Whenever I have looked up from the mud while trying to outrun the rain to plant two peach trees, one nanking cherry bush, three high-bush blueberries, 100 strawberry plants, and a new raspberry hedgerow, I have been madly envisioning where the rest of our food will go. The tomato and pepper seedlings, the greens waiting in flats, and the pumpkins, gourds and corn all need fertile homes, too.
This is the "year of the garden." It's the year I stop dreaming and reading and surfing YouTube (for swale-building tutorials, no less) ... and START PLANTING. It took me a few years, and as many meager harvests, to locate just the right site for really productive fruit and vegetable gardens. This process took a while because, along the way, I became obsessed with permaculture and forest gardening. Lucky for me, deep contemplation is as necessary as good compost for gardens that are high-yield, low-maintenance and as perennial as can be.
Well, the tines hit the topsoil over the past few weeks (please forgive the long lapse between posts), and our new hillside garden is well under way. (The tomatoes are stretching their toes as I type.) A tool I found especially helpful was one I learned about from my friend, Lisa, who runs our impressive local permaculture meetup. She told me that she uses Google Earth to track the layout, patterns of sunlight and even make measurements on properties for which she's designing gardens. I downloaded it, zoomed into our location (the top image is a snapshot of our fledgling homestead), and then traced everything from existing gardens to a tiny future vineyard. A girl's gotta dream, right?
