort are wholly unnatural; they not only work to be something nature herself would never bring into existence, but they also strive to lie about the fact" (101), the fact that water fatures frequently attempt to do the same is unacceptable. Of course as a water gardener I disagree; fake or real, the sound of my waterfall and the act of gazing at the reflective surface of the pond alive with a variety of wildlife, are as important to my garden as the herbs, vegetables, perennials, trees and shrubs. I need not exhibit my filter, pump or leave a hose lying in the pond to demonstrate that it is man-made. The source is unimportant; it's the effect that counts.

The Kitchen Garden

The one thing I missed from our old house more than anything was my herb garden, only this time I had the room to not only expand my herbs, but grow vegetables too! I knew I didn't want a traditional row garden and I definitely wanted herbs, vegetables and flowers grown together. Not only would it be pretty with everything combined, but it would also let me practice companion gardening. Once the spot was picked it was so close to the house that once again its colonial style dictated part of the design. Of course, for me all of that combined meant research, research and research.

Eventually, I put my design to paper; a 36' by 16' rectangle on the "inside" with four 4' by 16' beds on either side of the "gates" (fencing to come.) The interior beds are mirror images with one exception. On either side of the main walkway the beds are 8' at the back, 6' wide on the sides; the two beds together form a sort of hexagon in the walkway. Behind each of them is a rectangular bed and at the back another long rectangle. The only fracture in the mirror comes at the far end from the house, where the long rectangle is broken in two, leaving room for a future trellis and bench. The bench you see now is strictly a placeholder.

The inside is mainly devoted to vegetables and their companion plants. The outside beds closest to the backyard holds edible herbs and the ones facing the front are old-fashioned herbs of the kind Brother Cadfael himself would have grown.

Creating all of this was, well, horrible! I learned a technique from The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward C. Smith for "easily" making right angles--"The Magic Triangle." Apparently it was first developed by the ancient Egyptians about 4,000 years ago and the formula is: if one leg of a triangle is 3 units, the 2nd is 4 units, and the hypotenuse is 5 units you have a right angle. Got it? Okay now repeat it approximately 40 times and keep your sanity! I began sometime in April and finished the end of May. It was a little late in the growing season for planting vegetables, but after all of that I still had to try. Things are growing slowly and as you know I've had some challenges from the deer. The crows too. I came home one day after planting seeds over the weekend to find the straw removed from the beds! Oh well, we're plugging along!

I’ve been inspired!

I know I’m supposed to keep written records of my garden, but I’ve never done much more than list plants. When I did keep my little garden journal, it was always hard to find things when I needed them; not to mention my handwriting is atrocious! I also recently read Henry Mitchell's The Essential Earthman and he mentioned some environmental implications to record keeping. A colleague of mine has also begun a blog garden record http://cspgarden.blogspot.com/ and I am enjoying it so much I thought I’d give it a try. Record keeping can be fun-I hope!