No Yard Blues

Four years ago my house burnt down. Not to the ground but enough to ruin everything we owned. We lived in a small apartment on the first floor of a house. The residence had a great yard for garden and for Christmas I got a gift certificate to Victory Seeds to populate the fallow 10' x 10' bed. I was very excited about my planting layout. I had Yellow Brandywine, Brandywine Suddith's Strain and Black Cherry Tomatoes. I was also going to get some Black Krim and Green Zebra tomatoes too. Of course, I had basil seeds, cilantro and thyme. The rest of the vegetable cast was impressive as well. Parisian carrots, Romanesco Broccoli(it's actually cauliflower), broccoli raab, glass gem corn, six shooter corn, Market Maker cucumber, kentucky wonder beans, scarlett runner beans, red bunching onion, red russian kale, kohlrabi, zucchini, Waltham Butternut Squash  and two kinds of marigolds. 

When the apartment burned down we were blessed with no injuries. My neighbor's brother had missed a ride home and put some oil on for frying something. He proceed to pass out and when the dog jumped on his chest to wake him up the kitchen was in a violent blaze. Johnny(not his real name) banged on our window and woke us up. This too was beyond fortunate because Johnny is a super dramatic person who could have easily just ran down the street leaving us to burn. My daughter was the first to realize the situation was dire. I walked into the living room to calm her down and I was hit by the smell of smoke like I had stuck my head in a chimney. I got dressed quickly. Picked up my son without waking him up and followed my wife and daughters out of the house. On the way out of the common hallway I looked up the steps and fire was blasting out the second story door from lintel to ceiling and seven feet out of the window. No one even got a scratch. I'm not overly religious but I still thank God or my understanding of God for sparing us. 

We spent the night at The Tides in Bayville and then began the hunt for temporary lodgings. We got a free week at a hotel from a college friend of mine and then we wound up at The Glen Cove Mansion on a discounted rate. At the time and more so today, the rental inventory was thin at best. We were in the hotel for 3 weeks when we got offered our current place. It's nicer than the house that burned down. It has more rooms and a better kitchen. We thought we had a small back yard too. Not so. We have a long driveway that is shaped like a canyon. On the left the house and on the right a cinder block wall. Not inspiring or useful even for vertical gardening. Even knowing what I know now, I would have taken the place. 

The consequence of living in an apartment with no yard was that I did not have the planned garden that year. I tried a small garden at my Mother's and it did not do well. The following year I did not have a garden. That summer was extremely hot and I became a great indoorsman. I didn't feel the lack of a garden until mid summer. My range of activity felt profoundly restricted. I had a great time with my kids but I missed growing vegetables. 

The morning ritual of checking the garden is a source of relaxation and spiritual connection. I'm not saying the plants speak to me or I have visions. No such luck. However, being around the plants in the morning, noticing the changes in growth day by day relaxes me and gives me the impression that something greater than I  exists. One might call it a hint of the mystical. I missed it more than I thought I would. It wasn't depression, it wasn't mourning, it was the itch of a phantom limb. A part of me that was missing and could not be scratched. 

From a gardening perspective, the Fall of 2023 was overshadowed by regret for the lost summer and anxiety about wasting another. I began to plan how to have a garden again. The garden plot my mother lets me use has been overrun with Ivy and shaded out by our neighbor's trees. I decided that raised beds were the answer for Mom's property. Given the layout of the back yard it is by far the best option. 

My decision was confirmed when my mother send my a Wirecutter article about raised bed corner blocks. These ingenious works of concrete are four way hubs that function as the corner of the bed and allow for rabid modular construction of beds. They look good too. Unfortunately, they were not available locally so I had to use an alternative, which is ok looking and also a dollar per unit cheaper. So I ordered my lumber and picked up my hubs. Then I realized that I needed soil and compost. So I bought ! yard of topsoil and 1 yard of compost. 

I had to move the soil from the drive way to the back of the yard. Luckily, my friend, Christine, lent me her super wheel barrow. The job would have been impossible without it. Better yet my knee arthritis flared up and the work was simply brutal. In the end I got the soil and mulch moved and built the first bed.