Reality Check

A common problem I have when I start a new project is that my enthusiasm often outstrips my ability and my patience. The last 3 times I went to the library, I checked out loads of gardening books that I skimmed through in less than an hour. Occasionally, I will find a gem or two that appeals and adds to my knowledge like the reference to ollas (terracotta pot irrigation which I will talk about in its own post some day) in the Grow Organic book which I hope will solve my problem with watering. What is my problem with watering you ask? I just don't like to water stuff and then when I do it is erratic and the wrong amount. Some books end up in the go back pile pretty quickly and others I keep around to read bits and pieces in depth. I've checked out the Weedless Gardening book by Lee Reich twice now. I just checked out a book called The New City Gardener by Judith Adam the last time I went to library.

It has some nice pictures of gardens for ideas, but the suggestions for plants and info would horrible for Central Texas and is not geared towards easy organic gardening. What was really great about this book for me as a new to gardening person was the gardening philosophy.  The first few sentences of chapter 1: "The idealized landscapes pictured in coffee-table books and design magazines inspire both an urge to make a beautiful garden and a fear that our efforts won't measure up to the glossy photos. This dilemma can disarm even the best gardening efforts... put aside picture's of other people's gardens..." especially  those of  master gardener's, 

"they lack the insight and inspiration of your own discovery...  Gardens are personal places... making a garden is a rare license to create the world as you would have it, to reflect your temperament and philosophy in the landscape you call your own... Gardens grow, mature and change along with the people who make them, and this evolution generates many rewards as the seasons pass."

I've already evolved and so have my plans just in the short time I have started really working on our landscape. Part of the evolution was the understanding that we just don't have the money for grandiose projects. I would really love to have a new  6 foot picket privacy fence all around the backyard made of cedar with a 1 to 2 foot trellis for vines at the top. I'd like to the fence at the back to be a double fence to block out road noise with a sliding gate rather than a hinge gate with metal posts or maybe a wood and metal panel fence. I'd like smaller decorative fencing at the sides and front of the house. Considering that a very basic privacy fence for 188 linear yards (the estimated size of our back yard) costs $3-4000 and we won't be doing that for a while and a nicer fence is probably out of the question. Our fence is still standing, the gate works, I just need to put enough other things in the backyard to distract myself from the fence or to enhance it's rickety state. 

I would also love to hire someone to do some hardscaping especially stone walkways in the backyard. I've been in hard negotiation with the "Man" for just the basic building blocks of soil, mulch, and garden tools. I haven't bothered to figure out estimated cost of doing that kind of hardscaping. I'm thinking now that I will just have mulched pathways for now. I have no idea what kind of mulch yet, crushed granite, shredded cedar, leaf mold mulch are all on the table, meanwhile I have made some tentative pathways, so that we are not compacting soil on areas I potentially want to plant in. 

More of the evolution has come this week as I realize physically what I can manage and what will just have to wait. I've already done a lot for one person with only occasional help, but it is hard to hold on to that satisfaction when the yard is in a state of perpetual chaos as I plan, brood, tear things down, and prepare for some future garden. I took a deep breath last night and adjusted myself. For this year, I probably won't plant any more permanent landscaping except for a Monterey Oak in the front yard which will eventually replace our dying Ash Tree. I will be experimenting with ways to eradicate weeds and improving the soil through various methods including cover crops/green manure. I will be working on my veggie garden in raised beds. I'm thinking I may just have the "Man" make two raised beds, maybe even just one. 

I can always add on one raised bed a year for a few years, or get two more next year or whatever I feel like.

I have this vision in my head and I understood in reading the passages from the New City Gardener that I need to tear that image down. That I need to honor my own process and evolution, give myself time to see other gardens, plants, and green spaces to figure out what I like and what matches not just my style, but how I naturally work. I keep getting caught up in my research and thinking about grandiose ideas and plans. I've been stressing out trying to get things done when I don't really have any time limits and to make things look just so, but I've never been a just so kind of person. I'm generally good with making do with what I've got when I paint I use the colors I have at hand and I don't think I just do. I've been buying into the idea that gardens need a lot of planning, but planning as I have been reading about is just not me.  I keep forgetting that I can go at my own pace and that I am still learning and experimenting. I will be making lots  of mistakes in this learning process as I find my own way. It is hard to remember that, it also hard to remember that the garden is just about me and mine. I need to test other people's truths to see if it is also fits my truth. I just sometimes for forget what my truth is when someone else has more experience in something than I do...