After my trip to New England last month, where gardens are pretty much over for the year, I doubly appreciate being able to start a garden for fall and winter. I took all the dead tomato stalks, pea vines, and other debris, and turned them into mulch with the Eco-shredder, then planted seedlings and nestled them in:
The raw debris
The debris shredded to mulch
The mulched seedlings and garden.
Theres lots more, of course–seedlings waiting for planting, herbs flowers and spinach in the labyrinth, wildflowers sprouting up unasked for. What’s such a contrast to the winter I grew up in is that this is really the start of the been season here. I love it!
And here’s a Monday poem, by that garden master, Theodore Roethke, with his own thoughts about debris and the life force:
Root Cellar
Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!–
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.
Theodore Roethke