We needed several nights below freezing to for the trees to start turning color and losing leaves. I had some gardening plans on Saturday, but the cold discouraged everyone's outdoor ambitions and the remaining rose collars stayed in the limo.
The sun came out again, and roses began to bloom, so we took one in a bud vase to our chiro, who just had a baby girl. He also received two copies of the Creation Gardening Book. My favorite response to the photos is - "Those are your roses? You grew them?"
Yesterday evening, a slow drizzle began, to hurry the Halloween visitors inside. More rain was falling this morning, so the leaves will rot faster. Water, bacteria, and mold conspire to reduce the leaves, a job finished by slugs, earthworms, and mites.
I said to one visitor, "In the old days, gardening experts made fun of leaves because they were mostly carbon and offered a low ratio of nitrogen. But now, they realize fungus is the key enabler in soil, and fungus needs carbon."
Creation Gardeners, who often operate under other names - Carbon Cowboys, Cover Croppers, Organic Gardeners, Lasagna Gardeners - spend their time and energy facilitating God's own Creation and engineering - not to mention His divine management.
I had to remove the hoses from the outside faucets, due to the freezes, and worried, "How will I get water to the new plants, if it stays dry?" But now I have moist soil, a wheelbarrow full of rainwater, and various barrels and buckets overflowing.
Ranger Bob is itching to weed-eat my front yard. I said, "Nope. I have Hosta planted. Everything can wait until spring. Then I will have a lot of cover crops like Daisies and Hostas, in-between the roses."
A landscaper like Ranger Bob sees the ideal as flowers separated by attractive mulch. However, our weather patterns almost neutralize mulch, acting as steroids to push weeds through the saturated cardboard and shredded wood.
The new farmers - Carbon Cowboys - argue for cover crops
- To build up the soil through growing roots,
- To hold rain and snow-melt in their deep root systems, and
- To host a wide variety of beneficial bugs and spiders.
I look at the front yard as a mass of roots feeding the soil. I truly despise Bermuda grass for its invasive nature, but the plant has carpeted the rose garden fairly well for now. Like the traditional lawn, the grassy weed has the potential to return its storage of food into the soil.
Several nights of 20 degrees left the entire crop of Buckwheat deader than a WELS conference on the Book of Concord, where the only attendees would be a few who wanted to make their own wine. So the Buckwheat is rotting into the soil and its seeds are dropping onto the soil, the largest bird-feeder in the area.
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| A classic - this will convert the weed-hater. |
Another soil improver, created and designed by God, is the Hog Peanut plant, a legume with deep roots and nitrogen building capacity. I used to say, "There it is again," and try to yank it out of the ground. No luck. I even used Roundup on my neighbor's plant, and it grew back! Now I snip it off at the base and let it grow again.
Soil does not build overnight, an expectation fueled by magical fertilizer compounds which who such names as Miracle-Gro. Thus science doffs it hat to Creation, seeking to imitate what it cannot duplicate. A nitrogen compound will make a plant greener and is likely to spur growth while impeding the production of fruit. But too much fertilizer not only stuns the soil creatures, driving them away, but also burns the plant by drawing moisture out of the cells through osmosis.
Compare the results of a rainstorm or snowmelt, greening the plants and providing seed for the sower and bread for the eater - Isaiah 55.
Soil Building
So I use autumn and winter to build the soil and dream about the spring. Bags of leaves will go somewhere in the gardens. For example, I put all our cardboard boxes in the bird-feeder area, to rot down into the soil. I can cover them with leaves for added food for the Butterfly Bushes and Poke.
Aside - I hated and cut down Poke until I realized it was the best bird feeder around - and free. Besides, the deep roots are great for breaking up and building the soil.
The birds sit on their swing and poop weed seeds into the area, various grains, so I let the grains grow all summer too. The mass of greenery is covered with BB flowers, Poke flowers, birds, butterflies, and climbing squirrels.
The logic of the wild garden is to let the plants that love that setting thrive. I learned that from the growing area farthest back. I kept trying to introduce sun-loving plants there, but native weeds kept taking over. Since my goal was to screen the backyards and loud dogs behind us, feeding or sheltering birds, I let Creation take its course and claim the area - with some editing.
Logs - Let Them Rot
The logs, which I left on the ground for fencing and marking new plants, are now in a state of half-rot. Some are soft like cardboard already, since rain and soil creatures worked them over. Every log is a savings and loan bank, storing food and gradually letting it be released into the soil. But it is also attracting and feeding soil creatures, which draw birds and toads to their location for an easy meal.
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| Years go, our Crepe Myrtle was a pathetic shrub. |
The Mother of All Crepe Myrtles
My year-around project is to feed the soil under the MACM. That area beneath has grown in area with the plant. First I anointed the soil with red wiggler earthworms, the kind that bend Creature toward compost loving plants. Next I began adding every kind organic matter I could find, from Mushroom Compost to green globs of lawn grass from the bottom of the mower. More ingredients were - shredded wood, pine needles and cones, rotting wet leaves, all CM trimmings and flowers and twigs. And lo - that enormous pile of organic material has been devoured by the Crepe Myrtle time after time. The area beneath is flat, but the soil beneath teams (note the spelling) with soil creatures and the biggest, best earth movers - moles.
The result is a plant that radiates flower beauty all summer and blooms again just to show off (after pruning). Now the plant is covered with the blessed fruit of the flowers - CM seeds, a delight for all birds feeding in winter.
