![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garden plot
Jul. 5th, 2015 05:51 pmThe thing that makes me feel bittersweet about the impending move to Italy (exact date still to be determined; Ciro's heading over in a few weeks to do groundwork) is leaving my garden. The few people I've mentioned this to have (1) assumed I must have some transferrence here and actually be using it as a proxy for anxiety about the move, and (2) reassured me that I can start a garden in Italy. From this I know that they are not gardeners. Maybe I need to start saying "the family farm" to make it make it emotionally comprehensible to non-gardeners.
Plants are a little bit like pets and a little bit like a very long-term craft project you can't move. It takes years to put a garden together, even if you have infinite money to spend up front. You have to figure out your soil and where the sun falls every day of the year. You have to get a sense, in that exact plot, whether a given type of flower blooms in June or April, or not at all because for inexplicable reasons that plant and this yard don't get along. You spend years building up the soil, gradually adding compost and shoring up beds. You put things in the ground that don't appear until the next year, that maybe you can't harvest for another two years. You figure out what's going to re-seed and where it will probably migrate.
I have been living in Winchester for 5 years, and only this year did I manage to put in a container garden that grew in without dead spots on the first try and without overbuying, built around berry bushes I finally overwintered successfully, with sweet peas I started from seeds I collected two years ago in preparation. I planted the one type of tomato plant I know from experience thrives instead of neglecting to produce any tomatoes, and I put it in a planter I let fill with clover for the last year to fix nitrogen in the soil before I tried to plant a tomato there, and I moved that planter to a spot that would get the right balance of sun based on the shade of the maple tree once its leaves came in.
This is not something I can instantly replicate in another country, and perhaps not at all. It is likely we won't have a garden plot. It is likely we won't be in one place for more than a year, at least for the first couple years. I may be able to plant some things, and I'll certainly have some windowsill herbs, but a garden? Nah. Nor can I come back to this one; it won't wait for me. The plants I don't plant won't bloom.
However, if I do get the chance for a garden, there are some things I'd be excited to grow. Okra doesn't grow here, or figs, or cape gooseberry - not enough sun. Abruzzo's soil is right for the crocus that saffron comes from; it's known for its saffron. And hot peppers.
Plants are a little bit like pets and a little bit like a very long-term craft project you can't move. It takes years to put a garden together, even if you have infinite money to spend up front. You have to figure out your soil and where the sun falls every day of the year. You have to get a sense, in that exact plot, whether a given type of flower blooms in June or April, or not at all because for inexplicable reasons that plant and this yard don't get along. You spend years building up the soil, gradually adding compost and shoring up beds. You put things in the ground that don't appear until the next year, that maybe you can't harvest for another two years. You figure out what's going to re-seed and where it will probably migrate.
I have been living in Winchester for 5 years, and only this year did I manage to put in a container garden that grew in without dead spots on the first try and without overbuying, built around berry bushes I finally overwintered successfully, with sweet peas I started from seeds I collected two years ago in preparation. I planted the one type of tomato plant I know from experience thrives instead of neglecting to produce any tomatoes, and I put it in a planter I let fill with clover for the last year to fix nitrogen in the soil before I tried to plant a tomato there, and I moved that planter to a spot that would get the right balance of sun based on the shade of the maple tree once its leaves came in.
This is not something I can instantly replicate in another country, and perhaps not at all. It is likely we won't have a garden plot. It is likely we won't be in one place for more than a year, at least for the first couple years. I may be able to plant some things, and I'll certainly have some windowsill herbs, but a garden? Nah. Nor can I come back to this one; it won't wait for me. The plants I don't plant won't bloom.
However, if I do get the chance for a garden, there are some things I'd be excited to grow. Okra doesn't grow here, or figs, or cape gooseberry - not enough sun. Abruzzo's soil is right for the crocus that saffron comes from; it's known for its saffron. And hot peppers.
