Gardening, it seems, is deeply embedded in my genetic code. When I am away from my own garden I find myself feeling lost without some sort of connection with plants. And so, while I visit my family's land in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada I love to help out at the meadow garden situated there.
Due to the sloping nature of this hillside we have long since terraced this area. The upper two terraces have typical herbs like thyme and lavender. The lower terrace in the picture below contains native wildflowers and a few tender herbs like plantain.
In the last year have experimented with deer proofing the more delicate plants with a net to great success! The deer have acres of meadow and grassland below to graze upon and they are welcome to do so.
We have reserved the right to keep a few yards out the deer's grazing rotation. Here we have planted seeds of plantain (plantago), Echinacea, as well as a seed mixture know collectively as the California Wildflowers.
While the deer maintain the grasslands and ravine bellow, we humans care for the ecosystem inside this three-terrace garden. Yesterday I did a bit of hand weeding both in the terraces and the walkways.
My mom and I have a big debate going on about what to do with the weeds pulled from the garden. I tend to prefer leaving the grasses and leaves on top of the soil as long as the seeds aren't mature. My mom however prefers that I throw them on the burn pile. In my eyes the soil is in great need of mulch and nutrients which the weeds can help provide as they break down. So, the debate continues on. Where do you weigh in on this topic?
To the Earth Works ~
Weeding done for they day I went over the check out my mom's progress on a camp site just off the garden. As of yet there is no house on this land, just a outhouse with a shower and composting toilet as well as an open air kitchen. Whether in a small trailer or a big tent we have always camped on this site.
I usually sleep in a round canvas tent on this very spot but there is still a lot of work to do. The ground itself is not quite level and a few branches have fallen down during the storms of winter. Some of the fallen branches can be used to create a sort of terrace along the edge. The branches will help retains soil and, hopefully, become the border for another wildflower mini-meadow.
You may be wonder ~ why the focus on meadows? In our main garden we focus on micro greens and often used herbs. This piece of land is about an hour away and I am only able to visit for about a month or two a year. So instead of a typical garden we are working on restoring the original landscape of oak forest and meadows.
One day their will be a house on this land which is a very exciting prospect. Even more exciting than a house is the idea that deer, foxes, ground squirrels, bears, and even humans too, will find this to be a haven of trees, wildflowers, and charming breezes for ever!