In the last few years I have tried to redefine my living situation by making everything as simple and easy as possible. This has been a pretty painless path for me, since solving problems is what a public school teacher does for a living. Sure, we all teach the curriculum, but anyone who has children, or remembers what it was like being one, knows that if you have children around, you have problems. The Square Foot Gardening method makes growing plants of all sorts really pretty easy by eliminating many of the usual problem causing suspects, like weeding, fertilizing and repeated dirt moving. But, the basics still apply.
The location of any garden must provide the basics in order for gardening to be both simple and easy. When I grew my produce in containers I had plenty of sun, but no water nearby. So I moved water to my garden once a week and stored it in large plastic buckets. It was simple and even easy, but annoying. In my current home, the watering situation is perfect, since there is a hose right next to the planter in my front courtyard. But there is still the nagging question about the amount of sunshine. My courtyard is, of course, surrounded on all four sides by walls. That is the nature of a courtyard. The planter is tucked up against one of the walls.
This past week, I was stuck inside because of the poor air quality where I live caused by the fires in San Diego County
Simple and easy is my overall goal. Moving forward with putting in vegetables where there may not be enough sunshine could result in lots of activity, but poor results. I cannot control the amount of sunshine received in an “in ground” garden. With containers, I could and did move my plants around to follow the sun. I just put the pots on little trolleys with wheels. It was both simple and easy. But this planter is built into the courtyard. Gardening with good results is fun. Gardening with poor or no results is not. I remember a few years ago when the weather shifted unexpectedly and my beautiful bean and pea plants gave me almost no harvest. That was no fun at all.
In order to keep my life simple and easy with a goodly amount of fun, I will continue to buy my produce instead of growing it. It doesn’t taste as good as home grown, but I may not get home grown, so what’s the point? So once again, what to do with this lovely brick planter so visible from three rooms of my new home? Cutting the first roses from the bushes I discovered at the side of the house and putting them in several rooms to enjoy reminded me how much I appreciated them in the past.
My favorite rose is Double Delight. I had one in my rose garden in Alta Loma, along with twenty-three other varieties. Although I took pleasure in the entire rose garden, she was my favorite bush. The colors are beautiful. Each of the blooms is unique, and the fragrance is intense and sweet.
I’ll return the materials I purchased to make my square foot garden grid and buy two Double Delight rose bushes, if they are available now. If not, I’ll fill the bed with annuals and remove them when my favorite rose is in my local nursery. But even with two bushes, there is plenty of room for other perennials. I’m going to research companion plants. I’ll find something that will look good, encourage hummingbirds and discourage pests. Most of all, I will keep it simple and easy.
Until next time,
