Is this week’s garden visitor malicious or just curious?
The greensward of our manse, Shady Hill, is pleased to house four, no, five beds this spring. The back yard has two for vegetables and one for herbs. The herb bed has one thriving, 6-foot tall asparagus, and we hope she’s pregnant. Next year I’ll move some herbs if the 8-year-old asparagus root finally spreads. While I never plant all that much, yes, all the gardening I’ve ever done has been organic.
In front I have two raised beds that I hope will inspire some vegetables. We lost a tree close by in that ice storm so there’ll be a lot more sun there. I’ve already set there a nonhardy herb, lemongrass, because it should be happy. We’ll again put elephant ears in the bordered 4-foot-square plots, but also put some in the nearby hosta bed. Hostas are dandy, but for nonnative plants they are commonplace in Northwest Arkansas. It’s just like overwhelming azaleas: Enough already.
On four of the beds — not the herb-asparagus perennial plot — I am protecting the seedlings of tomatoes and peppers and the seeds of beans and chard with floating row cover, a thin, white nonwoven agricultural fabric. The stated use is to warm the soil in cool weather, but many like how it prevents many insects from invading while allowing rain and light to come through. I hope it slows down the rabbits that seem to be numerous this year. When the plants get sturdy and the season gets real hot, I’ll remove the fabric.
It might seem to certain neighbors that I’m evading the issue: What is growing in Ben’s house besides chemically enhanced, too-green lawn grass — like theirs — and Shady Hill’s vinca interspersed with native plants on Fayetteville clay (not to mention nothing much grows in the shade of 80-year-old oaks). Well, I set up wood frames for gardening in the front yard our first spring here, 1999’s, because of books like The Front Garden: New Approaches to Landscape Design by Mary Riley Smith. Every year I’ve plant something different, which the shade pretty much kills. Front gardening is a growing practice. Martha Stewart endorses it.
This doesn’t quite explain yesterday’s afternoon visitor who pulled back the entire cover of one front bed and half of the other one. It wasn’t the wind; it wasn’t strong enough, compared to the rocks I use to anchor the material. Can’t blame the bunnies or other creatures because the fold-backs were rather even, and some of the rocks were moved yet still atop the cloth! My strong objection is that after the inspection the human did not move the material back. Why did the trespasser snoop? Best guess is they were suspecting or hoping I was hiding the growth of illegal substances.
The only dope in my garden would be this visitor.
