Mandala Keyhole Garden

Here comes the design -- the moment you've all been waiting for! 

As anyone who knows me has probably figured out, I detest straight lines in the landscape. Circles and curvy irregular shapes will always appeal to me more than straight lines and rectangles. They have a more organic feel that I love, and are often be a more efficient use of space, too. I wanted to design a feature garden that would incorporate a wide variety of edible annual and perennial plants. A circular garden with a keyhole pathway is a shape that I've been thinking about for a while, and that simple design has an almost spiritual feel to me, in a way that's hard to describe. When I saw a mandala design in Toby Hemenway's book Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, I knew that was what I wanted to implement:

Thankfully Caera and Kate approved of my wild idea to turn this dream into a reality. So after weeding over 1,200 sq ft of land and marking the outlines of the beds, Kate and I got to work building the walls of the interior raised bed.

This was our first time constructing a dry stack stone wall. I enjoyed the process of selecting rocks and trying fit them together. And it's a really great feeling to finish that first keyhole! I'm so excited about this garden. It's gonna take a lot of hard work, but Kate and I are motivated.

This is the completed rock wall of the inside bed, which will be slightly higher than that outer bed (for aesthetic and practical/material reasons). When we started filling the bed, we first added cardboard, alder branches, small logs, and a year's worth of kitchen scraps to save on soil. 

Stay tuned for more updates. 

Our Sad Little Sunflower

Caera poses with Lucy.

Our tabby Lucy has been having a rough year. She's been sick and biting her belly a lot -- hence the cone. She certainly is cute as a flower, but hopefully we can find out what's wrong and help her get better. Both Lucy and her sister Ceilteach have visited the vet a lot in the last year. :(

Massive Project Underway

 

I finally started a gardening construction that's been rattling around in my brain for years. And if we're going to be stuck at home during the pandemic, what better time to take on a big outdoor project, right? Today my partner Kate and I spent the afternoon digging up weeds and drawing some preliminary guidelines on the ground. I'm super excited about this, but I'll wait to say more as we make more progress. 

Let Your Plants Go To Seed

Last year I created this bed and grew tomatoes and a couple different kinds of salad greens. When some of the plants started to bolt, I let them go, because the blooms look nice and attract pollinators. I had other priorities in the garden, so when the plants were spent, I didn't pay much attention to them. 

I'm really grateful I let them go to seed! From a few of last year's plants, I now have a groundcover of arugula and lettuce, and it's so great to have a volunteer crop starting in the garden without putting in any effort or money. 

National Invasive Species Awareness Week - English Ivy

Rip the ivy out of your yard right now. Seriously

KUOW

Everyone knows English ivy (Hedera helix) -- it's almost as ubiquitous as Himalayan blackberry. The problem is, many folks still see this vine as an acceptable landscape plant, and not the aggressive invasive species that it is. I know from experience just how detrimental ivy is, especially in the Pacific Northwest. This article lays out the reasons why you should get rid of it.

Birding on Snaggy Saturdays

I love the majestic shape of this snag, and so do the birds. Observed on February 4, 2020.

What's Happening at the Third Street Community Garden?

Arlington's community garden moved to a new location this year next to Presidents Elementary School on E Third St. I got involved with the garden in spring and decided to volunteer some time for the food bank patch. Here are some of the highlights from the first growing season:

Staking out an area at the north end of the garden. 

Removing grass and weeds. 4/21/19

Tilled with a layer of compost. 5/17/19

Added a fun rock pathway in the middle, using rocks we found while weeding and tilling the ground. 5/23/19

Seeds and starts planted. Corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, chives, and marigolds. 5/28/19

I also planted and cared for two food bank raised beds. This one had tomatoes, chard, cauliflower, marigolds, and pineapple sage. 5/28/19

Second food bank box. Tomatoes, chard, cauliflower, squash, and marigolds. 5/28/19

I experimented with woodchips to see if they would help retain moisture (or for that matter, negatively affect the plants). 6/2/19

6/2/19

The soil was pretty nitrogen deficient, so I watered with fish fertilizer. Made a big difference. 6/21/19

Makeshift bean trellis. This worked wonderfully in the beginning, but needed to be much bigger once the beans really took off. 6/21/19

6/21/19

Pollinators enjoyed the chive flowers. 5/28/19

First cauliflower. 6/21/19

7/25/19

7/25/19

7/25/19

The sunflowers were incredible! 8/3/19

So colorful! 8/25/19

I'm happy about well-pollinated ears of corn. 8/25/19

Tomatoes are here! 8/27/19

Harvests

Here are some of our food bank donations. Next year I'd like to keep a better log of how much we harvest. Not bad for a brand new location and a late start.

7/17/19

8/27/19

9/9/19

9/9/19