The Perennial Garden
After a few years a perennial garden begins to pay off. Many plants take some time to establish roots. After considerable maintenance and very little production, our little perennial section has become a bounty. Most of the work involves weeding throughout the year. Blackberries and Asparagus cannot be tilled. Blackberries will send up shoots where ever a root is cut. They want to ramble. So the way to minimize their spreading is to mulch heavily and hand weed. We have used cotton seed hulls, stump grinding residue and grass clippings in this area. It is paying off. Weeds are easily pulled from the deep mulch. Our asparagus is maturing into the rich compost filled trenches where is was planted almost 3 years ago. The shoots are still emerging from where the crowns were planted. I am hopping that they will spread between the double row of plants. We are harvesting 1 – 3 pounds every other day of prime thick and tender shoots. A friend of mine, Stefan Conrady, who is German, says that in Germany they produce white Asparagus. I image they mulch the crop with 1 foot of hay or some thin mulch. This would blanch the shoots and keep them from turning green. I may try this if we can conjure up some straw next year. The strawberries are prolific too. Probably too prolific since we have not thinned them since planting. We planted about 25 plants of two early bearing varieties and those plants have spread to completely cover the rows. I am surprised that our raised beds are still intact too. The crown of the bed is still 1-2 feet higher than the isle. Next year the strawberries will be thinned to 1 plant very 18 inches and fertilized. This year we will have many berries but not so big. Last year I made jam and will use larger jars. Lots of friends will get some. Some chive can be seen in the top photo. They and some oregano have done very well and can be harvested too. We also have cilantro going to seed. It was planted in October. These seeds will be used to start another batch which will be ready when tomatoes and some peppers are ripe.
We have found a most excellent variety of heirloom okra. This variety is called Alabama Red. The pods are as big around as a 50 cent piece and still very tender. 4 or 5 pods makes a very generous serving.
This year we have grown more corn owing to last season’s very nice crop. If anything, do what you do best.
The strawberries we planted two winters ago (they were the first planting in this garden) are looking great.
Chisholm Creek forms the eastern property line on our acreage. I think it is the most important feature of our property. It’s wildlife, huge trees and fertile bottom soil give the property unique value. The creek flows constantly as is mostly clear. It rages and sometimes floods when heavy rain falls. It is a torrent then, and scours the creek banks and causes major erosion and bank collapse. Ducks and turkey love the creek. Deer and racoons abound too. We have seen bobcat, coyote and fox next to the creek. It is amazingly close to town too. The creek actually begins in town and bisects the north side of Oklahoma City. I think the nearly 100 ponds and embankments on the tributaries make the stream run clear and run while it is dry. Homes are like people, they are drawn to water. Most of these embankments and ponds are encircled by homes, leaving little or no space for the wild creek. Can a creek like Chisholm Creek be protected as a waterway? Can we leave this last vestige of nature in better condition year after year? Or will it be paved over? It is only 15 miles long before it joins Cottonwood Creek in Logan county. Even while it seems like a possible task, how can it be done before it’s covered up? I wonder what kinds of community action could be taken to preserve and improve the wild Chisholm Creek for this and future generations?
Have you ever heard “When there is onion there is hope”? Who said that? But in my kitchen it is true.
The gardening season has begun. We are transplanting onion sets, leeks and planting potatoes.
One of my earliest clear memories is my grandfather Ray’s back yard. And since it was a corner lot you might call it the side yard because it was open to the street and sheltered by a huge cottonwood tree that served as shade for the many times we visited Ray and Mary Ladd, my maternal grandparents. He would sit outside in metal chairs freshly painted and patched from rust with his friends under the cottonwood and conduct business. Even though it seems as one moment now, the scene must have been different each visit but my memory seems fixed, as solid as the old cottonwood, thicker than it really can be so close to the house. His telephone had a marvelously long cord which he pulled through the back bedroom window out to his table. He had a full head of white/grey hair and always had cold pop in his outbuilding to the back of the lot which served as extra sleeping and storage space. We could get it ourselves from the fridge. We would sip the sweet pop and sit and listen. Like the annual pollination that happens with native cottonwoods, this memory is getting more smokey as I am older. The cottonwood barren of leaves and shade. Memories roll up together like puffs of cottonwood seeds. Gathering and becoming indistinguishable from each other, rolling gently.
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