The potter has her lump of clay. The sculptor has his chunk of marble.
The artist has his clean canvas. The writer has her blank sheet of paper.
And the gardener?
The gardener has her cleared plot of land.
I had a landscaping crew clear out the vegetable garden today.
The rotted boards around the raised beds? Gone.
The bent and broken tomato stakes? Gone.
The piles of refuse on top of the compost bins? Gone.
I am literally and figuratively back to “square one” in my raised bed vegetable garden.
Later this week, I plan to lay out new garden beds, keeping in mind the “keyhole concept“, which I read about in Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway. This was the book the garden designer left on my bench out front on one of her visits to my garden last spring.
I had hoped to rearrange the raised beds last fall, but the drought left the ground dry and hard and almost unworkable. Since then we’ve had snow and rain, and now it is spring and the garden is indeed all new again, a clean slate… literally.
I'm really excited to see what you do with your blank slate. Happy Gardening!
It's such a wonderful opportunity to be able to start from scratch after gaining so much experience. I can't wait to see it develop.
New gardens are so much like new babies. You go through the cute toddler stage, then the awkward teen years until you can let it go a bit as a young adult. 🙂
Have fun with the keyhole design, Carol… boy, when you said blank slate you meant it! We've lived in a lot of different places but never had a blank slate. This will be interesting.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Thank you for being politicaly correct with the usage of his and her in your intro. It is so annoying when people just assume they are talking to women in their postings. Soap box put away.
I'm glad you have the clean slate. I would find it a little overwhelming of what to plant. Good luck.
A clean slate and you are the artist, Carol. I like the idea of the keyhole, and look forward to seeing your actual design, wondering if it will be straight lines or are you going to get curvy? 🙂
Frances
How very exciting~ I love your blank slate and can't wait to see what you paint/sculpt/design/plant in the garden. gail
How exciting. Looking FWD to seeing what you create.
Oh be still my heart. How terribly exciting to see a blank canvas. I bet you have been plotting all winter about what you want to do. I can't wait to see what you do. I have not read the book but I bet you have some great ideas. I hope you show us your progress.
Carol, give us an idea of the size..it's hard to grasp from your clean slate photo. Can't wait to see it develop!
How exciting! I made a big new garden bed, and I've been having all kinds of fun stuffing it chock-full!
What fun to start with a clean slate! I can't wait to see what you do with this space, Carol.
Wow! Very exciting. Can't wait to see more of the vegetable plot – and all your new gardens.
I am so excited for you. I'm wondering about that concept and hope you will share more with us later.~~Dee
Can't wait to see how it develops. It is so wonderful to have been where you were to know where you want to go! Enjoy.
Love that book! It's one to which I refer constantly. I found it enlightening, to say the least. It completely changed my perspective on gardening in general, food gardening specifically. While I'm not going to go whole hog in a rented 20' wide yard, I am doing what I can to apply what I read to what I am doing out there.
How exciting! Big changes are afoot at May Dreams, I see. I look forward to the "after" images. Or "during," for that matter.
Regardless of size, it looks like you had a harvest of some premium vegetables!