The Monastery Garden

The plans: I have finally mapped out plans for a monastery garden in my new yard. The yard is big but a lot of it wraps around the house and is long and too narrow to really lend itself neatly to a symmetrical design. You can't force design to fit spaces it doesn't belong in. There is one spot in the yard that is perfect for this style of garden. It gets tons of light, is empty aside from weeds and if I don't put something in it will attract things like broken down rusty buses.

I measured the space and using graph paper I planned raised beds to scale. !! Yes, to scale.* I planned the design to have a focal point in the center- a dwarf fruit tree. Because the soil sucks in this spot I decided to make a 2' raised bed for the tree. This will also give the beds a more formal appearance with the inner beds being taller than the outer beds.

The location: the gravel pit. You can't walk on this ground without making your feet bleed which is unfortunate. But for the purpose to which I'm going to put it, gravel is a good weed suppressant. It can eventually be replaced with pea-gravel or crushed granite* I personally like to be able to walk barefoot in my garden. Wouldn't slate pathways be gorgeous, with creeping thyme growing in the cracks? This is the official before picture.

The materials: all told this project will cost a few hundred dollars. We don't have cash for it so it's a credit transaction. Not our favorite way to finance anything but if we don't get this established now we will regret it. We got the wood yesterday. I have all week to work on this. I have an interview this morning and then I'm free. Provided my back doesn't go out on me (I will stretch!) and it doesn't get overly hot, and I can muster up the energy to work on it...(that's a lot of "ifs") I hope to have this space built and filled by this coming week-end. I want it planted with winter vegetables.

Work in progress: we always have works in progress. This is our pile of dirt. We have access to some more topsoil for free. I don't know if it will be enough but if not we will buy what we need to. Our poor neighbors always have to see our piles and our messes and these new neighbors don't know yet that we really do eventually make good with a pretty yard. Never a tidy yard, but it will be quite pretty in a couple of years. We certainly do take our time.

Alright, I'm off!