The Contemplation Stage

This big landing pad at the end of my driveway was created with the intent of building another small house in the future. Those plans fell apart. It could still happen if I should win the lottery. In the meantime there is no reason to let useful land lie fallow.

The small hill that was here was lowered by about four feet down to the subsoil. It took many years before much of anything grew on it. Then I started adding piles of dung and the vegetation exploded. Dung is good.

The flat area I will be able to effectively use is at least two thirds the size of the roadside vegetable garden. That is a lot of additional space. A permanent and purely ornamental garden here doesn't make sense to me. It will go into food production for now.

It's going to be the winter squash and melon department. I have decided I am going to grow me some real cantaloupe. Covered in rampant vine growth, I may not obsess over weeds as much.

Step one will be the spreading of the dung piles and laying out a path system. Step two if I am lucky will be getting a load of wood chips delivered for mulch. I may be forced to pick up the phone and call some tree trimmers.

I can have flowers though. Easy annuals like zinnia, cosmos, nasturtium and marigolds will attract pollinators to my melons. I can hear my new garden buzzing now.

Or was that the thirty mile per hour wind driving in dark clouds and spitting snow that I was hearing? This is not the time to be making new vegetable beds. It's wicked out there.