I mentioned that I got some used carpeting a few weeks ago for the garden, right?   But I didn’t have enough for what I wanted it for.  So I put a ‘wanted’ ad on Craig’s List, and someone emailed me to say they had some carpet they had just pulled up that I was welcome to.

Yesterday I went with ds10 and dd12 to pick it up.  The couple I got it from was curious what I would do with it, and when I told them it was for my garden, we got to discussing gardening.  (They want me to email them when I make jam and sell them some – I don’t think that I’ll do that, though.)  And then they offered to give us a tour of their garden, something they said they never did before except for friends.  They had a beautiful bamboo garden and it was really lovely.  There were six kinds of bamboo (it never occurred to me that there was even more than one kind of bamboo) with lots of other plants – he told us about each one as we walked through (call that science for the afternoon).   (And on the way home, we listened to an audio recording of Sign of the Beaver – history for the day.)

I found it especially interesting since he had a yard that was almost entirely grass free, something I’ve been wondering how to do.  It was very tastefully designed – they did all the work themselves on it – and it was amazing to me how they created a feeling of expansiveness and privacy on such a small lot.  However, nothing was edible, and my goal in planting is to use my ground space for growing food.  It’s more challenging to landscape with edibles.  I’m not giving up, though – I have to be patient and accept that a beautiful garden takes time, particularly when done the frugal way.  For now, I have to be satisfied with having a productive garden, because honestly it’s not very beautiful (and with the mower recently having broken, my grass is quickly getting shaggy – it isn’t adding anything charming to the look of things).  

What did I want the carpet for?  Two things.  The first was to use to create paths between the lasagna beds; particularly with little children, I wanted to clearly define the space where they should walk so they don’t trample the plants. But more than that, I don’t have the desire to constantly be weeding the pathways – it’s bad enough to have to weed the actual garden beds.  This eliminated the expense of mulching the paths.  The second thing I wanted them for was to use as a mulch layer for some of my plants, cutting out a hole where the plant could grow from.  But my kids dissuaded me from doing this with our raspberry and blackberry bushes, saying that it would keep the shoots from being able to spread.  I had to agree with their logic, so the carpet is now just on the paths. 

A couple of the kids used a razor blade kind of knife to cut the carpet into the size strips I needed, but the blade disappeared before they could cut the final piece.  When I went inside I discovered what happened to it.  Ds3 apparently found it, figured out how to unlock it, and slashed the kitchen screen while we were busy with the yard work.  Sigh.  This is part of why there’s always something to fix around here.  🙂 

Avivah