Last week my sweetie brought me home some sturdy wooden pallets he had rescued from a dumpster to replace the ones the workmen who fixed our porch threw out by accident. I use the pallets to keep my planters of the ground for good drainage and so they don’t rot the floor boards of my terrace garden.
So I set to work and arranged the pallets in a horseshoe formation and then set about organizing all my planters full of trees, herbs, and veggies on top of the pallets at one end of the porch leaving the centre open for easy watering access. It was hard work moving all those heavy pallets and planters around and I was so proud of my lovely little terrace garden… (insert ominous music)
I enjoyed my newly laid out garden for one whole day. I even bought a hose and a faucet adapter for the kitchen sink as there’s no hose hookup on the porch despite its big size. But my efforts were for naught. The roofers started working the next morning and asked me to move all my plants under the overhang of the roof. Thank goodness they cared enough to warn me as after I lined all my planters up against the wall of the house, the shower of debris came pouring down and covered the floorboards where my plants had been. It now looks like a crime scene due to the caution tape the roofers put up, but at least my plants are safe!
It’s been one ongoing comedy of errors here with me and my garden as my co-op keeps getting repairs and upgrades – which is a good thing. First I had to move my garden for the new windows to be installed last spring, then for the new siding this spring, now for the roofing to replaced, and next for the new siding to be painted. I don’t think other plants have ever experienced so much moving considering they’re supposed to rooted! And so I have shuffling travelling plants who always have new neighbours and new levels of sun and shade. Somehow they manage to live through it all and be healthy!
What grows in my garden? For trees I have a tall Mountain Ash, a Red Oak sapling, two small Red Cedars I grew from seed, and one small Western Hemlock I rescued from being weeded from a planter at a store. This year for edibles I grew everything from seed including alpine strawberries, two kinds of tomatoes, five kinds of hot peppers, red potatoes, smokey fennel bulbs I’ve been nursing for a few years (they should be ready to dig up an eat this year!), and some beautiful red sunflowers who’ve just started budding. I wanted to plant onions, but due to all my travelling this year it just didn’t happen. Maybe I’ll plant them for a winter garden with kale, garlic, and leeks…
Herbs are what I have the most of. Last year I only grew herbs and no food plants. This year I’m growing alfalfa, avens, bergamot, belladonna, bittersweet nightshade, black nightshade, catnip, clary sage, devil’s club, foxgloves, henbane, lavender, lemon balm, oregano, peppermint, rosemary, rue, Solomon’s seal, spearmint, thyme, viper’s bugloss, yarrow with red flowers, and yerba buena (a fragrant native plant that makes a delicious tea). Reading back on all this, I can’t believe all those plants fit in my container garden!
