You Grow Girlâ„¢

For me Gardening has always been a solo activity. By no means a lonesome occupation; just something done on my own sweet time with no pressure but that of earth's rotation. This means it's something I do whenever I am not sleeping or making a living. This year it is more social, an entirely good thing.

James is a friend I chatted with on MSN about garden writing just before my first article was posted;

me:
it will be a dark journal…
me:
about a long dark garden of the soul.
j:
In short, a flowering of fragrant, poisonous, doom.

James had a hankering for a garden, having grown up raising raspberries. We agreed that he would work a section of my garden, and I would share the cost of the plants. So far 8 of our 10 raspberry canes are splendid, the squash and melon and eggplant are wonderful. We lost half our cucumber crop, but most of it recently grew back. I took over any blank spaces with red onion and we are now back to full capacity. The raspberries have been planted in a sunny location against a fence, while the rest have been planted in a nearly-done compost heap spread out over a 2 by 4 metre area. It is very fertile ground, so I've spread a thick layer of hay to keep the volunteers under control and to keep the spreading vines off the ground.

On another front Laura started her first garden in the patch in front of her apartment. The bones of it were already there in the form of several Hostas, a large spread of Dianthus, Bleeding Heart, Tulips, Daffodils, and other staples. I provided some perennials from my garden and Laura picked up the expensive habit of sampling annuals from every garden centre within reach.

Laura and Stephanie came by for a drink after work one day and wound up on a serious dandelion weeding binge, for which I am grateful. This meant that when Lori, another colleague, came by to collect some of my more prolific perennials for her own large, but just starting, garden, my place was starting to look pretty impressive.

Then there's Ariel, who lives across from my yard. I met her through her young son Jeff, who I first met when he was spying on me from behind the neighbour's grapevine. Ariel and I share tips on gardening on a budget. She came by the other evening to say that she had found the perfect ornament for my garden and she was almost certain taking it wouldn't be stealing. The stone ornament was sheared off of the roof of a nearby Baptist church over the winter and when we found it had been chucked into the garbage pile along with stacks of moldy carpets and bags of builder's rubble. It is a neo-gothic, 130 year old pineapple/acanthus leaf decoration that took 3 of us to lift it.

And yes, I haven't been a reliable correspondent, for in between the starting of gardens with friends came some wickedly rainy weather that sent everything blooming and I could barely keep up with it all until Mosquito season burst forth in a torrent of unpleasantness unlike anything I can ever recall. This year the mosquitoes have a fondness for my ankles and for my ass. Good-bye short shorts (hello cullottes and knee socks...). If the neighbour's renovations had spelled the end of the bat population in my neighbourhood I would have been livid. But the efforts I put into my bat welcoming committee didn't go unnoticed; the bat houses, the still water, the trickling water, the lush greenery. Everything but Scream Network on digital cable seems to have paid off; at dusk each night I can catch a crowded bat ballet in the garden sky.

My latest development on the decoration front is, and ain't this cute, a fountain made from an old bathroom sink. Pictures to be posted soon, wait for it.

So that's the news to this hour. I have big plans for some exotic species to start from seed over the winter. Summer, as you can well understand, is the most difficult season to be indoors in front of a computer. Be assured that my autumn and winter seedlings will receive blow by blow coverage throughout the dark months.