Native Plant Wildlife Gardening

Today I get to add a new category to my blog: Vegetables. Now I have never grown vegetables, in fact, I don’t “grow” annuals at all. I grow trees. You know, Dear Diary: today I planted a 1′ stick which shall one day be a Mighty Chestnut Tree (say it in caps). I’ll get back to you in 60 years and let you know how it goes. Any annuals which appear on my woodland floor grow where they may and are free to do as they wish. I’m a woodland gardener which is a bit of a different mindset. While most gardeners think in terms of annuals, perennials and vegetables, I think in terms of canopy, understory and ground.

However I follow Lisa G’s blog over at Get in the Garden. One thing that I can say about Lisa is that she can get anyone excited about growing anything. She’s charming, friendly and has hot pink rubber boots. What’s not to like about this woman? So reading her blog, watching her grow seeds then planting up her vegetable garden has made me want to give it a shot.

I do live with someone who knows vegetable growing. The Beau is a Guy’s Guy and grows tomatoes but I admit they alarm me a tad. I’m not used to things growing so freaking fast. You can hear them reaching and expanding at night even over the deafening sound of the cicadas. When I go outside in the morning and see that those tomatoes have grown a foot, it catches my attention. I’m from the land of kudzu, the plant that ate the south, so anything that grows that fast is scary. Yes a plant can smother your entire house over night and consume all occupants, it’s all very Stephen King and real. I keep the dogs away from the tomatoes.

So here begins my adventures as a woodland vegetable gardener. I started by studying Square Foot Gardener and figuring out what sort of space I was going to need as I’m sun challenged. That comes with the woods. I have canopy and canopy is a fickle thing – where there is sun one day, it can be gone the next. It is is an ever changing element. I realized that I was going to have to grow vegetables in patches in my forest where the canopy breaks a bit.

Still I want to try vegetables. The Beau, who knows a lot more about the topic than I do, advised that I’m “going to have to think out of the box on this one.” I’m thinking this means that I’ll be growing pole beans up the trunk of that huge eastern red cedar in the clearing.