Earthy dreams

Naturally, the first real snow day of the season, we're feeling inspired to start planning our Spring garden! I've been meaning to get rid of most of the lawn since we moved into this house, but wanted to wait to get to know this land a little better before I started doing much planting.

I'd meant to do the lasagna-gardening thing before the first snow fell, but just didn't find the time. So whenever we have a couple snow-free days, over vacation, I'll spend a few hours doing it now -- layering mulch-making ingredients over the spots I want to turn into gardens, then covering the whole dealy with burlap.

The front of the house is the only place we get consistent sun throughout the warm, leafy, weather, so we'll be doing wildflowers on one side of the front lawn, and our vegetable garden on the other side, away from the neighbors. I'll also be increasing our herb garden by the back door (this year it was just thyme, cilantro, chives and parsley, I think). And eventually I'd like to ring the entire front yard around with hedges of one kind or another. That'll be a big project, obviously, so we'll probably just get started with a couple plants, this year.

For the wildflowers we'll be doing black eyed susans, coneflower, bee balm, a couple kinds of milkweed, blue phlox... In the back we'll be doing lily of the valley, and hopefully some honeysuckle and morning glory and moonflower on the fence (those two are just about the only non-food annuals for which I'll make an exception. Otherwise I'm a perennial girl all the way. I know some annuals are supposed to be self-sowing, but I haven't had great luck with that in the past. Maybe I'll try again if anything particularly lovely calls to me...).

For veggies we're thinking tomatoes, red peppers, cucumbers, string beans, zucchini, lettuce (especially arugula), cauliflower. Maybe a blueberry bush (yes, not a vegetable, I know). Eventually Sarah wants an apple tree, but that's not happening this year. And unfortunately I just can't do organic broccoli -- I've found bugs too often, which then makes me squeamish about eating even conventionally-grown broccoli for a few weeks, which is just unacceptable. Broccoli sauteed with garlic is one of my favorite things in the world. So I won't grow my own.

And for herbs... mint, sage, rosemary, chives, cilantro, parsley. The thyme is already nicely established. My book says cilantro and parsley are perennials, but they don't seem to come back in this garden. Of course, the last owners used the backyard for storing their trailer, so the soil wasn't the most welcoming. I think I'm going to go drool over Seeds of Change for a while, now...