New gardens

October 18, 2017 By in Writing 21 Comments

We’ve had a busy summer- what’s new? That’s a rhetorical question! Along with completing the new barn which I’ll detail in a future post, we did massive amounts of clearing including the east and south side of our house.

We’ve got a pretty sweet landscape set up in the front (north side) and a back patio on the east but there were areas that we just basically never got to in the last twenty years. It’s been really amazing getting so much light on the south side. duh. Having built our home twenty years ago, I think partly the trees have grown a lot and partly I didn’t know better when siting the house.

Here’s our back porch on the east side- above the stonewall is a cover crop of buckwheat.

Our plan is to do raised beds and bring the kitchen garden, well, closer to the kitchen! Like out the back door. I’d love to see this happen next year but it will depend on the soil condition. We may have to ‘grow” soil the first year.

Here’s the ‘before’ from the upstairs back porch.

And the after…

There are patches of buckwheat that haven’t grown well due to root systems and parts do to the back scratching on the ground  of pictured pooch. Ollie’s studio would be to the left of this photo.

Ollie’s studio

Here’s a glimpse of our kitchen windows and the studio where all the music magic happens.

The backdrop is called Mt Pickett

We are developing the south side as well which will be primarily fruit trees of various sorts.

Before looked like this after felling about five trees of varying height.

It was a rather emotional watching the clearing. Otis wasn’t too disturbed however.

But the payoff is light, air and planting fruit trees we can pick from in our pj’s.

And from above- not as bright a day:)

 And a photo from the west side. I’d love to create gardens all around with lovely nooks and pathways. Then I am gently reminded by my loved one to be careful what you wish for and what you create as it will need to be nurtured and maintained. We are already nurturing quite a lot on this property. Ourselves included.
 Downstairs here on the left is Chloe’s room which may evolve into a rentable room for farm stay adventures. I imagine a darling courtyard for sipping tea and daydreaming on flowers and fruits.
Something like what’s happening on the north side which is our entry. My dear daughter, Chloe landscaped this summer and we reaped the benefits.

And our kitty Luna likes to daydream in gardens too- and catnap.
Now the rains may have set in… there are very few apples this year so likely little in the way of cider, cider vinegar or applesauce. Quel dommage…

but I’m already planning for next year’s gardens.

wendy

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21 responses

    • Thank you Diane- I’m hoping to track our progress on the blog. It truly is an online web log. I can track our experiences back to fall 2011. I can only imagine what fall 2023 will look like. Just writing the year makes me think Star Trek:) w

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  3. 🙂 Hi Wendy,
    wow, you’ve really been up to your eyeballs in work. But what you have achieved looks fabulous!
    I hope you don’t miss Hamburg too much 😉
    Looking forward to your next post and all the very best from this side of the ocean,
    Claudia 🙂

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    • We do miss Hamburg, the Elbe and our walks on the beach and shopping daily in the village of Blankanese. It was a couple of wonderful years. AND… I love having our community here, space to roam, soil surrounding us and roosters crowing in the morning (and much of the day really!) cheers x wt

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  4. Wow, you’ve certainly been busy since we last saw you. Although, I do remember one or 2 of those trees being felled off of Chloe’s room and, of course, the new barn. You are such an inspiration.

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    • Thank you Janet- you guys definitely saw us, literally, in the muddy trenches of these excavation projects. That was a challenging period and now we look forward to the rebuild. Hope we see you next spring if not sooner for the new beginning. w

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  6. Beautiful Wendy. Quite a vision you and Ollie have, with the perseverance energy and capacity to carry it out. Can’t wait to see it the next time I visit. Love Mom

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  9. Looks great, Wendy, and what a heck of a lot of work– congratulations! Is the Ocatagon still standing?

    I’m not only writing to cheer your landscaping and say hello, I have a serious question… about butter. And I think you are the person to answer it. I was recently in France and fell in love with the butter with big grains of salt in it. I can’t remember the brand, and I can’t find anything like it in my local market. I CAN get a log of french butter without salt. Have you got any suggestions for rolling my own? I have regular salt, kosher salt and Himalayan pink crystal salt in the pantry. Thanks for any insights you can offer.

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