This Year's Garden

I have officially bumped our garden number to 4.  That means that probably at least half of this property is being worked every year.  The primary, the biggest of the plots I turn has been worked now for 3 consecutive years.  It's coming along nicely, the soil turns easily, very little weed vegetation to deal with annually (mostly invasive running weeds), and the rows are always even.  Roots and stones have essentially been eliminated.  This is the garden in which tomatoes and cucumbers tend to excel.  I plant a lot of those each year. 

The secondary garden is slightly smaller than the first, almost directly adjacent, but separated by a set of fruit trees.  The soil is very rich, it being only in it's 2nd year of being worked.  But there is still a substantial amount of weed vegetation.  This year a large number of trees took root in that garden, including Mulberries, which I'm in the process of transplanting to pots for resale.  They are apparently quite in demand locally.

The tertiary garden is very small, much older even than the primary, but extremely small.  It's a raised bed that I've been fighting with for years.  Originally it was merely a large pile of broken concrete and bricks; the shattered remains of a foundation to either a shed or hen coop (or both, since there once was both here that were torn down by previous tenants).  I became weary of this eyesore one year and determined to improve the view I used the larger bits of stone to build a retainer wall and proceeded to fill in the plot with dirt and manure.  However, it seems that no matter how much I add, the stones always keep rising back to the surface to foil me.  The birds knock over the wall stones and I'm constantly re-building.  On a good year though there are both strawberries and onions in that garden.

The newest garden is referred to as the side garden, it being located to one side of the house, slightly to the front.  This one is a little unusual as I took the time and effort to turn the soil and remove the grasses only to plant... grasses.  Timothy and Orchard grass to be specific.  Another ongoing effort to reduce the feed costs by raising some fresh fodder.  I will probably need to locate a scythe however, probably not going to be easy since when I mentioned it at the seed store, I was offered only blank looks in return.  "A what?!" said the clerk, "surely you've heard of the Grim Reaper?!" I replied in consternation, "he carries a scythe... a device that was once used to harvest grasses back before the invention of the tractor... an item I neither have nor need really." I suppose a sling blade would work as well, again, if I can locate one.  It's interesting how few people even know what equipment was around before the invention of the motor tried to make them obsolete.

I suppose though there actually is more than 4 gardens here, but those are the main ones.  If one were so inclined, one could also count the front herb gardens (a matched pair across the front of the house), the asparagus bed, the rhubarb patch, and the myriad herb pots as a sort of container garden.  Were I to attempt to account for everything, I'd also include this lot as a sort of orchard, there being fruit trees of multiple types here, including blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, and grapes.  The only thing missing are kiwi's!  I'm trying to remedy that, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to find a good self-pollinating kiwi these days.