The Most Empowering Gardening Advice You Will Ever Receive

From novice container gardeners to master gardeners, everyone who has ever donned a pair of gloves and held a small shovel with hope in their heart can benefit from this wisdom.

It came from Paul Gautschi, the inventor of the Back to Eden Garden method and an arborist by trade.  It went something like this, "You are the gardener, you decide where things go.  You are in charge.  If you did not plant something, remove it.  If something becomes overgrown or becomes an obstacle take it out.  Unproductive and barren things will respond to pruning but dead things must be buried."

I spent about 80 hours in the garden this season, cleaning, moving, and being relentless in the application of this advice.  I have to admit up until now I have been an Adam Smith "Invisible Hand" sort of gardener.  If a plant self-sowed or the birds brought me a specimen, more often than not I was a "live and let live" kind of gal.  The result was chaotic and a mismatched jumble of discordant plants, heights, and random black-eyed Susans scattered across a neglected perennial garden.

Today, I look out across the beds and there is order from chaos and a satisfaction from a job well done.  All the black-eyed Susans are regathered in a reasonable space, the tall verbena has been replanted along the back wall instead of in the border rocks and walkway.  SIXTY feet of honeysuckle has been pulled out by hand and is relentlessly eradicated from a two hundred square foot section it had taken over.  The random Autumn Joy Sedum is in the shade instead of withering pathetically in the sun.  Those horrible bulbs that never bloomed, took up a ton of space, and always looked like they were thirsty?  They are in the trash.  The diseased raspberry canes?  I was merciless in their eradication.  The volunteer asparagus plant that sprung up at the entrance to the vegetable garden?  Dug up and moved to the asparagus patch.  Paul's advice is sound, in life as well as in the garden.   You are in charge.

The Devil's Tomato

About 13 years ago, a nasty weed came up in my flower bed.  I went to pull it out and a thorn penetrated my glove and pierced the skin.  That made me mad, "This is my garden!"  I declared and went after it again, albeit a bit more carefully this time.  I pulled it up but I could tell I hadn't got all the roots.  This weed was like a mythological hydra, and grew back 7 more plants!  I dug deep but couldn't find the source.  It laughed at Round Up.  I nicknamed it "The Devil's Weed".

Solanum carolinense - Devil's Tomato

Turns out, everything about this deep rooted pest is poisonous - including the thorns which made the joint sore on my pricked finger.  I battled this thing for a decade.  Finally, I set out to find out what it actually was in hopes of final eradication; Solanum carolinense aka Carolina Horsenettle aka Devil's Tomato.  A nasty thing with a tap root that can grow quite deep and spreads underground by rhizomes and seeds.  Now that I understood it, I was going to tackle it from a new angle - a full size shovel.

I dug huge holes in my garden, but cutting the roots made it spread and any tiny piece of root took hold in the lawn and in the surrounding area.  Finally, I just started pinching it off and throwing away the little shoots.  After a year, what comes up is small and easily dealt with - I keep after it.

Today, when I was clearing out five or six tiny shoots I realized that in many ways this weed is like sin in our lives.  It springs up out of nowhere, it's difficult to kill, it spreads when you least expect it, deep digging won't always eradicate it permanently, and to keep it under control you have to be vigilant and nip it when they are tiny and throw them in the trash.

Partnering With God in the Garden

The Bible uses agriculture to teach dozens of lessons to mankind.  Allegories and stories swirl though my mind, add to that my love of gardening, and the stage is set   Yesterday I was gazing at the Back to Eden Garden whilst sipping coffee and felt the Lord's sweet presence.  I realized that my life, like my B2E Garden, is a partnership with the Lord.  That might not seem Earth shattering but walk this path with me, perhaps the Lord will bless you in the journey.

Several years ago, my original perennial garden was absolutely full.  To continue to add plants would have moved it from a garden to a collection of plants.  I turned my attention to a sun baked spot in the back yard where even the grass and weeds struggled to grow and determined it was the perfect spot for a vegetable garden.  I trudged out there one February morning and began the arduous process of double digging the patch.  Holy Cow, this soil was a mess.  Silt on top where a stream has once run, light yellow compaction full of every tree root that had been left in the clearing of the lot, and underneath saturated red clay that weighed 20 lbs a shovelful.  It was brutal work.  This plot represents our lives before Christ, our flesh.  There is no good thing in it.  We have been baked by the sun where even weeds struggle to thrive.  Our sin runs like dead tree roots and we are weighed down in our spirits like the soaked red clay.

As I dug, the neighbors dogs barked... and barked... and barked.  I became madder by the minute.  Garden time was supposed to be peaceful and full of life and relaxation - this was filthy, muddy, stumbling work punctuated by yapping.  Finally, after two hours, I threw down my shovel and stormed up the street.  The clueless neighbor was no doubt shocked at my appearance at her door, sweaty in the February brisk air, liberally smeared with dirt, hair gone wild in the wind.  She gave me a rather confused look and mumbled, "I wondered what they were barking at..."  This did little to calm my ire but I stomped away to relative quiet.  The dogs in the story, well they are the demons and naysayers who like to condemn, gossip, and torment us.  They were sounding the alarm that good work was being done in my backyard.  Barred from the property, they could do nothing but make noise and aggravate.

The job I assumed to be a day or two, turned into three full weekends.  Having read that turning the clay and letting it sit in the weather would help to turn it into good soil.  I waited.  Weeds began to thrive, clods of clay baked in the winter sun and turned into terra cotta pottery.  I spayed weed killer all over the pile of dirt and waited a little longer.  April came and I brought in 20 bags of top soil, compost, and manure.   I sprayed the weeds again.  This phase is like the person who thinks if they dig down and unearth all the bad things in their lives that the airing out of everything will turn them into good soil, instead they are exposed, grow weeds, and certain parts of them harden like pottery.  They bring in pretty dressing that they buy and haul it in arduously spreading and augmenting the soil.  This temporarily covers the mess and for a little while it looks like mission accomplished.  To the outside world, hard work and money have accomplished the desired results.  Until the weeds start to emerge.  

Finally the time came to plant.  Most of the plants were purchased at the nursery but a few seeds were sown.  A few weeks later, a light dusting of pine straw covered the soil and the result was glorious.  I was so excited.  This was prior to my Abigail and Dolley days but I wrote extensively about how excited I was.  I companion planted everything and eagerly awaited the results, which were fantastic... at first.  This represents what we can do on our own, through hard work and money.  We can try and force what we want in our lives.  We sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor and investment.

Then, the last blog written that year is titled, "The Dog Days of Summer".  The unrelenting sun beat down, the rain did not fall, the weeds took over, the pests moved in, and everything fell apart.  I vowed that I would hold back the forces through hard work and recounted a five hour day in the sun pulling back the mulch and fighting the weeds, to no avail. This is where we vow to keep it together, that our hard work WILL pay off through sheer force of will but in the end the forces beyond our control beat down upon us and devour what we have tried to do.  These are the businessmen you see at dinner who can not put down their blackberry long enough to have a conversation with their colleague sitting across the table.  When it is up to you to keep your head above the waves.

In the end, the garden baked to stalks.  I took no picture of this desolation, we do not show off our failures.  We don't document and share pictures, we hide them and hope no one will ask.   My hard work, my money, my time was for naught but toil.  This represents a life lived our way, by our own efforts, and minus the blessings of the Lord.  I doubled down the next year.  I hired a man with a big tiller and had 40 bags brought in.  The results were the same.  Sadly, I repeated this process for two more years before abandoning the entire enterprise as a money pit of toil.  This is the epitome of just working harder, just try harder, just pour more money into it - if it fails it is because YOU have failed.

Years passed and I began to once again speak of my desire for a vegetable garden.  My husband suggested that he would build me one as my Christmas present.  I was as excited as ever but this excitement was tempered by my previous bad experiences.  I determined that this time would be different and I began researching what was new in vegetable gardens.  The Lord led me to the Back To Eden Garden Film and I was enthralled.  This is gardening done God's way, with His methods, and is blessings - without the toil and the hard work I always associated with vegetable gardening and with a blessed return on my investment which would get better with age.

Back To Eden Garden the First Spring

The difference is day and night.  We did not garden in the same spot, which was still sun baked and barren.  This new garden is huge, triple the original plot, and full of periods of shade from the unrelenting Carolina sun.  Yes, it still took time, hard work, and money but there is a partnership in this endeavor that was missing before.  Most of the plants thriving in the garden were grown from seeds instead of purchased transplants.  The weeds are few and can be plucked with a small pinch and a tug.  The wood chips hold the water from the rain and the plants are thriving.  I look upon the creation and I realize that there is a harmony in this garden as there needs to be in our lives.  I am doing my part and God is blessing the efforts.  I do not know if the harvest will be as magnificent as the young plants signal, after all it is up to God to continue to protect and to grow the plants.  We are a small family and it will be more than we can possibly consume or store, so we plan to bless others with the bounty.  I rest in the assurance that past experience don't always dictate future results, especially when you do it God's way.

Thou Hast Left Thy First Love

Abigail and Dolley readers sometimes the Lord brings things we thought were lost back to life.  I am gardener and have been for about 15 years.  During the course of time, I have planted hundreds of specimens and seeds.  Some have thrived and others have never sprouted. In my early years, roses were the predominant fixture in the landscape but seasons change and I determined that I no longer wanted to deal with prickers and the never ending battle of black spot.

I moved several roses out of the main flower bed and relegated them to an abandoned spot in the back where they languished for years without being tended.  They were puny and sick.  I dug up and disposed of several and when the time came to put in my Back to Eden Garden, on a whim I moved the three surviving things back up to the perennial garden.  I thought they were all a Freedom Hedge Rose but alas, I was wrong.  There was one special rose that survived, one I purchased 15 years ago and moved from one house to the other.

Coral Floribunda Rose

It is so old that I have forgotten it, name and all.  This morning as I was having my devotion in the garden, I noticed it there.  At first glance, it was just another Freedom but upon closer inspection I was shocked.  She had a heady scent that brought me back to a time of hope, grand dreams, and excitement.  Before I knew about fungus and black spot and Japanese Beetles - to a time when all things were possible to those who believed and were willing to put in the work.  To a time before rose gardening had become toil without reward.

Jesus told the church at Ephesus that he saw their hard work, he saw their faithfulness and endurance - but they had forgotten their first love.  As seasoned believers we can get so caught up in the work of being a Christ Follower, that we forget the joy of our first love.  We lose the faith of a child.  So God used a rose today to remind me that He can do much more than I expect and he reminded me of that first love.

Back To Eden Approach

Abigail and Dolley readers I have had a very interesting year, to be sure.  Personally and professionally, the ups and downs of 2013 have changed me, again.  I've learned to trust the Lord in a new way, it's an exercise, something I have to practice but it is there never the less.  As we approach Christmas, people will ask you what you want and in spite of three years of lack, I find that the Lord has supplied all of my needs.  When my husband asked me if I would like for him to build me a new vegetable garden, my eyes light up, well... like Christmas!

Some of my regular readers will know that I have seasons of "The Mad Gardener" in me.  Over the years, I have written often about the escapades in gardening and it is one of the activities I truly enjoy, sometimes....  I say sometimes because frankly it is often back breaking toil in the brutal heat.  I haven't been terribly healthy this year and I AM (horror) getting older.  Thus, I am looking for a simpler and less labor intensive method.

I am a beacon for mosquitoes.  This year, I could barely step outside without being attacked.  I would spray down with Deet for long afternoons in the garden but who wants to spray that stuff to take a simply mosey?  Merely stepping outside would bring a hoard of the blood suckers which result in painful fifty cent piece knots that itch for hours.

So, the garden, while weeded, trimmed, and freshly pine needled has not gotten my passionate attention or care.  It has been several years since the Kitchen Table Scholar in me set my mind to horticulture and in the intervening years I have come to embrace the organic lifestyle.  Hence, it was time to brush up and learn as much as I could about doing this chemical free.

Rabbit trailing around, I found the Back to Eden Garden Film which combines love of the Lord with gardening.  Hello!  You have my attention.  I was blessed beyond measure and have in the intervening weeks watched the film three times.  We are finishing another yard project in the coming days and after Christmas will begin the process of laying down our own Back to Eden Garden,  I promise to document the steps and the results along the way.  For your own enjoyment, please watch the film,

Weeds in the Garden

We have had the oddest Summer; wet, cool, and overcast.  Our Dog Days of 100+ degree days with no rain for weeks have simply not materialized.  Normally, the areas between the flower beds and the lawn looks like a terracotta pot that has cracked in the sun, this year it shows muddy 12 year old boy footprints.  Usually this time of year, the fescue is looking a bit singed and the crab grass is coming on strong, it looks like Augusta National out the front window...

The grass is so pretty, it highlighted the fact that the front flower bed needed some serious attention.  An entire wagon load of weeds came out of there today; a whole Radio Flyer full!  It was nasty, muddy, mosquito infested work and I've put it off all Summer; (sarcasm alert) perhaps that is why there was so many. 

The Black-eyed Susans are lovely but they have over taken way more of the front bed than they were intended, most of them had to go. There was a new bug eaten weed out there this year, I think it came from the pine straw.  It was shallow rooted and easy to pull out but boy was it everywhere!  With all the rain, I was able to get after some seriously established weed strongholds.  You know the ones, the trees that go undetected in the shrubbery.  Often, by the time you see them, they are well rooted and established.  Digging them out with a big shovel puts the shrub at risk so often the best you can do is prune it to the ground.  Year after year, it comes back.  This year with two hands and a strong back I uprooted a half a dozen of these suckers.  After my bath, I went out to admire my handy work and behold I had missed a thorny vine that was creeping up the back side of one of the shrubs.  The only way you can see it is from the landing above. 

The One I missed

Whilst I was supplying the nutritional needs for the neighborhood female mosquito population, it occurred to me that weeds in the garden are like sin in our lives.  Sometimes there are new ones that pop up out of nowhere, they may be easy to pluck up on their own but if left alone will spread like wildfire and become a real problem.  Some sins, like the Black-eyed Susans, are plants we intentionally set out but get out of balance. What started as something innocent begins to takes too much time, or money, or simply crowds out other  potentially good things in our lives.  These can be hobbies, friendships, that after dinner drink....  The hardest sins are like the trees growing undetected in the shrubbery.  During our dry times, the best we can do is prune it to the ground where nobody can see them.  We know the roots are still there but can't do much about it at the time and out of sight out of mind, right?  Only after a long period of rain and cool respite from the blistering Summer heat can we, with determination and hard work, get rid of the really deep ones.  Finally, even when we're dirty, bitten, and convinced we are done, a perspective from up above will reveal a hidden one we have missed.

What's in your garden, Friends?  I had a whole wagon load....

Wagon Load of Garden Weeds

A Good Cat

Abigail and Dolley readers I learned 2/8 that my kitty cat has an inoperable cancer under the base of his tongue.  We gave him some inter-venous fluids and a shot of antibiotic just in case it was an infection and not the cancer the Vet suspects.  Today will be our last day with him, he can't eat and he can't drink much.  We won't let him suffer.

His name is Tiggamarroo and we got him about 6 weeks after moving in this house.  He's only 10 1/2, we figured he'd be around a lot longer.  He'll never reach old age, he'll never be frail, loud, and senile.  When my husband leaves here tomorrow with him he will be much like he's always been, sweet.  He's not got a mean bone in his body and tons of personality.

I figured such a good cat deserved a blog post.  Goodbye Tiggamarroo, you are a good cat.

Tiggamarroo in his Garden

Take a Stroll Through the Autumn Garden

Abigail and Dolley readers take a stroll with me through the wonders of an Autumn Garden.  It was the day after Thanksgiving and most would have looked at the gray sky and despaired but not me.  I saw it as a perfect back drop for the bright and vivid colors of the Season.

Hibiscus, Balloon Flower, Pansies and others

Mums, Sedum, Ice Plant, and Pansies

Ageratum

Carolina Lantana, Pansies, Hibiscus, Baloon Flower, Dwarf Nandina, and Dwarf Conifer

Wild Flowers from a seed mat

Wildflowers from a seed mat

Ageratum

Ageratum

Carolina Beauty Lantana (it smells like lemons and butter)

Baloon Flower (it turns from green to yellow to orange)

Spirea

Pansy

Autumn Color on a random tree

Arborvite

During the summer these are bright electric blue

Pondering All Things

Abigail and Dolley readers as in all creative things, inspiration comes in waves for me, so forgive me if I seem to sometimes be off the reservation!  Ironically, we have worked so very hard over the last two years I find that I need a break from all things political, just for a little while.  We will be vigilant and hold our elected officials feet to the fire to insure they do what we elected them to do, but I am going to gain a little perspective.

It's cold out now and there is tons to do in the garden to get ready for Winter.  We are painting the inside of the house (at least the upstairs) and am very excited for a change.  So I leave you with a couple of my favorite pictures, taken in the Autumn 2008.  God Bless You!

Surprise! It Worked!

Abigail and Dolley readers I refer you to an earlier post I made this summer; Japanese Beetles Are The Progressives In the Garden.  In the article, I lamented that the Japanese Beetles had returned to destroy and devour.  I was determined to fight gallantly, but based on past experience did not hold out much hope.  You see they always win and in the end, I would just have to wait for them to die and then clean up the mess.  This was of course based on a dozen years of past experience in my North Carolina Garden.  That June Day, I marched bravely into battle; armed with Ortho Japanese Beetle killer and a new tank sprayer.

The stench of chemicals surrounded me as I doused everything with the pesticide.  I resigned myself to spending every Saturday morning armed for battle and mixed up 2 gallons.  I used one and to my overwhelming shock, the other remains in the tank sprayer.  The single application WORKED!  The beetles are gone and have not been back. 

So, when I recognized that they have now been gone a month and the plants they usually would have destroyed by now are thriving, I was shocked.

Metaphorically, it got me to thinking.- what if, what if - this November we stand strong in the face of battle, knowing that in the past we have lost, but hoping this time will be different.  We don't really and truly believe it will work, but it is all we know to do and by God, we are not sitting back this year and letting the Progressives destroy what we have worked for!  So we bare the stench of politics and wade with our hip boots in the swamp they have created in Washington.

We are only armed with weapons we have tried to use in the past but failed.  It is all that we know to do.  I pray this November will be for our country what that fateful chemical bath was for my garden - a total destruction of the Progressives and their agenda.  I hope that when my son looks back at the history of this country in his life time, he will see the evidence of the destruction the Progressives have caused, but will be astounded and gratified at the strong growth and strength of our country.  I hope that when he looks back, he will see something like the rose bush that inspired this blog, I hope he will never let his children forget either.

God Bless America!

Japanese Beetles - the Progressives in the Garden

Abigail and Dolley readers I walked out to my back porch this morning with my cup of coffee intent on watching the sprinklers run.  I am not sure why, but I find that tremendously soothing.  Perhaps it is the sound of the water, or maybe it is the fact that I know the plants need and enjoy the extra drink.  The air was cool and crisp and held none of the oppressive humidity that is sure to follow in an hour or so.  The wind blew some of the spray my way and I sighed with contentment at all the work I have done in the last six weeks.  Then I saw them.

The dreaded invaders of mid-June, the scourge of all gardeners in the Southeast, the Japanese Beetles have returned.  Every year, they descend upon the garden in a swarm and destroy all that nature and I have worked so hard to produce.  They cluster on flowers and leaves and completely destroy everything they touch, devouring the very plants they feed on, to total destruction and death.

They are not natural to our environment, they were brought here in the Kudzu that FDR had brought in during the Raw Deal.  The beetles and the kudzu do not belong here, they do not have the natural predators they need to keep them in check.  It is fitting that the Progressives brought them here because they are emblematic of their source.

Progressives are not the gardeners of the world, they are the devourers.  They do not prepare the soil, choose the plants, place them in the correct spot, water, fertilize, and mulch them - no, they come along when the hard work is done and just as the plant begins to show its blooms they descend to feed and destroy.  If you shake the plant and blast it with water, most of them will scatter, but they will return.  If you spray the plant with chemical, most will die, but the plants are left weak and injured in the blazing hot sun and do not recover to their original pre-beetle glory.  The chemicals stink and if you are not careful they will burn the plant.  The garden smells with the pollution of their deaths and yet they continue to come.

Some gardeners will hang beetle traps, these tasty little bags of death do nothing but bring beetles from miles around to die upon themselves.  These bags are like social programs designed to help the garden when they are in fact lures for more progressives and ultimately do nothing to relieve the problems and usually escalate the population in your garden.

Come November they will be gone and I will once again proceed with the tending of the garden, in the hopes that one day, they will not return.  I expect that will only happen when I am tending my beautiful garden that the Lord has prepared for me in Heaven.  Until then, I have beetles to kill.

The Mad Gardener

Abigail and Dolley readers this is a note I wrote last Spring.  I hope you enjoy it.

Once upon a time, I was a gardener. I was passionate, I was inventive, I was tireless in pursuit of the prettiest garden I could imagine. It started with a six pack of vincas and a half price bag of dahlia tubers from Walmart. I dug out around a tree at my townhouse with a big spoon. The vincas flourished and the dahlias were spectacular. It was on.

I read everything I could lay my hands on about gardening. I truly became a kitchen table scholar. I took classes at the local community college on landscape design, perennial gardening, and color gardening. I knew the Latin names of plants and could tell you preferred cultivars. I lugged rocks from the townhouse natural areas and proceeded to badly encroach upon the neighbors property and the common area of the town house. I was the mad gardener and it was beautiful.

I rubbed my hands together in greedy anticipation of the half acre of land at our new house. My plans were extensive, but the funds were limited. I got a decent start and then along came the baby. My days of leisurely hours after work and all weekend came to a gradual end as the priorities of the house shifted. The garden was neglected and even one year, I let it get completely overrun with weeds. It was a bad season. In many ways, I still fight the weeds I allowed to flourish that one bad season. Perhaps it will take years to eradicate them completely.

Gardening in many ways follows the pattern of my spiritual life and my relationship to the Savior. It started slow, caught fire, burned bright, then priority shifted and one season of allowing the weeds in can have long lasting ramifications.

I am back in the garden again. My son is growing up and I find that the desire has returned to get back out there and dig in the dirt. I have done a lot of prep and preventative work lately to keep it from becoming a chore. I even did some "kitchen table scholar" stuff this weekend and learned about intensive gardening and companion planting. So if you all will indulge me, I am going to blog a bit on the progress this garden and perhaps it will be some fun to watch this grow.

Dolley
The not so "mad" gardener

Dolley - The Gardener

We have been in our home 10 years this summer.  I am feeling every bit of it as I look out over my yard.  Things that were intended for the sun are long and leggy struggling for light under the deep umbrella of shade a very tall tree that was merely a whip when we put it in the year my son was born.  There are remnants of past plantings where one of a grouping outlasts its other four companions, stubbornly clinging to life in spite of the demise of its original companions. It always makes me wonder what made that plant survive while the others did not make it. It is not like my garden is an inhospitable place for plants, quite the contrary, but vegetation does not live forever and perennial does not translate to permanent.

Nothing has taught me more about seasons of life, being happy where you are, and planning for the future more than "digging in the dirt".  A gardener learns to accept the way things are right now and appreciate the good things, while making plans for the future.  If I only loved my garden, "When it is finished", I would never like it, because it is never finished.  There is ALWAYS something to do in the garden, I could piddle from sun up to sun down and have for several weeks.

Other times, I can not be bothered with it.  One summer it went to weeds and when I say weeds, I mean big old weeds.  Some taller than me.  It was an absolute disaster.  I was sick and could not work up the energy to tackle it and it progressed in gruesome awesomeness for an entire summer.  When I finally cleaned it out, it took two weekends.  The garden suffered for several years with a weed problem, so my summer of neglect had long term consequences.

This season of my life has been busier than most.  When I gave an honest answer to the question, "What's been going on with you lately?" the listener got tired merely listening to the hectic schedule.  So I am occupying my down time doing one of my favorite things on earth, digging in the dirt.

I'll be back soon, I promise, but for now, don't bother ringing the bell, I'm around back.