Earthworks

We spent most of yesterday outdoors. Spring is calling loudly. We had a lot of rain last night so that’s a reason to take it easy inside today.

Yesterday morning was the community garden workday. A lot of weeding, spreading new wood chips, and getting the watering barrels in place was accomplished. A good effort by a number of people.

Then back home after lunch, we planted three little native trees/shrubs that I bought – serviceberry, spicebush, and smoketree. I am really hoping to get some beautiful native plantings established here. I have strong feelings of not knowing what I’m doing, but I do care and that keeps me going. These three new ones join several planted over the last couple of years. The witch hazel’s doing well, as are the bush honeysuckle and the hazelnuts. I just noticed yesterday that something has eaten the black elderberry. And the catalpa and summersweet are either dead or really slow to leaf out.

Then another spur-of-the-moment major project arose while the tractor was out. Sam loves to use his tractor and had pulled a stump out of the ground last week. I got the idea that he could shove a nearby pile of topsoil over the hole, creating a new planting spot. The plan worked out and now I have a spot for all the milkweed seedlings that came up in pots!

Photo below shows hole from stump at left, dirt pile at right. This dirt came out of the garden last spring when all the beds were resifted. A lot of the heavy work of gardening here involves moving dirt (woodchips, compost, etc.) around. But you can see the soil is orange and mostly clay and rocks, while the topsoil is black.

Watering in the new bed. Over the next few days, I’ll plant it. So nice to have some unanticipated space!