SOME DECISIONS WERE MADE

Our Saturday morning breakfast has become a special event during the lock down. We started to alternate bacon, eggs mushrooms and tomatoes with huevos rancheros and a cafetiere of our favorite coffee. Followed by crumpets! It sets the stage for us to linger and discuss many things.

This Saturday it was about about changing things in the garden to make life easier. We are not getting any younger and there is sooooooo much work required in this garden. Our terrible winter has helped a little Gone are 3 big vines that required constant cutbacks. As well as the retama trees, the Lady Banks rose and all the agave at the front. Although getting them all out was no easy task. All those will mean less pruning this year.

But my willingness to allow the reseeding of annuals like larkspur, nigella, poppies, bluebonnets and blanket flowers in the vegetable garden as well as the continued failure of many vegetables had me rethinking what to do about the 6 square beds in the vegetable garden. I am not going to try growing so many vegetables next year because the battle with spider mites, aphids, squash vine borers, leaf footed bugs and harlequin bugs take all the pleasure out of any produce that survives.It seems I am not alone on this when I mentioned it to my gardening friends.

 

There are many who enjoy this look and it does have its moments but it also creates a mountain of work. Pulling out the flowers will be difficult because I know the cardinals find it a great larder for caterpillars and we watched the goldfinches this morning swinging around on the mealy blue sage and Verbena bonariensis as they harvested the seeds. I couldn't pull them out.

My choices are to remove the beds completely and gravel the area, possibly adding some seating, or to remove everything from the beds and turn them into a potager.  Possibly a center rosemary with other small herbs like thymes and germander, which I know to be more manageable. And I would keep all the pathways clear of annuals(the tough part). 

The decision was to try the potager and if that failed then to take the beds out. I had my work brief for the days ahead. 

I began on the two far beds removing everything including the peas. I will only leave the onions until I pull them to dry. For some reason I couldn't remove a lone foxglove. I also cleaned out most of the plants in the adjacent bed. Once they are cleared I will cover with mulch and then go nursery shopping. Not an easy thing to do this year because of the huge demand. I did manage to put a couple of cuttings of the rosemary from the front before it gave up the ghost and stuck them in the ground hoping they will root but I really would like to start with 1 gallon plants.

 

Earlier in the week David took down the two retama trees alongside the driveway. I don't think he ever liked them. Now, what to do with the stone wall he had built some years ago around one of the trees. The tree had seeded in the spoils we removed from the front courtyard. Barrow loads of whatever which were wheeled out and tipped over the edge of the driveway. And then the tree grew and was so pretty when it flowered.

David wants to dismantle the stone wall and we need a new home for all the those rocks. My suggestion was to make a pathway through the granite in the front of the house and be more selective on what plants grow there. The original plan had been for this to be addition parking but in no time at all bluebonnets invaded and cars were banned. Will I let all those bluebonnets stay? 

Of course that will mean plenty of work over the summer but  working with rocks just happens to be something I really love doing.