Where are we going to camp this year? Do we go hiking in the mountains? Do we go fishing and canoeing on a prairie lake? Buffalo jumps, or towering peaks?
What do we want to do this year??

grape arbors

This is where my grape arbor is going to go. I have planted two vines on this closest corner and want to train them up a trellis attached to a pair of planter boxes and then tie those all into another planter and two corner tables for food service. I love this corner and with Buddha and Jay's tree it will be in an even nicer spot since I am planting more tulips and spring flowers. I will add medicinal flowers, herbs and native edibles, as long as I keep it all very Zen looking I think it will the perfect spot to meditate.
The used 4x4's in the garage, some narrow trellis and scrap 2x4's and 2x6's is all I really need to put it together and long 2x6's to use as overhead cross pieces to form the arbor or pergola.
I have visions of Darrell sitting on the patio working on his laptop, with grape clusters hanging overhead. Probably a bit of optimism considering I live on the prairies but us gardeners are an optimistic bunch or at least an ingenious bunch when it comes to pushing the limits of climate and growing conditions.
In the planters it will probably be mainly tomatoes in five gallon buckets so that I can lift them in and out to protect from frost, the overhead supports could take some hanging planters of flowers and herbs. A perfect place for us to have a glass of lemonade, a barbeque, a morning coffee or whatever our little hearts desire.
After I figure out what I am going to keep and what I am going to get rid of in all that stuff from Mom I have fountains, and planters, and object d'art things and pots and tools and more stuff than you can shake a stick at. Things need to get moved, things need to get sorted, things need to get sold or given away and finished I think I will start with the basement.

winter's wild dreams

I love the hush that falls over the garden at this time of year that allows me to take a deep breath and decide what worked and what didn't, and then the seed catalogues arrive and my mind runs wild. The allure of all the colors and the promise of all those picture perfect gardens and gigantic perfectly shaped vegetables tend to interfere with my good sense. Bucket moments flitter through my mind and visions of impossibilities rattle through my mind of kiwi vines on the gate trellis or hedges of artemisia absinthium around an herb garden of native medicinals, wild flowers, and edibles, marble terraces with grape vines growing up the corner to shade the table and chairs and hummingbirds in the air.
The show Knottinghill is on and that lovely garden in the middle of the city that oasis in the middle of everything the music and the moonlight would be a lovely bucket moment with a fire and a blueberry tea with my husband because yes people do stay married forever.
I love that my husband and I are in that place. That place where I know that this is my home and we will be here forever and that it is right. There are people around us that talk about making millions, selling out and moving off and hitting it rich with some new business idea. My garden is my RRSP it is something I can reach out and touch and it's real, and will provide a positive influence in my life.
Now to reign in my enthusiasm and be a little more realistic when it come to dealing with the seed catalogues.......but really the arctic kiwi would look great right there on an arch at the back gate.....

winter's wild dreams

2010 plan

It's winter. I love the deep breath of winter. I even get to be a bit hibernatey this winter. I am off work for a month, just a month to hibernate and fix my arm.
The guys are all gone and I am planning my garden and dreaming of spring and reading 2 books, square foot gardening and practical gardening and both are spectacular. I have several ideas now for the potatoe barrels but if I end up caging the potatoes I will just cut the two old ones in half and use them as pots all along that front fence line.
The strawberry bed needs to be really looked at it is just not producing but then again I have a major slug infestation and the only thing that will get rid of slugs is runner ducks which could run around the back yard for a few months and then they could go to the butcher and get slaughtered for food over winter. I wonder if I could use the snow fencing that mom sent to coral the little buggers???
Hubby said I had to wait for chickens and I agreed but I really do need ducks and we could eat em, finish them up on a corn diet, let them play all summer long in the garden eating slugs and then bye bye. I will finish all my projects all of them over the summer and I won't get the ducklings until I am almost done the firepit and oven base.....I want the slugs gone and ducks will get rid of slugs and I can cook with the eggs, and they don't crow but they're dirty so not going to be hanging around just one season in the garden. Hedge to fence to raspberry hedge maybe give them the compost heap as well and a couple of kiddy pool type sized spots to swim Lots of straw down and I will do the paths next year not this year.
I went through my seeds and there is not a lot that I need beans, white tomatoes, asparagus peas, strawberry spinach, whitloof, nasturtiums, marigolds, eggplant, globe artichokes and jerusalum artichokes. I also want aparagus roots, and seeds and strawberry roots. and a couple of hazelnut bushes. More food.
I really really have the feeling that this is the eye of the hurricaine or the calm before the storm. I could be just being weird or paranoid or whatever but I think that oil is going to zoom back up to the 150.00 per barrel that it was prior to the financial crisis. I think that this little bit of calm we are enjoying is not going to be long enough to get everything done that needs to be done to prepare for 150.00 a barrel oil. Everything is going to go through the roof and if you haven't tended your garden life is going to be really really hard.
There are places on this planet that have run out of water, they import all their food or they have destroyed their soil, banks and wall streets and economists don't put food on the table plants and animals do.
Corporations have constructed a world where if you can put it in a box and put that box in a container then that is all done in one area of the world. If you can have all your customer service done in another area by a diferent group of people, then that is how it is done. The culture of the bottom line and consumption for consumption's sake etc has taken our attention away from so many more important things.
I to plan my garden and expand my garden keeping in mind that 200.00 barrel of oil is on the way. That Florida is covered in ice, that California has no water, and that Mexico is far far away. Citrus is going to be a luxury a seasonal luxury and I need to start paying attention to everything like that. I need to get back in touch with the women that came before me that pioneered, and planted and mended and sewed and kept hearth and home together.
The web bots are predicting that putting food on the table is going to become more important than putting presents under the tree and that skill is going to be considered as worthy as knowledge.
Time to learn, craft, plan and create. We have the deep breath of winter to put our plans together to figure out how in the next 2 years I can turn it all into a reality. Victory gardens, wartime garden plans, and those kind of places are where I need to start. The whole society zigged with Henry Ford ......we should have zagged. So now I am trying to plan how to zag during this winter hibernation.
Cheers

New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions this year are decade resolutions as well which is kinda nice, so how do I want to change the direction of my life and pretty much the family's lives as well. I have made a lot of them some on line with the ten in ten program, it raised money for charity which was cool and the resolutions are cool. I have made them in my head and heart as well those ones I will break to my hubby next day I have off with him.
So here's my list let's check back in 365 days and see how I did shall we sort of my own little time capsule....
1 Grow more of our food. At least 4 more beds possible 5. That would be finishing the one in the front yard and putting 3 more raised beds in the back with another bench and then there is the one or two for behind the compost those are the ones that may have to wait.
2 More rain barrels at least the five that are not hooked up hooked up and set up and organized so that they will be an efficient irrigation system.
3 The garage needs to be cleaned out, and fixed up including the corner for Jake to blow glass, an area for me to smoke meat, age cheese, press cider, winter chickens, the greenhouse wall and heating will wait.
4 Advocate more, send emails, ask questions, write letters, attend the occasional town meeting, and spread the word on issues.
5 Hugs I am supposed to hug more.
6 Write thank yous, or other forms of saying thank you to the folks that make our lives better.
7 Fix my bike, and I want a bike basket on it.
8 Finish the earth oven, invite lots of people to drink margaritias, and play in the mud have a fire and roast a suckling pig on the spit.
There is more and I think I will post later tonight.
Cheers