http://statebystategardening.com/carolinasl/blog_01_summary/ en ruthmason1@att.net Copyright 2012 2012-05-18T00:59:27+00:00 http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/compost_and_shalimar/ http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/compost_and_shalimar/ When I was a youngster, my mother was in her hey day during the Kennedy years and an avid admirer of Jackie Kennedy.  To me, my slender Swedish-heritage mother in her secretary pencil skirts, blouses, and shalimar, rivaled the elegant first lady.  Her daughters have always schooled themselves at Mama's style and tastes, so when she retired decades later, by then in marketing, gardening become her new passion, of course I took note, lured by her thrall for the earth, and soon snared by the sirens of my own California dirt.  Through the years when I visited summers, I often helped her dig redolent kitchen parings into her compost site.  And now, fifteen houses away, I can truck off wheel barrows full of that dark treasure. And, it follows that I now want my own compost site right here in my back yard.  Kitty corner from my main raised beds is the perfect place, back there past the tool shed, the dogwoods, and out of sight behind the structure my son calls the triangular murder house                                                                       It's perfect.  It's already fenced at the corner behind the play house so I can contain it on one side with concrete blocks and on the other with an old chain link gate I found on the property.  I dug a hole behind the house..   ..while inside I'm always collecting coffee grounds, rinsed egg shells, sadly spent cut flowers, tea bags, lemon wedges, fruit and vegetable leavings, in short culinary castoffs-thrilled that these will stay out of the trash and transform to garden loot.  When I'm cooking, I gather each days parings in a handy bowl..  and transfer those collections frequently through the day into empty coffee containers stowed under the sink. While those three containers are getting gradually filled, I also shred newspaper at my feet when I'm working on the computer.  Then when full, I empty the parings into a bucket and the shredded papers into a trug, ready for the compost pile.      I first pour out the kitchen green goods as evenly as I can over the dug site, add newspaper, a favorite gourmet dish of the desirable earthworm.  Water and a good dig in with the pitch fork.  Sometimes pulled weeds not gone to seed, shredded leaves, dug up dirt, whatever makes sense, goes in.  This is an ongoing enterprise I hungrily study from blogs and books and busy observations of gifted gardeners. The site is easily closed up from my digger dogs, and a barrow's simple access to compost.  There's no reason not  to take these few steps the way I see it. The clever industry of microbes and earth worms yielding such riches is a garden bonanza a shame not to appropriate.  My modish Mama, after all, didn't raise no fools; and I, proud thief, enjoy stealing pages from her book. 2012-05-18T00:59:27+00:00 http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/when_dogwood_leaves_are_squirrels_ears/ http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/when_dogwood_leaves_are_squirrels_ears/ My quarter-Cherokee father used to talk about the "Indian" three-sisters technique of inter planting beans, corn, and squash for an excellent agricultural symbiosis.  I've been hankering for a raised corn bed since I put in my other beds. It was part of my plan to build this bed on the other side of my yard, having read to keep corn and tomatoes at least 20 feet from each other.  I decided to add cukes on one end and cantaloupe (ok muskmelon) on the other, with the three sisters in the middle, so my dream bed ... was more like five-sisters, very appropriate for me being the eldest of, you guessed it: five sisters.  I had long since bought my veggie seeds... Next I had to get the bed built.  I soaked newspaper again, laying thick overlapped pads of it in my-measured-and-staked-with-string plot, then a 4 inch layer of wheat straw, a layer of bagged mushroom compost rich with chicken manure, a 3 inch layer of shredded leaves, then 3 inches of alfalfa hay, more shredded leaves, ending finally with my mother's dark compost.  I took my cue from Lasagna Gardening and just composted away, no careful carpentry this time.  But what a mess, ten inches high but melting fast! I opted this time to stake the pine boards in place: with boards and a pack of twenty-five stakes, I got away from Lowe's this time for $40.  Not as pretty as my screwed together siding, and probably, considering that law of the universe about things going from order to disorder, becoming more and more wobbly as the stakes loosen.  Determined, though, to plant corn in early May,  I eyeballed my layout and marked the spacing with twigs.   According to Renee's Garden (I googled three sisters planting and found the site), I should have started planting the three sisters when dogwood leaves are the size of squirrel's ears, were I following the authentic Iroquois technique.  I plan to do that next year, humbled by and drawn to the nature-aware wisdom.  According to Renee, plant all three seeds literally in one hole, get a tangled mess.  So I modified that site's clear ideas for my own.  First moisten potting soil with rain water, since layered composting to be planted immediately needs potting soil to line each seed site.  In each spot you plant a 6-inch square with corn planted at each corner.  I cloched mine after watering the seed, not taking my eye from the spot till I had a container snugged down good over the planted corn. The idea is to wait till the corn is four inches high and plant the beans near the corn, with squash interspersed between these corn/bean squares.   It took about a week, but the little greenhouses, my humble plastic cloches, kept birds and critters from robbing the unsprouted corn, and a humid atmosphere hydrating and warming the seedlings with condensation.  I gently wiggled the cloches up to remove them, respectful of the sprouts, and lightly smoothed down the disturbed soil around them. Time for the beans to go in, really mostly Blue Lake pole, but also these beautiful Brazilian red runner beans I saved from the last dried vines in 2010, cleaning my California garden to relinquish my home of thirty-four years to the buyer that December.  A deep current ran in me then; sharply conscious of leaving an era in my life, I plundered garden seeds to bring with me: morning glories, zinnias from my daddy's yard, nasturtiums, and these.  It was momentous to see the large glossy beans drop smooth and heavy as stones from the labeled envelope I'd slipped them in eighteen months ago, remnants of Indian pottery, glazed black  and edged with terra cotta brush strokes.  Some of these babies will climb the corn stalks among the Blue Lakes. With beans to climb the brave corn sprouts, and squash alternating among those groupings, a few morning glories and nasturtiums tucked in, and the planned cukes climbing up red trellises on one end, and puny melon sprouts on the opposite not very promising, my five sisters are cozy, bristling with cloches again to help the girls do their ancient work.  Corn to support the twining beans which replenish nitrogen to the soil with their rhizobia, while the squash, liking the shade at their feet, provide a living mulch.  The old ones believed time was not linear, that we all spin around in time, past-present-future, more connected than we know, not really so distinct and separate in our dimensions, as we see time.   A garden makes that feel true when you hold the same enchanted seeds, come down through time. and know the sisters are magic.           2012-05-13T03:05:06+00:00 http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/a_dingo_ate_my_byebee/ http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/a_dingo_ate_my_byebee/ Hopeful visions of a savory harvest dance in my planter's brain when seeds are going in the ground, so they were definitely busy mid April.     A couple weeks back, I ran out to my beds ready to get the okra and white acre peas in the ground.  I soaked the seed a couple hours and went out to the beds with a trug of moistened potting soil, seeds in the Burpee seed dispenser, and those visions attending my efforts.  Since the layered composting is still in progress, I knew I had to load holes with the soil as I planted.  I appreciated the usefulness of the Burpee seeder.  I could more easily control the number of seeds for each planting spot by tapping them out the dispenser hole when I dialed it open, and closing the hole between planting to contain those tiny roly poly rascals.  Once on this soil, the spilled dark okra would be nearly invisible for me to retrieve.   I have been known to dump out minuscule dots that way. Twigs from my yard marked each seeded spot.  I watered in and went about my usual business. A few days later, doing my typical morning parole, I was stopped cold by evidence of vicious squirrel vandalism.  It did feel like a dingo ate my byebee.   My marker twigs were uprooted, holes flagrantly stared at me, and discarded sunflower shells dug from my plantings lay about in disarray along the poor ruined beds.  I was shocked.  Fifteen sunflowers along the edges of the beds, ten okra, and a dozen white acre pea plantings looked completely compromised. This was warfare.  Don't get me wrong..I love a little squirrel diving from tree branch to tree branch like a daring forest trapeze artist tantalizing my poor Masie and her hopeful dachshund heart.  But I was not going to lose okra and white acre peas when I finally could grow them in their native south!  I couldn't rely on Mase to help, bless her. I planted new white acre peas, figuring the already sprouted seedlings could survive squirrels.   I could replace any plants whose spot proved to be too plundered.  I ruled out temporary fencing as useless.  These characters perform routinely in the trees.   Without nets. Then I discovered the idea online of putting containers over planted seeds to frustrate squirrel thievery.  Hey, hadn't I been saving all those iced tea containers for just such a possible need?  At first I cut the tops off, but once at the garden beds, I realized I could use the tops too.  The lids were handy to unscrew and pour in water.  So now I cut containers in half, using both ends. I also used a two liter bottle, so clear it was my favorite little cloche, making me rue my preference for tea over two-liter soda.  Those translucent Solo cups,  glass spaghetti and jelly jars have also joined my usage.  Hey~it worked.    I removed the cloches yesterday and have found all plants sprouted up, okra in the first, white acre peas in the second, even sunflowers are rousing up!  I guess the dingo got maligned about my babies.  But in the process, I learned that those little covers kept a hydrating atmosphere going.  Believe me, Ima gonna use this idea when I put in the 3 sisters bed any day now.  I know the squirrels will rally round for that corn!  But covers might slow them down.  And if I get called away from my garden for a few days, the cloches will also keep my seeds nicely moist.   2012-05-03T21:24:45+00:00 http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/swing_for_the_tender_garden_queen/ http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/swing_for_the_tender_garden_queen/ I will never forget the spring my father, retired from his Georgia farm,  visited me in San Jose.  Staring out the kitchen window at my small backyard, Daddy proclaimed my need for tomatoes and left in my car for the garden center a few blocks away.  I expected two or three plants tucked along the fence at the foot of the new lawn, my usual practice.  But no.   Visiting with my mom, it was not till the deed was done that I beheld a dozen plants  lined up prettily in the center of the expensive green sod, bristling with 8-foot stakes.  And Daddy's quick nod: that's how it's done.    Don't get me wrong.  I luxuriated in those voluptuous glowing tomatoes warm from my garden that summer, fat salted slices with fresh ground pepper and cottage cheese washed down with great glasses of iced tea.   I am a southern girl.  The whole neighborhood  and my church friends also enjoyed that farmer's bounty.  Not just for future lawn preservation did I install a permanent corner home for those red darlings of the vine.   A tomato cage and stakes were just fine for support then. But now garden hunger and a slim budget demand mutual respect.  Rejecting flimsy wire cages, bamboo teepees, expensive folding screens, those gorgeous wrought iron tuteurs I really wanted but couldn't afford, I settled for a resourceful alternative, found in Bartholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening,  portable trellises made of electrical conduit pipe and metal elbows found easily at Lowes.  The pipes come in ten foot lengths, but even though only $2 each, the store cheerfully cut them in half.  I wanted five 5-foot-high-and-wide trellises, so it worked out neatly to get eight pipes halved, a cost of $16.  The ten elbows were a whole box I had to order, at $50 for the bunch.  Ten 18-inch lengths or rebar was another $20.  And plastic netting, $20 more brings trellises to $21 + change each. .  Easy to assemble the legs from a crossbar with the elbows and a screwdriver.. Then it was just a simple collection of the assembled frames, measuring tape, hammer and rebar, along with a trusty friend      to measure out the spacing of the rebar pieces, hammer them in, then slip each frame in place over its rebar twins.   Plastic netting and zip ties finished the trellises.  The beauty is that they're sturdy.  And I can move them around when I rotate the garden queens next year.  And none too soon, either.  Today I planted about a dozen and half tomatoes.    Along the outer edges of my beds in a big U around the garden, the infant queens will soon bound up and be twined to the screens in proud display, swinging round and tempting on the net.  I can barely wait, hoping for a sharp acid like the ones Daddy used to grow, tasting like the ants just left, no bland flat mush.  From my own started seedlings, I planted  Italian tomatoes, Costoluto Genovese, Park Seeds' Country Taste, Beefmasters, and Daddy's two standbys: Early Girls and Better Boys. Impossible now in this thin dimension outside heaven, but if I could have one more amazing, luminous walk with Daddy in his garden, or mine, I think he'd agree I might be learning his garden lesson about what counts.       2012-05-01T18:42:34+00:00 http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/heart_of_rain/ http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/heart_of_rain/ In South Carolina, rain is not a season as in California, where it rains predictably from late fall to spring.  And NEVER in summer.  Here the skies open in wonderful surprises all year long and keep Greenville living up to her name.   It was one major homesick detail for me during the 40 years I lived in California: no trees lashing in the pre-rain wind, no great rolling crashes of thunder, no crackling tongues or sheets of lightening, no ropes of rain falling falling falling, or water streaking windows, gushing from gutter spouts and flowing down the street.  There, just a steady gentle rain watering the good black earth.  Now, back home, my heart of rain exults. So what self respecting organic gardener would not ask for a rain barrel for her March birthday?  It took some research.  Seeing the online and YouTube series of 60 gallon barrels people were lining up in their collection schemes, I cut to the chase when I saw these containers selling on Craigslist.  Food containers like this sounded like a good alternative.  Holding 250 gallons, I have what four of the smaller barrels hold.  It seemed like a good idea to position it under the camellia beneath my kitchen window and right by the raised beds I've just installed this spring. We assembled materials to convert this container to a rain barrel: Fiskar's diverter I ordered from Amazon, saving about $20 from what True Value would charge to order it; got a longer 1-inch clear plastic tube than the short corrugated one that came with the diverter; one-inch and one-and-3/8-inch circular bits, gorilla glue, hacksaw, measuring tape, pliers, screwdriver, pencil, gloves, brass hose end, drill, masonry bit, and wire snips.  The one-inch circular bit worked like a charm to drill a center hole in the black bottom cap of the barrel.  We glued in a brass hose connector.  We also drilled a hole in the top white cap of the barrel for the clear tube to come from the nearby downspout diverter to the barrel. Following diverter directions, measuring and marking as instructed, we first sawed through the targeted downspout with the hacksaw and then cut the back wall with wire snips.                      The diverter inserted easily into the the downspout, but we lashed it down, below, and added metal plate bracing above, to stabilize the wobbly fit.  Then connecting the clear tube from the diverter to the barrel, and creating a loop to hold it to the wall, we were ready for the reported impending rain.  A lively thunderstorm gushed rain from  all my downspouts, but only a disappointing quart or so got into the barrel. That meant revisiting our design: lowered the loop on the wall so there was better down flow, and inserted a piece inside the diverter to more efficiently divert water from the downspout into the barrel tube. Blew the debris from the gutters (thanks to a handy silver fox's skills)... And, VOILA, the next rain brought paydirt..er, rain.  In 20 minutes, we had 100 gallons and even light rain garnered another 50.   Our added length of hose makes it easier to fill a watering can.   It's great fun to see the rain flow down the tube and rise up the metal bars, each of which measure 50 gallons: visibly 150 right now.    Not to stop there, I added a galvanized tub under the other downspout near my garden.  Handy for dipping unchlorinated water for the plantings just beyond the gate there.  (Masie my dachshund can always sneak into the shot--"Hi, Mom").      And out front, the downspout by my carport provides more collection.  Easy to run out my laundry door for a dipperful of rain water for seedlings under the laundry gro-lights.  All this is just me getting ready for the summer thirst in the garden.  I guess the next water detail will be harnessing the barrel for soaker hoses!  A heart of rain just enjoys the sensory balms of rain, but a heart of gardening wants it in the backyard dirt!     2012-04-26T13:19:40+00:00 http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/the_sowing_of_the_seeds/ http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/the_sowing_of_the_seeds/ You know how it goes: you've paged through the catalogs with shaking hands and feverishly pondered the tantalizing choices at online sites and store shelves; the neat packets arrive in the mail; you choose some at Lowes, and the list dazzles: sweet peppers, hot peppers, tomatoes chosen for their old tang and by your father's advice, white acre peas, Hales cantaloupe, squash, cuke, corn, pole beans, herbs and wild flowers to attract pollinators, marigolds and garlic to chase off chewers. Spring fever dictates gardening action differently in South Carolina than in northern California.  February was still shivering in winter here, when there I knew fruit trees would be blooming.  But, ah, I did have seeds.. and a likely surface in the laundry room (much closer than my mother's offered basement 15 houses away) to tend seedlings, and a perfect cabinet bottom for mounting grow lights. With grow lights in place, I inflated peat pellets with rain water, gathered my seeds, sower, markers, labels, scissors, and other paraphernalia of my addiction.  I charted rows of shy seeds which do not cotton, I had read, to direct sowing: 8 hot peppers (pimiento picante poinsettia), 10 cantaloupe (Hales Best organic melon), 6 sweet basil (ocimum basilicum), 6 hot pink tidal wave petunia (my first pelleted seed experience), 2 red double pirouette petunia (which would've been more, but the teensy seeds dropped in one fell invisible swoop from the little green sower shaped like a white-out wand), 4  Burpfree cukes (pepino burpfree), 8 bee balm (monarda didyma), 6 lavender (lavendula vera), 6 California Wonder sweet peppers (pimiento dulce), 6 sage (salvia officinalis), 6 Miss Butterfly (buddleia Davidii). I rummaged up a disposable baking dish as my tomato seeder and in went rows of tiny seeds for five kinds of tomatoes: Better Boy, Early Girl, Costuluto Genovese, Country Taste, and Beefmaster. And I salvaged a foil sweet-roll pan for some Shady Lady impatiens seeds. It wasn't long until the clever seedlings were sporting their cotyledon leaves, the cukes and melons bounding up when some seedlings were minuscule.     I transplanted them last week, the cukes first.  Yesterday, I saw the tomatoes needed transplanting, so I marked the pots: BB= Better Boy, EG=Early Girl, CT=Country Taste, CG= Costuluto Genovese, and BM= Beefmaster.  And then chose the best seedlings to promote to the next grade. Did sweet peppers (SP) and hot peppers (duh, HP) the same way till we have new plants lifted to the light or glowing in a southern window.  The cukes and melons are still the ones leaping the most, nearly ready to go to the raised beds, along with direct sown seeds this weekend.  It can really be a satisfying slake for postponed garden urges to take these seed sowing steps, when it's too soon to actually plant in the beds. And so I felt my little trill of gratification, until, in the cool of one recent morning, out to weed the raised beds of volunteer wheat before planting this weekend,  when what should I discover on closer inspection is that wheat was not all that volunteered in my garden.  What was left after pulling grass was a virtual, random, prolific crop of volunteer tomatoes, these come of their very own volition without invitation or planning or my fevered preparation of any sort!  No grow lights, labels, catalog, mail order, shopping, seed packs, or my happy jonesing and shake.  Nothing was required.  Just nature, and, attending that, my own astonished and amused realization of great good fortune and garden chagrin.  This begs the obvious conclusion that my farmer father would find incredible I'm just seeing: sometimes perhaps the unmonkeyed-with basics (seed, dirt, sun, rain) may really be just the best way to garden after all.     2012-04-13T14:52:11+00:00 http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/the_darling_buds_of_march/ http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/the_darling_buds_of_march/ One of the great delights for a Southerner like me (born and raised in Georgia), returned home to the South after 40 years in the wacky and wonderful wilderness of California, is spring in my new state of South Carolina.  The first year in this house and yard means every season is a study in discoveries, mysterious treasures (and trials) former owners, along with nature, have hidden in the earth for me to find; often nameless, uncharted, undaunted by my arrival, they continue in their lives and twine unfazed and unimpressed into mine. The cherry exchanges its pale pink blossom for new leafing, as the crape myrtles also begin to leaf at its feet.  I watch for their colors and where to transplant them in my yard, not wanting them to crowd the cherry, empress of my yard.  And what is the tree leafing out behind the mailbox?  The former owners have called it a Japanese dogwood, so I'm on the hunt to name it and to know it. Azaleas in my new neighborhood reign supreme and my yard proves no exception, I'm thrilled to see.  I never knew such frothy bloom.  Just look at those white party frocks! One thing I always wished for in my former zone 9 was peonies.  I promptly planted Margaret Trumans in a sunny curve of the bed under the cherry out front, understanding, of course, that it may be next year before I enjoy her arrival.  And then one morning, see what emerged from the backyard dirt, a peony, several, and maybe even that same magenta hue I chose out front.  The leaves are tender and so new, unblemished and perfect. And, under azaleas, lilies of the valley appear, also, budding out their rich perfume my mother loves so much that all her five daughters gift her often with emollients and other aroma therapeutic toiletries in this fragrance.  I planted 8 of these last week, desiring those tiny wax bells and that delicious scent to show up some day under my dogwoods.  And here they already are, gems of sensory and familial delight rising from what I thought was hosta curls. In the shady corner bed, that bare stem I hardly noticed last summer has become a red leaf Japanese maple, which I have plans to free from this tangle. The Madame Isaac Pereire rose that I planted offers her two cents to spring surprises, the plus her ready bud so soon after arriving from Texas into my Carolina soil, supposedly the rose for the perfume industry.        And spring life does not omit winged friends, my darling future pollinators.  This innocuous corner house which my son, visiting from suspicious California, dubbed  "the triangular murder house," was once a little playhouse.  Behind there I'm planning my compost bin.   One morning I spied sawdust on the doorstep.  There are several perfect little portholes around the structure, like this one above, engineered by carpenter bees.  The long ragged strips were left courtesy of termites, I'm thinking.  I watched the busy "c" bee shoving out his saw by-product that recent morning, making his own house instead of settling for little ideas I planned to put out.  He is one reason I want poisonless gardening in my yard. So I handle the inevitable other growth, chickweed, and his weedy thug friends with old fashioned pulling, opting away from the chemicals my lawn man suggested.  "Your yard back there is eat up with chickweed," he said in certain guilt as though he were responsible for the rampant carpet of weed invading my property like d-day and about to win the war.  My waiting wheelbarrow of pure chickweed keeps getting handfuls donated every time I venture out back.  I mutter promises to my pollinators.  And keep pulling. Now take a gander at the growth in my newly layer-composted beds!  I suspect that's wheat come from all the seeds I eyed in the wheat straw used generously in my layering, per online and written advice.  Seeds, really, I thought, strewing the straw with great misgiving, expecting just this to happen.  How can wheat straw even be good mulch?  Doesn't wheat spring eternal in whatever beds it's mulched into?  In my avid reading, I've seen it often used, and now this first seeding will vie with my veggies.   Oh well, it's living dirt!  I hope earthworms plow it now, even as I tickle these very words out in the muffled patter of keys.  We share this planet, after all, with buds and bugs and poor ole weeds, and even errant wheat, somehow got the bad luck not to be wanted. 2012-03-29T13:48:38+00:00 http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/garden_drums_and_spring_in_the_blood/ http://statebystategardening.com/state.php/carolinas/blog_02/garden_drums_and_spring_in_the_blood/ It was just last May, after a four-day solo drive from California, that I wheeled my car into a modest Taylors neighborhood in the remnants of a forest.  There it was, on a drowsy side street, the little brick house of my dreams, just fifteen houses from my mother's, and for sale.  I rolled past in slo-mo, heart pierced by the front yard full of trees and South Carolina sun, and the glimpses I caught of a fenced backyard ready for a gardener and two digging dachshunds to move in.  Wuff!                                                                            And this is where I call home now.  This first spring has dug deep into my psyche, awakening garden drums, the farmer's daughter in me obsessed with dirt, seeds, sun, rain, visions of greenery and the bumbly buzz of bees .  The Yoshino cherry by the drive and white thrift under the mailbox shimmer in my mind, wild violets scatter in unexpected places...   even what looks like wild muscari at my halted feet surprise me in the backyard one morning, here brimming along with pale trumpets redolent of garlic, like nothing I ever saw in proud California.   February weeks ago shook awake my garden fever, driving me to seed catalogs, online googles, local garden shops, junktiques, garage sales, my mother's tool shed, blogs to make my thouhts reel, and trips to the library for armloads of books.  I jot down ideas in a fresh garden journal till   a rough garden scheme forms.  Time to choose the herbs and flowers to attract garden friends, visualize fat tangy tomatoes, nasturtiums, and cukes climbing trellises,   southern veggies like white acre peas, okra, mustard greens, hot peppers for bottles of pepper sauce, squash, sweet potatoes, beets and carrots, a crazed tangle to separate into seasons and likely companion planting, and new things to try: borage, bee balm, hyssop, along with the old buddies: alyssum, marigolds, and zinnias. The site dictates itself with wise logic.  My back yard is half bisected crosswise by the shade of forest trees behind my backyard fence.  The sunny horizontal half near the house only offers this side pictured in the top right since the top left portion you can't see hides a septic tank.  Besides, it's right under my kitchen and mudroom windows.  Perfect! A good neighbor's truck and a trip to Lowe's deliver carefully planned lengths of untreated lumber.  I settle for pine because I can afford it now, fully expecting to replace this wood of my rasied beds gradually with expensive cedar, probably in the near future as the soft pine disintegrates in weather and dirt.  The frames assembled on my screened-in porch,  corners connected by galvanized screws and inside metal braces, become only five beds of the seven my plans anticipate since funds dwindle for right now.  Okay to start smaller.. just start, I say. I line them up in early March where I've plotted my garden, even if a little truncated at present, and assemble newspapers, bags of organic compost (reeking grandly of chicken manure), wheat straw, worm castings,  the garden hose, wheelbarrows and pitchforks, buckets, trugs and concrete blocks.   Piles of summer grass clippings and shredded fall leaves are mounded behind my fence in the woods.  And my mother has many years of deep, rich compost waiting, just fifteen houses away. First I lay down heavy wet overlapping pads of newspaper directly on the sleeping sod, which,  I've read in Lasagna Gardening , will kill the grass and draw the diligent earthworms.   Next I layer bagged "compost"--mostly gooey chicken manure, then several inches of wheat straw, ditto a similar layer of mixed leaves and lawn clippings, more wheat straw, my mother's compost, and finally 15 bags of top soil. I finally end with a set of filled beds, orphaned right now on the edge of the lawn and lost-looking.  Soon, however,  I'll sow seeds, erect trellises,  add some kind of enclosure and paths, put out a birdbath, a bee bath, add a water system, get a rainbarrel, let the windmill blow.  Sheeesh, I'm excited.  But hot sweaty work is best attended in South Carolina by our old friend...   a tall cool glass of raspberry iced tea on the screened-in porch, in view of my incipient garden and springtime dazzling the yard. 2012-03-20T10:20:01+00:00