Tag: Gardening

Not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: Spring arrived at the old Methodist church we were turning into our home, and with it, the drywallers began work inside while Tyler broke ground for his garage outside.

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Some of the greenery in our yard didn’t require planting, only discovering.

raspberry plant
Raspberry plant?

On the edge of our property bordering the dumpster area for the nearby rental properties, Tyler spied a raspberry plant. He claimed this as ours. This he would baby until he could coax it into producing berries. Near the front of the property, the congregation had left behind a garden plot, and a vast array of perennial greenery grew up in it, including a beautiful yellow tulip and a daffodil.

daffodil
Daffodils are an optimistic flower. And foolproof.
yellow tulipd
Tiptoe … through the tulips … with me.

Tulips were my favorite spring flower. Picking them only spoiled their beauty so they were best enjoyed in situ, which served to inspire many a spring walks. In a few days, the tulips were gone.

lilac bush
Nothing is so fair as lilacs in spring.

Not quite as ephemeral, but still fleeting and worth appreciating in their time, were lilacs. The lilac bush on the corner of the property that I prayed would bloom when Tyler trimmed all the bushes in the fall did indeed offer up woolly purple blossoms, intoxicatingly fragrant.

The yard may have been a muddy mess, but she wore a mighty pretty corsage.

lilac closeup
“The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.” ~ Margaret Millar

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Today’s headline comes from Matthew 6:29.

Tomorrow: Chapter 24 opens with the fireplace budget. Or lack thereof. Read about it here.

Gardening feeds not just the body but the soul

Monica Lee3 Comments

Our story so far: In the midst of constructing a garage for the old Methodist church we were turning into our home, rain had turned our yard into a staging area for a mud pie maker. 

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garden plot
Our garden plot. See that house in the background, across the street? It’s also a restored historic building, once a hotel.

Tyler exercised his green thumb and invested in four yards of 100 percent organic, sterilized composted cow manure, which he dumped in a burial-mound-like fashion next to the flagpole.

Ah, more mud.

Then he planted two cherry tomatoes, four beefsteak tomatoes, four pepper plants, four cucumbers plus basil and mint.

He also picked up a number of marigolds and Salvia, which he planted in the church sign planter.

He was so happy he could do this small thing in terms of gardening. The previous year, we had been living in a camper and traveling from place to place which prevented him from having a garden. He missed growing things and picking vegetables and, most of all, eating fresh produce he grew himself.

garden with garage
Another shot of the vegetable garden, this time overlooking the site of our future garage.

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Tomorrow: What we didn’t plant that blessed us. Check it out here.

If we had no winter, spring wouldn’t be so pleasant

Monica Lee1 Comment

Our story so far: While Tyler built walls and ceilings, the HVAC guys, the plumber and the electrician worked their magic in the 126-year-old Methodist church we were turning into our dream home.

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Chapter 23

Notwithstanding a late-spring snowstorm that left inches of heavy, wet snow behind in Old Man Winter’s ridiculously long wake, spring arrived and so did Phase Three of our renovation: Drywall, Paint & Flooring.

tulips under snow
Could those be tulips growing in my yard?

Long, sunshiny days replaced months of gray skies. Slivers of green poked through dirty snow. Though strange to hear birds singing as I tramped over snowy sidewalks no one bothered to shovel because they knew it would melt soon enough, I shed my fleece scarf as I inhaled the frosty air on my way from the rental house to the church in the morning. Spring was my favorite season of the year, and ever-widening sidewalks were as distinctive a turning point to me as robins. Growing up, I walked to school in north-central Minnesota; in winter, it was a slippery trudge in boots, but in springtime, I could skip over clean concrete in my Nike tennies.

sap running
You can see the sap dripping from this cut in our maple tree.

Earlier, before the snowstorm, Tyler made note of the maple tree in our front yard that was dripping sap like mad. In another spring when we weren’t so preoccupied by construction, he planned to tap the tree for its sweet syrup. Leafy green perennials in every corner of the yard toughed out the white stuff. It looked like we’d have blooms of some sort soon. Tyler’s hired man St. Johnny spread a load of mulch around trees and over the flower bed once tended by members of the church.

mulch
Our freshly mulched flower garden.

Soon, we would have to mow. Tyler also snapped up a deal on eBay for a riding lawnmower he intended to teach me to use. I preferred the push variety, and I scoffed that we’d have any yard left after he poured concrete for the driveway and garage, but I couldn’t complain too long. The practically new mower was a good deal, and we picked it up from the seller less than forty minutes away.

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Tomorrow: We pass the test. Read more about it here.

Hairy landscaping requires a trim

Monica Lee2 Comments

Our story so far: Tyler recruits a hired man to help us renovate the 126-year-old Methodist church we intend to turn into our home.

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As if to illustrate His countenance upon us, the first few days we owned the church, the sun shined brightly. The weather was unseasonably warm for the end of November in Wisconsin, so we made hay while the sun shined. Well, brush. We made brush.

We’d had the opportunity to drive by the church a hundred times (or so) while we waited to close on it. Without the keys to get inside, we focused our attention on the exterior, and we came to detest the arborvitae (over)growing near the entryway. They needed more than a trim; an extraction was called for. A chainsaw (one of Tyler’s many saws) was put into service, and down came the overgrown bushes. Tyler’s new hired man Johnny and I scurried around like little ants, hauling the pieces of trunk and greenery to the backyard burn pile.

arborvitae before and after

Tyler then turned his attention to the row of bushes lining the sidewalk (and growing through our exterior staircase to the second floor). Even Tyler (yes, he also has a green thumb) couldn’t determine their species, but we knew we wanted to keep them for aesthetics and privacy, but, oh, they needed a trim.

bushes before and after

At the end of the row, Tyler revealed something he could identify: A lilac bush. Oh, I loved lilac bushes! So fragrant! I distinctly remember the lilac bushes in the alley of the home in which I grew up in Central Minnesota. One May afternoon when I was about 14, I grudgingly performed the chore of taking out the garbage and, to my delight, discovered the aromatic flowers crowding out the scent of potato peels in the garbage can. Being the trash man that day was a gift.

That bush was spared of trimming. Please let it bloom in the spring, I prayed.

When we were done, the brush pile was twenty feet wide and six feet high.

A few days later, Tyler called the fire department and alerted them to an imminent bonfire. The firemen gave him the equivalent of a shrug, and Tyler burned up two years worth growth in a few hours. Our first before-and-after project: Immensely satisfying.

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Tomorrow: Chapter 9 begins with a few revelations. Read it here.