Blank Slate

Two summers ago, when we moved into our little house in the country, this area was completely full of ferns. They were pretty enough, but really. How many ferns does anyone need? I spent most of that first summer trying to pull them and their root system -- which is extensive -- out. Last summer, Len took a rototiller to the space. That got rid of most of the ferns, but left room for every other weed on the face of the earth to grow. So I spent last summer pulling all of those very tall weeds. While digging around this year I found a little plastic marker which said "Foxglove". I looked it up and I'm pretty sure it was among the weeds I pulled. Oh well.

I did manage to plant a few herbs (you can see the remainders along the back wall), some hostas and some bulbs. My plan, such as it is, is to put a walkway* through the middle of the above picture (from left to right) and put herbs on the wall side and flowers on the other. For some reason, I find this whole gardening thing really intimidating. If I screw up my knitting (and don't get me started on Storm), I can just rip it out and do it again (like I'm doing with Storm -- &*%$#!#$). But plants? I can kill plants and that just freaks me out.

*Len decided the best route to getting rid of dandelions which had taken over a small portion of the lawn would be to rip it up. In so doing, he uncovered a walkway of sandstones which had been completely taken over by the dandelions. Go figure. I'm going to use these for the garden. There is also a cement pad which has been taken over by blackberry vines and garlic mustard. Every time we stick a shovel into the ground, we find something new. It's kind of...overwhelming.