On Saturday, Nathan, the baby and I went to The Natural Gardener, where I resisted the temptation to buy new plants, and instead invested in garden soil and a new compost bin. We bought a Complete Composter. It’s made from PVC-coated wire mesh, and it has a nifty center chimney piece for watering and improved aeration in the center of the pile:

On Sunday, Nathan pruned a few trees, while I pulled weeds and planted some white lantana that had been waiting patiently in its nursery pot for over a week now:

The garden is bursting with new life. Our Texas redbud tree is blooming, the apple tree continues to bloom, and the figs are all budding out. I’m not the first to announce its arrival, but Spring is definitely here in our little corner of North Austin. All we need now to fuel the coming show is a good spring rain.

For months now I’ve been doing more dreaming than digging in the garden. I’ve been dreaming about how the garden will look in the spring (since this will be our first full spring in the house), and about how we will transform our outdoor space into a garden that is uniquely ours. We’ve been learning about the plants that are already growing here, observing the patterns of sunlight and water in the yard, and visioning what we want the space to do. Among the many desires that Nathan and I have expressed for the space are:

a space to grow fruits, herbs, and veggies
a play space for our small boy and our large dog
a children’s garden
a home for urban chickens
a place for relaxing (which would include things like a curvy path for walking meditation and possibly a hammack)
a place for outdoor meals and gathering with friends
a native-xeric-type garden (I love agaves.)
a butterfly garden
and a habitat for wildlife

(A pair of starlings sighted in the yard a couple of weeks ago)

Realistically, we won’t be able to have all of these things going in full force at once, since all of the possible functions for a garden are interdependent. Big, spiny agaves aren’t particularly kid-friendly; chickens walking around (and pooping) in the yard and on the patio may make a dinner outside look less appealing; and dogs, chickens, and children can be destructive to things like veggie beds. Of course, that’s not all–these few examples are only small strands in the whole web of interdependencies that would obtain among the potential functions listed above.

(Texas Redbud branches after a late-winter rain)

I’ve also noted that our desires for the space aren’t the only factors that will shape the garden; the existing features of the yard may be even more significant to the design the garden ultimately takes. There are already beautiful fruit trees growing here: fig, clementine, apple, and loquat (which I previously misidentified as kumquat). Although fruit trees would not have been my top priority if we were starting from scratch, I’m grateful that they’re here and thriving, and I hope to be able to maintain them. There’s also a lot of lawn already established. I imagine we’ll keep a fair amount of that lawn, since lawns are good for dogs and kids. There’s already a rock garden in the back corner of the lot that I’m planning to convert into a xeric garden, too. In other words, the space already has a spirit of its own.

(Apple blossoms in early evening light)

I’ve been enjoying learning about the plants that are already established here and imagining what we’d like to happen in the space, but now we’re moving on to the next phase of designing the garden. We’re setting priorities, deciding which of the existing features we’ll keep and which we’ll change, and beginning to enact those changes. I’m looking forward to seeing how the garden will grow and transform under our stewardship. I’m also looking forward to seeing how we will grow and be transformed by the garden. Thanks for starting with me at the beginning–I’ll keep telling the story here.

A spotted cucumber beetle enjoyed an apple blossom breakfast in the garden this morning:

According to some things I’ve found online about cucumber beetles, they can be very destructive, eating both ornamentals and edibles, and spreading nasty things such as bacterial wilt. Does anyone have suggestions for how to discourage them from dining in our garden? I’m looking for environmentally friendly solutions–maybe some kind of soap spray?

Or maybe now’s the time to get those chickens we keep talking about. I imagine that cucumber beetle larvae make tasty snacks for chickens.

My first Chadwick Cherry Tomato seedlings popped up yesterday:

I started the tomato seeds inside about a week ago. Still no sign of the jalapeños or the Anaheim chiles that I started on the same day. (A watched seed never sprouts, eh?)

Meanwhile our Clementine tree continues to bear fruit:

The fruit in that bowl is just a fraction of what we’ve picked over the past couple of days. We’ll never eat it all. I’m planning to share some out on unsuspecting neighbors.

This morning a squirrel took interest in the raised beds that we put in a couple of weekends ago, licking the cedar frame (why?), and drinking from the water that’s collected on top of the black plastic that I’m using for temporary weed control. Meanwhile mourning doves roosted on the bare fig tree branches, and robins and grackles grazed the lawn for bugs.

On Saturday I noticed that a pair of Carolina wrens are building a nest in a hanging plant on the front porch. Their distinctive white eye stripes and buff bellies made them easy to identify in our bird book. This morning they continued their efforts, gathering nesting materials from the twigs and leaves lying in the flower beds near the front porch. I hope I’m able to take a nice photo of them and their nest at some point.

And though he doesn’t strictly count as wildlife, I saw our Great Dane Sam in the garden this morning, too:

No, no, he’s not really wild at all.

It’s been windy, rainy, and cool in Austin today. After nearly a month with no significant precipitation, we’ve received about half an inch of rain over the last twenty-four hours. The only thing I did outside today was take a few photos of raindrops hanging from the bare tree branches:

Nathan composed a more dynamic shot of rain falling into a puddle next to the back patio:

In addition to taking photos, I bought some hooks for organizing tools in the garden shed, and I continued to brainstorm design ideas for the backyard. (I’ve been daydreaming about more raised beds, a children’s garden, and chickens.)

Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly sunny and warmer than today. I hope the forecast holds, since we have plans to visit a friend’s garden tomorrow afternoon.

***

At Blackwater Pond

by Mary Oliver

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

Today is Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day for February 2008. It’s my first time to participate!

The Christmas cactus continues to put out bright magenta blooms. There are purple and white pansy blooms and pink and red cyclamen blooms on the front porch right now, too.

But here’s my favorite bloom in our garden today:

Weeds can be so beautiful (especially when viewed through a macro tube).

Birds sighted in the garden this morning: blue jays, starlings, mourning doves, some kind of wren (?), and grackles.

I also saw two squirrels this morning: one poking around in the new veggie beds, and one eating a pecan from our tree:

Last Saturday Nathan and I installed two new raised beds for growing veggies in the backyard. As promised, here’s the day in photos:

First we rented a tiller from the Home Despot, and Nathan tilled up some grass.

(Nathan described the tilling phase of this project as an epic struggle of man and machine vs. nature. If you look closely, you can see our dog Sam watching calmly in the background.)

Then Nathan built two 4′ x 10′ frames out of untreated cedar that I picked up at Home Depot when I returned the tiller.

(He’s so awesome–he even wore safety goggles.)

To the clay that we tilled up, we added compost from the bin that the previous owners established.

Finally, I covered both of the beds with thick black plastic lawn bags in an attempt to keep the nasties out until we’re ready to plant the new beds.

I’m hoping to get the tomato and pepper seeds started indoors today or tomorrow. Yes!

In blog-related news, I re-wrote the About page of this site earlier today.

Also, Nathan has generously agreed to be responsible for baby care all day while I attend the Garden Bloggers Spring Fling in April. *excitement*

Over the weekend Nathan and I installed two new raised beds for growing veggies in the back yard. (A post with photos of the work in progress is coming up next.) As part of that project, we started working on our compost pile, both because we wanted some of the compost for the veggie beds, and because the compost pile just needs some love. It’s falling over into the wood privacy fence in the back, such that one of the fence posts has almost completely rotted out. *Nice.*

But that’s not all. Listed below are some of the things we found in the compost pile once we got our fork into it:

• plastic bottle tops
• plastic bags
• old phone wire
• pop tops, ring tops from aluminum cans
• pieces of plastic flower pots
• golf balls (both traditional and plastic)
• styrofoam
• an empty soy sauce packet
• screws
• some other unidentified metal objects
• some of those enameled rocks that go in the bottom of fish tanks
• and–this is impressive–the remains of some silk flowers

The previous owner of this house sure had an interesting understanding of composting.