Burn, Baby, Burn! – Garden Warfare and the Photo Diary
This is more of my – photo diary – and the work we have started this year out in the garden. It has been incredibly surprising to find how taking photos of the garden have given me a wonderfully new and helpful perspective on it. I certainly recommend giving a try to making a photo diary of your own. -DV
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This morning’s burnt sacrifice was the debris pile I had been collecting over the last few weeks. It was such a satisfyingly sized pile that we could not burn it all in one go, but started a smaller pile to feed the debris to.
This morning I was in the mood for a full-on approach; perhaps add a bit of gasoline, some fireworks, and a couple of mimes (french speaking ones I find work real nice)… and just light the pile up. Sigh… But then my other half (and the less-fun/more-sensible/less-fun/more-sensible of the two of us) told me that using a second pile would be a much better way to go. He mentioned some kind of need for geometry… specific gravity… safety…. [some kind of word ending in "y"?]…. maybe it was the angle from the friggin sun… Well, set the bloody thing on fire all ready! Ummm…. well…
Although, the day was cool and refreshing, the fire rose quite high and burnt quite hot. We did call the fire department and ask if burning was allowed. And oh-happy-day! Short a few marshmallows, we were ready to make some fire.
Most of the debris in the giant pile was cut from the surrounding trees in the side room I’m working on (see articles “My Room in the Garden” and “Garden Warfare: Battles to Toast with Some Mates and a Few Pints” but today I decided to work a bit on another part of the garden that I have deviously schemed about. Unlike the other part of my garden that is ready for “room-making”, this part has taken slow work to even try to eke out of it a bit of shade from below its trees.
In last week’s post, I hinted at our troubles with the blackberry vines and bushes. This particular section of “jungle” in my yard really consists of three or four large fruit trees that have been mangled into twisted knots by the years and years worth of blackberry growth. Many of the trees in my yard have also not been pruned in decades so they tend to have also grown in very abnormal ways. Slowly over time, we have cut, and pulled, and mowed those blackberries back, then slowly pruned the trees so that they regain some of their proud tree-like composure.
Here a picture of the tree we have slowly pulled from the relentless tide of blackberries.
It is hard to tell scale from this picture, but if you look below the leaves there is a bit of shade under the tree… it has definitely taken some work to get the shape of the tree starting to show at the bottom. When we first purchase the land, this tree once appeared a bush, (or maybe brush is a better description) because it was so full of blackberry vines and dead wood. We also have removed many branches that had grown parallel and really close to the ground because of years of holding the weight of black berries. This has started to give the tree back a bit of its “tree” shape.
Here is another picture of what it still looks like further back into the tree. This is what it used to look lat the front of the tree before we had started this clean up process.
And those blackberries hurt…
If you have had battles with blackberries before, this picture probably says it all. It appears that years of weight and pull from the blackberries especially on new growth of the tree can make for some pretty “interesting” growth. I’m glad that trees don’t feel pain, some of this slow tortured growth looks actually Bonsai-like in appearance, and some looks just dreadful.
Today as we uncovered more twisted branches we found a little surprise, and this time it was not a old car battery or tire… here is a picture of the large climbing wild rose that we came up on in our cutting and chopping.
The rose was beautiful, and actually smelled wonderful, but unfortunately it was in a spot where we could not save it. Luckily, we have a few of these wild roses growing elsewhere around the yard or I would have felt heart broken to lose it.
Now, you know, I just – have – to sneak in a pictures of my two best warrior gardeners. Mr. Blue and Mr. Yellow are in the picture below helping me fight back the black berries.
Overall it was a great weekend for gardening. And the debris pile?
All gone. Well… Until next week.
(Remind me to get marshmallows… and some mimes… 
)
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