2014 – Page 2 – Wellyssa's Womb

First Harvest

Vegetables galore. First lesson in vege gardening: ruthlessness! You must thin the seedlings. I didn’t, I just couldn’t pull those little babies out of the ground after they did all that work sprouting and pushing up through the dirt. BIG mistake. I had vegetables on top of each other, carrots growing sideways underneath each other, I couldn’t keep up with the kale and arugula, and the beets took over twice as much space as I had given them as they just spread out when they needed to. It was such glorious chaos!

I just love all the different colors and textures of vegetable plants!

Who knew they would be so beautiful.

I planted tomatoes in buckets and spaced them around the outside edges of the main beds. They grow too tall and putting them in the main beds would mean I need a ladder to get to them. I also thought they look nice in the buckets as accents around the outer edge of the larger beds.

I grew the potatoes in round cages, made of chicken wire. I placed layers of soil, potato buds, straw, soil, potato buds, straw etc. and then watered well. The potatoes grew up through the top and out the sides of the cages. The best part was untying the cages and letting all the soil and straw fall out along with the potatoes. VERY easy to harvest. Then I just gathered up all the used soil and straw and added it to the compost pile.

These beets were harvested in November, found hiding under some arugula. I did say they spread out and took over! Of course, they were too big and woody to eat, but they were fun to share pics of.

greens, lettuce, bok choy, chard, cabbage, purple and green kale

Tons of carrots and greens.

Vegetable Garden

In early spring of 2014 I decided to take on vegetable gardening. I was really scared I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to grow vegetables. It all seemed very daunting. And there was this weird sense of responsibility. Like, what if all the seeds died? I killed food? It’s one thing to kill a flower, but to kill food?

digging the foundation trench, and adding gravel

Adding weed barrier for what will be the walkway between the herb garden and the vege raised beds

Food plants are special. They hold the energy of life in them in a different way from flowers, or shrubs and trees. I could feel that energy when I went to the store to buy the seeds, and held the seed package in my hands. “Plant me,” they said, “I will feed you.”

First row installed. the hose sticking out the end is actually irrigation pipe, which is being laid into the beds as they are built

While we were building the vegetable beds, I was organizing the seeds, reading my books and figuring out which seeds want to be planted next to which other seeds. When to plant the seeds, how deep to plant the seeds, how far apart. OMG – this seems really complicated!

Meanwhile, Brian and Jester are busy doing the hard work of drilling holes in the bed joints, all the way down to the ground, and then securing the joint with clamps and pounding the 3/8″ rebar through the holes and 12″ into the ground below. The boxes are made with 3 levels high of 6×6 cedar. These walls are NOT going to move.

Brian, making sure everything is level and plum

Brian and Jester clamping and pounding in the rebar.

Finished beds.

I had to post this picture of Brian. I saw him standing there taking a break and nearly fell over laughing. So I made him pose for a picture. He’s now my official garden gnome.

Filling the beds was back breaking work. 6 pickup truck loads of soil for each of the three beds. I did one bed per day.

first seedlings sprouting – soo excited!

I was both excited and scared to death when the first seedlings popped up. They’re growing! they’re actually growing! Believe it or not, I have never grown anything from a seed. I buy all my plants from the store, or get them from a friend, already growing in pots. So this whole vegetable garden thing took all my courage. What was I going to tell my husband if I couldn’t figure out how to grow vegetables after all the work he and Jester put into building this glorious garden?!? And how could I consider myself a gardener if I couldn’t grow something from seed? My whole gardening persona was on the line. But after much helicoptering, blessings, chanting, finger crossing, covering and uncovering the seedlings through the early frost period (up through May), they actually grew.

all the beds are done, planted and seeds are growing. We added 6 ground level beds to the north to plant squash, pumpkins and gourds.

Joy and Sorrow

For our 2014 summer solstice celebration, we created a large sun dial in the center of the dragon garden. It’s a 6′ diameter circle of concrete, with sun ray shaped pieces of red flagstone (which I got for free from the scrap bin at Bedrock Landscaping), blue glass bubbles to create the sky around the sun, and coins and trinkets which were brought by those who worked on the project.

The process of mixing, pouring and leveling the concrete was really intense. even with close to 20 people helping it took us two hours or really fast-paced work.

Finding the center – don’t let me fall in!

Adding the blue glass bubbles to make the sky

We had to press the flagstone pieces in with our feet and event a rubber mallet.

Adding the personal trinkets brought by each person who helped on this project: coins, jewels, necklaces, shells, and other special stones.

Placing the sun’s rays! All together now, and push them in, push! (This was actually really hard, we had to beat them in with rubber mallets.)

Many wonderful rituals have been held in this space, using the sun dial as the center altar.

Ta Da! Hoping it dries evenly and doesn’t crack.

Over time though, the glass bubble beads kept popping off. I glued them back a couple of times and then I decided to try to find some way to seal the entire surface so it would last longer and not loose it’s smaller pieces. I thought the sealer would also help to reduce some of the unevenness between the stones.

I found a solution which is used to make pavement out of gravel. It forms a hard, clear, smooth surface. I thought this would be perfect! Not so much. As you can see from the picture, it bubbled and turned into a 1/2″ think foaming, sticky topping like marshmallow.

the foamy, marshmallowy goo which bubbled up from between the stones when I applied the sealer. AHHH!

After 6 hours of trying to scrape it off, over a three day period, I had to give up and then deal with my defeat, and the destruction of this very special feature in the garden.

All the love and energy of all those who worked on creating this piece; all the love and energy of all those who have stood on it during ritual, sat on it under the dark sky and meditated; danced around it in joy and laughter – gone.

In my sorrow and my anger at myself, I took to it with a sledge hammer. Well, I got in about 3 strikes before I realized that this 5″ of concrete is not coming out under the strength of one small woman, no matter how determined or pissed off. I had to hire someone to jackhammer it out. OMG – what an un-ceremonial end.

The sun dial was eventually replaced by a plain slab of concrete. I may get around to painting it. I need to forgive myself first.