THE GARDEN ~Part 1

This is literally my first glimpse of the garden the day we were shown this place.   

When we first moved to the property we found that it had been taken over by goat heads, also commonly called "puncture vine". They are very common in the southwest deserts. 

There is no pain like stepping on one of these, they will puncture bike tires, and embed themselves in the soles of one's shoes and then spread inside your house. They are the seeds and they spread far and wide so it takes 2-3 years to eradicate them.

 When they grow back this year I'll stake out the goats to graze and hopefully greatly reduce the numbers this year. They make it very difficult to enjoy outdoor activities. They stick to everything. And they HURT!

 Another pest that has proven to be abundant here is ants! We are enjoying the winter only for the lack of bugs and ANTS! When they were out and about last fall the smallest speck of food in the kitchen beckon hundreds of them! 

On a more positive note ... 4 rose bushes ...
We bought it in May but did not begin the move till summer but we had the water turned on first and had the kids (my grown kids) drive out and water everything deep every couple weeks or so.
2 bushes started to bloom several weeks after we started watering them but the others, although grew new leaves, didn't bud before the cold temperatures set them back.

A couple of the rose bushes blooming after we started 

One of the things I hated most when we moved was having to leave behind my rose bushes at the old house.I tried to dig them up but they were too established after 15 years. So finding rose bushes already growing here cheered me up.

The rose bushes were barely hanging on to life as with most of the plants on the property.

 We cut the rose bushes back. But before the first freeze they started growing new branches and one had 5 buds already! But after our first winter storm with below freezing temps and strong winds they didn't stand a chance.

  

Grape Vines

The grape vines also barely had any green before we got the water on. I was happy to see them come back. One did anyway. A couple others had dried out too much and died. I still need to cut out all the dead stuff and build a new structure for them to grow on. We were told the old man who lived (and died) here made wine out of the grapes he grew.


“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.” ― Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture