Tuesday, February 22, 2005

I've been giving some thought to what new projects to start in the yard once I'm able to dig in the dirt again. This year, darn it, is going to be the year of the real compost pile. I'm tired of giving all my perfectly good vegetable bits to Pablo who won't return them to me after they've been properly aged.

Seeing as the chain link fence is not going to come down (it's the only barrier between me and the Tufts students next door), I think I'd like to do some beautification work on it. My thought was to get some nice little shade-loving clingy things trained on it. I particularly love clematises, but they're kind of expensive, so maybe I'll get a few (like 3-4) and intersperse them with sweet peas and morning glories. The morning glory foliage should keep the clematis roots shaded enough, I would think.



The hardest sell of all these things is going to be the grape arbor I've decided that I want to start. I'm going to ask Lucas if he'd be willing to make a commitment of time to that venture, in addition to buying the materials and helping to design/build/place it. I'll buy the grapevines. It would be awfully nice to, in a few years time, be able to pick our own grapes for jelly (or wine or whatever) rather than have to go out and buy them. (Missed wild grape season this year, so was forced to go to a vineyard). Besides, everyone else in the neighborhood has an arbor, and we do need to keep up with the Joneses (or is it the Silvas and Goncalveses?), don't we? Another major plus is that heady smell of the fruits ripening on the vine during the late summer/early fall.

1 comment:

swamp4me said...

We have an arbor, of sorts. It began innocently enough, just a little wild grapevine growing next to the carport. I wanted to pull it up but my son declared that it had a right to live and I should leave it alone. No problem, I thought, the thing wasn't going to do well where it was...wrong! We have had to put up two rows of supports so far. It has grown around the carport and down one side of the house. It's ok though. Lots of birds use it, we occassionally find a black snake in it, and it makes a nice shady spot in the summer.

Good luck with your gardening this year. I'm sure your fence will be beautiful.