I've been thinking lately about my perfect, ideal garden and what it would look like. I know that gardening is not the normal thing to be pondering at Christmas but if I start now, I might actually be ready for spring planting this year.
The fences in the above photos are beautiful, both the wooden rail fence and the white picket fence. There are other styles and building material of course and lots more choices in colour but I have a thing for the traditional white picket fence.
I've had a few gardens over the years but none have ever had a fence even though they certainly needed one. We lived on our first farm for 9 years and every year, without fail, DH would leave the barnyard gate open and the entire dairy herd would find their way to and through my garden 5 or 6 times each year. There were other directions that they could have headed in but it was always my garden. The straightest path of least resistance perhaps?
DH had torn up all of the lawn in order to level the land and put down new grass seed. We couldn't afford turf so we had to do the longest, slowest and cheapest way that we could but it was fine since there were only 2 of us at that time. The instructions were clear - DO NOT walk on the seed-covered dirt until the grass had grown in enough to hold the weight. The only problem? The cows did not get the memo! They left deep hoof prints in the soft earth and DH filled them in the first few times but then gave up. Those holes are likely still there 25 years later, filled in with grass and waiting to twist an unsuspecting ankle. A fence may not have saved my garden and new lawn every time but it would have deterred the cattle more often than not.
Our second farm had a white picket fence that the previous owner had taken down. He knew that he was only going to live there for 1 year so I'm not sure why he had to destroy it. When we were moving out 11 years later, we found an old farm photo from the '30's or '40's that showed the fence and the original owner told us that the fence had always been repaired, replaced as needed and repainted. Such a shame that it was gone.
When we moved to this farm 2.5 years ago, I quickly realized that there no good spot for a garden. There's only 10 - 15 feet on one side of house and about the same on the other side of the driveway and the rest was field.
Not much room beside the house. The field to the left is where I had my second year's garden.
The previous owner of this farm had let the whole farm go for a few years due to a divorce and everything was in tough shape - the house, the barns and the fields. Since every acre of the 150 acres was old hay and needed help, DH decided to leave certain fields alone in order to concentrate on other
fields. He gave me the corner of one field on the far side of the driveway for my garden that turned out to be fabulous soil because it had been left alone for so many years. Our feet would sink deep into the soft dirt and it was stone-free, a real rarity on any farm. When DH heard all of this, he decided to use this field instead of leaving it alone for an extra year so there went my garden. My revenge? It turns out that only my little gardening corner of the whole field was stone-free! Happy stone-picking!
The second year, I put my garden in the field in the above photo, right next to the house. The good thing about this location was that it was easy to pop out to pick the veggies and weed, even if only for a few moments. Water was available here and I could look out through my kitchen window and see if weeding was needed, whether the kids were doing their weeding or picking or not or just to enjoy watching the garden grow. The negative? It was easy to see if weeding was needed! Immediately after moving in, DH started working with our next-door-neighbour farmer who loves to spray - extra - and the spray would always waft over onto my garden, guaranteed. My gardens have always been free of chemicals (except for one year, many years ago, when I put some powder on my potatoes to get rid of Colorado Potato Beetle) so I don't appreciate it much.
Putting a garden on the edge of a field does not spell permanence because, in my case at least, it means moving said garden each and every year. My 3rd. summer here (this past summer) I decided not to have a garden because of the whole 'location, location' problem and not sure yet what I'm going to do this upcoming summer. For me, a garden with a fence means stability and commitment because who wants to move a strong, solid fence around, year after year?
www.idealbuildingconcepts.com describes this fence as:
Recycled Branch Fencing
"A unique garden fence designed from detached tree limbs"
Even though I usually like order and symmetry, there's something about the unevenness of each board that I love!
Now THAT'S a garden fence!!
For Part 1, click here.
For Part 3, click here.
