 |
| Ancient history is summarized as: "Rome had the drains, but Greece had the brains." Rome absorbed and used the engineering triumphs of every culture they conquered. They tolerated the worship of all gods, except the One True God, Christ, as Luther observed. |
Soaker hose is made from recycled tires, made to leak all over, just like those tires did before they were tossed, only with advantages to the garden. The most water conserving way is to drip water at the base of plants rather than spraying all over Creation.
 |
| Bee Balm |
The Vegetable Garden Section
Facing the backyard, the first leg of the aqueduct goes left across the vegetable garden, then rises to the chain-link fence. The vegetable garden section inadvertently fed the expansion of the wild strawberries, which had stayed around the faucet. Empowered by the steady water source along the back wall, they moved across and established themselves, a decorative and bird-friendly border. I am now using wild strawberries in other locations for a cover plant and bird feeder.
The tomatoes have been marking time with all the cold damp weather. They will soon take off. Some other plants are the bee balms (horse mint, Oswego tea) I planted earlier, and a bunch of sunflowers.
Some inexpensive roses are well established in the front row.
 |
| Peas can be planted very early, sprouting when it is their time to grow. Does this show design and purpose? |
The Vertical Garden Section
The fence is an ideal way to practice vertical gardening. Any vining plant finds an easy toe-hold and plenty of sun. I moved the soaker hose to the top to get it out of the way of planting, mulching, and weeding.
Birds love the spritzing on top of the fence and the dripping below: frequent bathing and feeding, since water encourages bugs, the prime beef of bird-dom.
Currently the fence area has a long stretch of peas, growing like corn in July, some beans, and about 30 asparagus. The asparagus just sent up their first sprouts - tall, skinning, elven, too skinny to harvest this year.
.jpg) |
| Butterfly Weed is the good-looking cousin of milkweed, so it also feeds the Monarch butterfly. |
The Back Stretch
The hose drops to the ground for the back stretch, where I have Butterfly Bushes and giant sunflowers planted to screen the view. To make sure I had plenty of inexpensive sunflowers, I planted bird seeds (black oil sunflower seeds) by the hundreds.
The back section is mulched with newspaper and wood mulch, with autumn leaves on top. Mrs. Ichabod said my goal is to mulch the entire world. No, just NW Arkansas.
 |
| Peace |
 |
| Chicago Peace |
 |
| Pink Peace |
Mrs. Gardener's Roses
Mrs. Gardener loves roses and always enjoys them, so I put my best hybrid teas along the right fence - the Peace trifecta (Peace, Chicago Peace, and Pink Peace), Mr. Lincoln, Barbara Streisand (don't judge), Pope John Paul II (again, don't judge), and Tropicana.
The soaker hose comes out on the right from my highly-engineered faucet. It passes through the Three Sisters garden, to be planted next week, then along Mrs. Gardener's side, up to the compost, where it will deliver some water each time I turn on the faucet. Compost does better when kept damper than rain alone will accomplish.
 |
| Norma Boeckler photographs, paints, and gardens, using her talents to glorify God's Creation and Jesus the Creating Word. |
The Hose Section
I have an ordinary garden hose attached to my elaborate sub-divided faucet piping (using 3 doublers at a total cost of $5). I need the garden hose for grandson Alex to water the plants when he visits, and to fill the bird baths in the Jackson Bird Spa. They need cleaning and filling once or twice a day.
 |
| Cardinals, by Norma Boeckler. |
Expansion
I admitted to Mrs. Ichabod that the Jackson Bird Spa needs to be expanded into the Creature Convention Center. For that I have saved two large pieces of cardboard, which is a good substitute for the newspaper layer. On those will go the concrete blocks to build the Center, with nooks for food and shelter, screen on top for keeping seed dry, places for baths, and a toad pond. Mulch covers the cardboard afterwards, since the blocks would be less stable resting on mulch. No I will not sink supporting caissons down to the bedrock layer, not without an enormous gubmint grant.
Watering
To water everything in the back, I only need to step outside the kitchen door, turn on the faucet and set the switches for the left or right sides.
