It Only Looks Like Bare Ground

This is the space where the buckwheat was turned under to make room for the carrots:

The photo is from before the carrots and winter radishes were actually planted (I’m not always good about getting up-to-date-photos for the blog). The good news is that I can see seedlings! We’ve had some fairly moderate temperatures – considering that it’s August – and several small rains, which have helped.

What I was afraid might not help at all were the big footprints all across the bed that I discovered on Monday, the day after the seeds were planted. Newly-planted seeds are more likely to germinate if they are kept moist, and I was going out to see whether they needed to be watered. Instead, since the ground was still sufficiently damp, I set out a lot of that foldable, temporary fencing to let people know that there is something in the garden – it isn’t just an empty space.

You would think I would already have learned to defend the bare-looking seedbed in advance, because the space where I planted the bush beans also got some big footprints in it within a day or two of planting. You can’t see the footprints in this photo, but the seeds seem to have weathered the boot-storm. They are coming up!:

In my dreams, everyone knows better than to walk across what looks like bare ground in the garden, but my dreams are unlikely to come true anytime soon. When even the obvious edges of the garden aren’t enough of a clue that there is something special about the space, I can only hope that the boots quit tromping through before the seedlings are at a more vulnerable stage.

In other yard news, the gardenia at the front corner of the house was pretty seriously damaged when the tree fell on our house. The main stems were all split, so Joe went ahead and removed it. I will probably put another gardenia there, though, because I enjoyed that one so much. This is a not-great photo of the split stems:

The azalea next to the gardenia at first seemed to be only slightly damaged in the tree accident:

When we were able to get a closer look, after the gardenia was gone, it was pretty obvious that the damage was a lot more extensive. Looking down into the shrub, there were more of those split stems. When we cut that shrub down, the remaining full-grown azalea looked weird all on its own, so we cut that one down, too, and we will be starting over on the foundation planting. It’s not a good time of year to be planting most bushes, but the house isn’t completely repaired yet, so we have some time. Meanwhile, it will probably be a little easier for the workmen to move equipment and materials around – they won’t have to worry about the shrubbery, and they might be able to stay out of the gardens.

Home gardening can provide a lot of good food for families and communities. It’s also some work, but I love it. This blog is about the garden and yard where I “grow my own,” NW of Atlanta, Georgia.