Gardening Self-Sufficiency And Time
(This is a stock photo. Our water storage system isn’t as pretty. – grins)
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I have a goal to be self-sufficient with our gardening.
Eventually.
If there’s ever a time when we can’t buy or otherwise obtain soil, fertilizer, water, containers and other gardening necessities from others, we want to still be able to grow vegetables and berries.
I hope that day never comes but we’re preparing for it. Just in case.
This preparation takes time. And resources. And expertise.
It isn’t an overnight, install it and be done process.
Making leaf mold, for example, takes at the minimum two years.
My first attempt was a disaster. I didn’t add enough water. The leaves didn’t break down.
I’m trying again and that will take at least another two years.
Putting together a rain water retention system, as another example, takes expertise and money. We’re building this system over time, adding rain barrels and storage containers to it every year.
Building a base of perennial vegetables and berries involves a GREAT deal of learning and babying the plants those first few years and money to buy the seeds/starts. I find we can only add a couple perennials every year to our garden successfully.
Self-sufficiency with gardening isn’t an easy overnight type of thing.
But then gardening isn’t an easy overnight type of thing.
(grins)
We can do this!
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Changing The Iris Bed
Our backyard is mostly a vegetable garden now. The individual plots are gradually expanding until there will soon only be walkways between them.
I love this!
Tending to that takes time.
So we’re trying to create a fuss-free front yard, filled with small perennial plots.
One of those plots is the Purple Iris bed.
I like the greenery of Iris plants so my initial thought was to have it be ALL Irises.
It is very green right now. All green. Too green.
It needs a couple pops of color.
My revised plan is to have one pop of color be a hydrangea we were given when we first moved into the house. That’s a fairly easy-to-care-for later blooming perennial.
Another pop of color will be a cat’s pajamas cat mint we invested in a couple years ago. That’s another easy-to-care-for perennial that blooms all season long.
I need a third easy-to-care-for mid summer+ blooming perennial that overwinters well.
I’m having a lot of fun searching for that perfect plant.
(smiles)
Topics: Gardening | Comments Off on Changing The Iris Bed
