The Dirt on Nicky

A morning in the garden

It’s either a ritual or a habit. I take a cup of coffee and the grounds it came from to the garden in the morning. Grounds go to a particular bed in need of attention. I start them at one end and dose my way one morning at a time to the other end, and a trail of coffee filters marks the way.

As the grounds go down, and I notice the raspberry vines are long and dangly. Better corral them for better feng shui down the pathway. I fetch scissors, twine and a bamboo stake. Nearby dill is as mature as it is going to get, so I get shears and a basket and snip off the umbels of dried dill seeds (which are natural works of art). While I’ve got shears, might as well trim off a few mangled amaranth leaves and cut them tiny for the compost which I discover needs turning.

One thing leads to another.

I retrieve the spading fork and a leaf rake so I can shuffle up the compost and rake up more leaves. A mixture of leaves is best because each kind has its particular elements, so sassafras, hickory, pine, oak and persimmon are calling, and in they go.

Thoughtfully mixed compost teeming with black soldier fly larvae is peace of mind to a gardener. Good compost is simply diverse elements working together for a common goal, and I’m happy to participate.

Since I’m raking leaves, several beds need more mulch. The bed where potatoes grew needs a dose, but it needs wood ashes first, so I barrow over to Mount Kilimanjaro to load up wood ashes from last winter. Once distributed onto the former potato bed, I rake up the oldest leaves I can find and spread them on top, shovel them in and sit on a bench for reflection.

My coffee is cold. Oh, well. Two dozen butterflies flit around the cosmos and borage, tanagers and wrens are choiring in the trees, so cold coffee tastes just fine.

My garden is on a rocky hillside which for millennia has been wild… the stories it could tell. My stories here began in 2009. Every June, the wild begins to reclaim its hillside, and except for my strong-willed intervention would take over by mid-July. Nature demands its own, so I try to strike a bargain.

Most of the wild I compete with is edible or medicinal – curly dock, lamb’s quarters, purple dead nettle, chickweed, sassafras, wild roses, field sorrel, monardas, purslane, goldenrod, mullein, shepherd’s purse and others I have yet to learn. Some I nibble on, others I dry for tea and some grace the compost or leaf mulch pile. Everything matters.

But enough reminiscing. Blackberry vines have become toll takers on a couple pathways. Time for remediation. Blackberries grew on this hillside before I moved to town, so I kept a tuning fork-shaped patch in the middle of the garden, installed a trellis and have maintained the vines ever since. Blackberry vines challenge my remediation aptitude, but I persevere, and, prickly or not, they don’t take long.

With that done, there are tomatoes and peppers to pick. The dirty work in winter and spring pays off this time of year with too many tomatoes and baskets of peppers, and they won’t quit till the frost lands softly on the next season. Maybe next year will be year I grow only a modest number of tomato plants. The hornworms will hardly know I’m here.

Basils need the tops pinched back, but at that point, it’s time for breakfast, so I take the coffee grounds basket back to the house because it needs to be rinsed for tomorrow. Good thing it’s Saturday or I’d be late for work.