Building our Garden: Lessons Learned

Eight months ago we purchased two acres of land. At that time I posed the question: "What would you do with a nearly blank slate to garden on?" I did so knowing there would be as many different answers as there are gardeners in this world. We listened, gathered ideas, dreamed a little, absorbed the message the land was conveying and took action. Everything we have accomplished thus far we are happy with, but there is always room for improvement. We have learned lessons both big and small along the way. We would like to humbly share some of those with you now.

By sharing our mistakes we are hoping to spare others frustration. Here is a photo of my blank slate taken some eight months ago with the pink deck and plant prison intact.

The Chicken House

We learned it's best to try to have plans for construction projects. For example, the only plan David had when building the chicken house was to cut three sheets of plywood in half and go from there. ‎This method demanded a great deal of improvisation and time and going back and forth to the garage for tools and to the hardware store for bits and pieces. Compare this with, say, buying a table at IKEA that comes with all components and tools and instructions to just having an idea to build the same table with a pile of wood. Good luck. While we are pleased with our coop, which we hope to detail here in a future post, it took David too long, he says, and it is by no means square. We like to say parts of the coop are "close" to level but we might be fooling ourselves. At any rate, start with a detailed plan, the correct components and the tools. Tamara's note here: David wanted to build it himself without plans, it was a challenge of sorts for him. In the end it looks just fine and it kept Mr. Retirement out of trouble for a couple of months.

Due to the goodly amount of rain in this area, David built the chicken coop high with a sturdy foundation. Can't have the hens gettin' their feets wet!

The coop is insulated with R-21 fiberglas and features a double-pane vinyl window for the hens to live in high-style. The hardest part of the whole process was building the main door. Again, no plans. Winging it, so to speak, was fun but not easy.

You KNOW Miss Artsy Pants is going to paint some kind of chicken mural on that bad boy to help cover up the green, right? Maybe a clematis or two growing around it would be a nice touch. David has not agreed to any of this. And the hens, which have not yet arrived, will have to vote. Oh, too many conventions on PBS for this blog!

Debris Removal

Plan ahead for debris removal. When we moved onto the property there existed a large pile of tree limbs in the east half-acre. As wide and as tall as three Chevy Camaros parked side by side. Despite best intentions it remains but now it is encased by a web of blackberries and grasses. We should have taken care of it during the late winter months. Well, we will tackle it soon. Also, and perhaps what we want to say is to plan your debris removal before you start your project. As shown in this post, I trimmed the driveway and swale filbert trees in late winter and instead of hauling off, chipping or burning the resulting limbs immediately we wound up with another multi-Camaro pile. Actually two but the pile on the driveway was more Vega in size. So we had two giant piles and one medium pile. Too big to burn ‎and a lot of hard work ahead. So we tackled it. We rented a wood chipper and enjoyed two wonderful days. That is sarcasm. Ho ho! Now we are down to the one big (original) pile. The lesson here is to address your debris! Don't let it stack up.  Take care of it and when done come help us clear our tri-Camaro mountain!!

The beginnings of the "Vega pile" in January.

 Here's the Camaro pile a few months ago. It has grown since then. I'm too embarrassed to show a current photo.

You've seen these pictures before, but this was a good lesson to prepare the to-be-chipped limbs for when the rented chipper arrives. They were arranged by size with the cut end all in the same direction. David spent several hours preparing the limbs beforehand and that made the actual chipping a breeze.

Lawn Removal

When we decided some of the lawn needed to go, we used a sod-cutter. This was the most practical tool to use, but we were inexperienced in using it. The result was our first attempt missed several clumps. We had to rent it a second time and go over the whole area again. We also would have left the cut sod in place until ready to till and plant as it was basically a mass of dirt. That made working conditions around the area difficult because if it were dry, there was dust in the air and if we were watering or if it rained, it was a slippery, muddy mess. I also would have tilled a few times to really kill the grass roots underneath instead of just once. Now the weeds are coming back, but they will be tackled, mark my words. Just not the easy way. The lesson is don't be hasty. We were in a hurry to get the rented beast back in time to avoid extra fees. We should have rented it for the whole day.

David tackling the first round of sod removal.

Re-designing the Berm
 From the outset, I knew the area I call "the berm" needed help. The soil was pale and rock-hard at the end of last summer. Additionally the retaining wall that holds back the soil also keeps water from draining in the wet months so the bottom of it turns into a sludgy clay mess while the top part, fairly well-drained, is rock-hard. Organic material of any kind seemed to be absent. I would look at in en route to other projects and it kept gnawing at me. I would come dig around in it when I needed to burn off some frustration or had a hard day. It was and still is my "extra" project as it was the only existing garden on site, requiring a redesign to suit the spirit of our new property.

I knew the soil needed serious amending with masses of compost and 1/4 - 10 crushed gravel to aid drainage. While the whole berm is now composted, replanted, graveled, and completely redesigned, I would have done a few things differently if I had to do it again. I think it would have been much easier to remove all the plants at once, compost and rototill the whole thing and then arrange the plants and plant them all at once. Of course, this would be a massive week-long project (at least), but the soil throughout would be improved and ready for plants. The way it was actually done was a little at a time, plants moved and moved again and compost and gravel added as I went.

In the end, it is really starting to look good but there are still a lot of asters that will be dug and moved to the meadow area which means I will have to go back and amend the soil by hand where they were once planted. In a way, it's probably okay to have done it as I did as it allowed me time to think, plan and move plants as I needed to. Of course knowing me, many plants will be moved around a few times before they find their forever home.

The berm area last fall.

As it looks in late July.

Again, the berm area last fall as seen looking west.

Here it is in late July looking towards the west.

Tree Removal
To put it simply, we should have removed the large dead trees early on. We were preoccupied with other projects and now we'll have to dance around existing plants to make that happen. We have one large Acer macrophyllum or big leaf maple that is completely dead and now we see about three other mature specimens that are also dying of verticilliuim wilt. They all need to go as their decline is certain, and their size is huge. If any of these fell unexpectedly it could spell disaster.

We plan to hire David's brother who has some experience with tree-falling to visit and take down the affected maples. We will carefully plan each tree's "down zone" before we start the chainsaws. 

Here the trunk of the dead big-leaf maple tree can be seen. A little too close to the house for peace of mind.




Labyrinth Garden

 Here it is pictured half-composted.

If I had to do it over again I would have removed all the sand from the former "labyrinth" and placed it in a pile for use somewhere else. I would then have had the compost man dump two units right in the center of the circle then borrow our neighbor's roto-tiller. I would take great pleasure in tilling that whole mess up and then have the gravel man deliver about 5 cubic yards of quarter ten crushed gravel and mixed it all in. **sigh** well, live and learn. As it is, I have about that much compost on it already but it's the sand removal that is missing. The sand in there has me worried for the long-term health of my plants. They all look good now, but you never know. This is a big regret.


There are a few other thoughts that come to mind when thinking about lessons. First off, we're human and it's okay to make mistakes. At least we're trying. Secondly, it's a long project, the rest of our lives will be spent tending for this beautiful land and we are most happy to live a simple life here doing just that. We don't have to do things quickly, but we get impatient because all around us we see potential and work to be done to reach that potential. There is also the advice that when you are a gardener and you move, that you should wait an entire year before planting anything so you completely understand what your new garden is all about. I did not do that, obviously. I think that's okay, because I'm not the average gardener. I am surrounded by plants every day of my life. I understand many of the plants I grow and love fairly well and know their cultural requirements. I also saw that much of what I was going to claim as new garden area was simply field grass, so no love lost there. In other words, go for it if you have a plan that excites you. Do what you love. But for the big projects, we have learned it is in our own best interest to really slow it down. Okay, try to slow it down. Okay, at least write it down. That, we can do.


That wraps it up for this week at Chickadee Gardens. What lessons have you learned in your garden? We'd love to know!

Thank you for reading and until next time, happy gardening!