Ok so, my grandiose plans about gardening this summer? Maybe not so much. The house sits on 1/2 acre of land, with 4 huge garden plots from the old owners. I’d originally planned to till over most of them & plant grass, turn one into a pea stone terrace, and then set up some raised beds for veggies with a little fence around them. Ok, I still plan to do all that, we just won’t actually PLANT veggies until next year.
In the meantime, we started a little kitchen garden closer to the house, where there was just grass & brambles before. I’m kind of stupidly proud of this stone wall I built, maybe I have a new career as a stone whisperer. The stones are all ones we dug up, the big ones on top were probably old fence posts. We’re moving some plants down from the old gardens – sage, basil, chives, lettuce, thyme – to start prepping to turn the old garden beds back into lawn. It looks shabby now, but I’ll build up the stones edging it and the plants will grow in and the Tamora roses Sean planted befind the wall will bloom and I’ll add some pea stone to that little path down the middle. It’ll be cute. We keep finding things in the dirt – huge iron spikes and gears, medicine bottles, a 1920 silver dime, an ink bottle.
“When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead, then something began pushing things up out of the soil and making things out of nothing. One day things weren’t there and another they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be scientific. I keep saying to myself, ‘What is it? What is it?’ It’s something. It can’t be nothing! I don’t know its name so I call it Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it up and draws it. Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden—in all the places. – The Secret Garden
It’s absolutely true. Everything is made out of Magic. Is that a Mercury dime? I love finding real silver change, and you dug it out of your own backyard!
It is a Mercury dime! I was thinking ‘this could buy a loaf of bread in 1920!’ and other crazy time travelling thoughts…
It’s funny because I re-read The Secret Garden this week and realized that this little book written in 1911 basically sums up my use of the word Magic on this blog.
I need to go reread The Secret Garden now. I haven’t read it since I was 10…
Your gardens will shape up. When you’ve got a new-old house there’s so much to be done that all you can do is keep doing things and know that eventually the gardens, the kitchen, etc. will all get there. Eventually.
P.S. Building a stone wall? Badass.
haha THANK YOU
Gardening takes time. Don’t worry if your ambitious plans take a few seasons to create.
Your property is like a treasure trove. I envy you digging in the dirt and finding objects.
That wall is amazing! I love how it looks like it’s been there forever and ever.
Your wall and garden are beautiful! How wonderful to have a half acre.
I love building stone walls. I am enormously proud of my stone retaining wall. If you are planting food, and keep finding stuff in the ground, you might consider getting your soil tested. A local friend spend tons of time and effort planting a beautiful garden, but kept finding old architectural bits in the dirt: hinges, bolts, window locks, and so on. She had the soil tested and found that the soil was toxic — it had been used by a builder decades ago as a place to burn unwanted materials. She spent another small fortune on lead remediation. The sunflowers she grew and pulled up had to be taken to a hazardous waste site!
Thaaaatt is a really good point. It’s definitely not where we want the main food garden to be (the past owners grew food way up the hill, and huge amounts of it), but we do have herbs in there! Yikes!
That wall is amazing!! And I am so jealous of your 4 garden plots. My pot plants are jealous too. Or perhaps green with envy … Ha! (see what I did there?)
I love the secret garden. It looks like your garden is becoming just like the one in the book.
And nothing is more fun than finding treasures in the earth. It makes me wonder about the people who lost those little things.
You built that wall all by your pretty magical self?! I’m hiring you to come and build MY stone walls. I don’t quite have a need for any yet, but I will. One day. Oh, I will.
Also, jealous of the amazing things you keep pulling up in the dirt. Sigh…
OH, I am so happy you have a sweet garden, and land, and dirt to dig your hands in, and stones to wrap them around. All this is good. xoox
The Secret Garden shaped my whole worldview. And I second Cate’s suggestion to get your soil tested…
Justin’s all “it’s fine! you’re only finding 100 year old stuff!” but ummm yeah. UVM will do it for like $14.
Huh, well, seems like there’s been an awful lot of toxic crap in the average garage over the last 100 years…better safe than sorry. We have to get our tap water tested, we live right by the Coca Cola bottling plant. The swampy marginal woodsy areas have weird orangey foam on the water…could be Minute Maid residue, who knows. I’m hoping UMASS does it for cheap.