The Barren Wasteland

Day 297: Readers and friends will have heard me refer to the Barren Wasteland as a section of my garden, perhaps without understanding the history which brought about its naming. When I moved onto this property some thirty years ago, the flower beds had been let go for so long that they were entirely grassed over and filled with weeds. My first horticultural project was to clean them out and salvage what I could. To that end, a friend and I excavated to a depth of 18", delving up unidentifiable roots, pieces of broken glass, old wire and the occasional rock of grapefruit-sized dimension. The roots were returned to their beds, and no one was any more surprised than I when peonies and delphiniums shot up the following year. But the flower beds were not my only focus. I wanted a vegetable garden. A forested belt to the west excluded digging up the back yard for the simple reason that it received very little light after 2 PM, not an ideal condition for sun-loving crops. The front yard was out of the question and at the time, the side yard was partly covered by a concrete patio, ruling it out as well. The 10'-wide strip between the exterior kitchen wall and the garage seemed to be my only option, so I set about digging and sifting, weeding and hoeing and, at long last, planting. Bottom line: the only thing it would grow was green beans. Not lettuce, not zucchini, not radishes and definitely not corn.

Whether the fault lay in the nutrient-poor soil or in the hoodoo which customarily overshadows any attempts I make with respect to vegetables, I can't say. I suspect it was a bit of both. The patch became known as the Barren Wasteland and returned to weeds when I resigned myself to eating store-bought veg. A few years after I conceded the match, the gardening bug bit me again. This time, I pulled weeds and threw down wildflower seed from a mix. I mean, surely something will grow, right? It did. California Poppies and Yarrow filled the space and threatened to invade the rest of the county. Then I noticed a few oddments: Deptford Pinks, Wallflower. I pulled the more aggressive plants from around them in the hopes that they'd fill in. Rudbeckia seed spread naturally from my flower beds, providing some welcome tall colour. Seeing its success, I transplanted some Echinacea. It was happy there. Pigsqueak (Bergenia) and tall Phlox surfaced from the previous owner's garden, a bit too pink for my tastes but I welcomed them nevertheless, adding Rose Campion to keep them company. There's a wild Currant in there somewhere, a treat for the hummingbirds when it's in flower, and the Yarrow and Poppies persist in the "understory" despite my best efforts to eradicate them. I still call it the Barren Wasteland, although it's anything but. Today, that impoverished strip of land is largely populated with tall colour which spills out of the hoops I use to confine it, homesteaders succeeding despite the difficult conditions of their environment.