Garden of Colt Mazeau

Growing up, my parents planted a vegetable garden each year, and as loving parents they often involved me in the gardening process. Although I was fascinated by the planting of seeds and enjoyed much of the intermediate and end product, gardening maintenance was a childhood chore akin to making the bed or setting the table. Thus, as an independent adult the thought of keeping a garden never occurred to me.

Then one day I discovered that the city in which I live offers use of a community garden not more than a quarter mile from my home, ensconced between a bypass and a hotel. A call to the Parks and Recreation department revealed that plots could be leased for $30 per annum, and it occurred to me that I might start my very own garden. I realized that my childhood aversion to the effort involved was more an issue of control than anything else; as an adult I could do things "my way".

"My way" began as an ideal but has been segueing year-by-year into a more practical combination of pragmatism and philosophy. Thereforeto, I outline here the constraints, goals, and strategies that have evolved from my experiences to date.

Constraints

Lack of Skill: Let's face it, I do not have any particular gift for growing things; credit must go to the pure magic of nature. Neither do I posess cleverness nor constructional aptitude.
Lack of Water: I have found it impractical to transport water to the gardening site. It is therefore imperative that each crop support itself of its own recognizance.
Limited Funds: Shall we say that my discretionary income has a high premium attached to it? This means I must budget myself -- perhaps to about $70 a year, of which $30 goes to leasing the plot. One important aspect of this is that I am not using any power machinery.
Weeds and Rodents: The nemeses of gardeners everywhere! Fortunately, I have not had significant problems with insects or diseases.

Goals and Strategies

My general goals are to enjoy myself, create an aesthetically pleasing plot, and produce tasty food. Since I would like to accomplish these feats with minimal expense to my health and the environment, my garden ideally should be organic (no herbicides or pesticides), all-natural (a previous plot-holder foolishly used nylon pantyhose to bind plants), self-sustaining (it'd be nice if every crop were either perennial or could be re-grown from its own seeds, but in practice this means not using additives like, say, peat moss, which is a non-renewable resource from afar), low-maintenance, and low-cost.

The city provides a limited quantity of wood chips and unlimited quantities of leaves which "cook" themselves in a big pile. These I've used to construct pathways to cut down on the roughly 1000 square feet of plot space. My plot is divided into three main sections. The first section is subdivided into six rectangles, four of which are now for annuals. The remaining two rectangles within the first section and the remaining two sections are reserved for perennials.

I till the annual section rectangles twice a year with a spade. To provide nutrients to the soil and to deter weed growth, I use a "green" mulch -- that is, I grow annual ryegrass over the winter; this gets tilled into the soil in the spring. I rotate the annual crops so that each rectangle alternates yearly between a bean crop and a non-bean crop. I add as much leaf mulch to the soil as possible. Identified weeds include cocklebur, crab grass, broadleaf plantain, yellow wood sorrel, bindweed, purslane, geranium, tree-of-heaven, and chickweed. My general calendar runs as follows:

Garden Activities Schedule
Spring:	harvest winter crops, till soil in annual section, plant summer annuals, mulch pathways
Summer:	weeding, mulching, and harvesting
Fall:	harvest summer crops, till soil in annual section, plant winter annuals, mulch pathways
Winter:	mulching
Continuous:	weed, mulch

Note about photography: Photos were taken with a generic self-focusing 35mm camera using generic 35mm color film (usually 200 or 400 speed) and developed by the mail-order firm Clark Color Laboratories. In 1999 I scanned the prints; from 2000 to 2002 I bought a copy of the pictures as a floppy disk of JPEGs; and from 2003 to present Clark uploaded the photo files to the web. I manipulated the JPEG files using Microsoft Photo Editor. All photos were shot during the month of June of the respective year.

Explanation of the Crops Key

The following key items appear on the Annuals and Perennials pages.

Life Span: Annual: This type of plant dies each year. It will produce some type of seed or offspring in an attempt to continue the species.
Life Span: Perennial: A plant of this type will live for many years like a tree does.
Success Rate: Full Success: The crop perpetually or repeatedly reaches an aesthetically pleasing state or produces a significant quantity and acceptable quality of food.
Success Rate: Partial Success: I reserve the term "partial success" for those crops which don't have the level of production or taste that I would like on a repeatable basis.
Success Rate: Failed: The crop has failed to either produce a useful quantity of food (if a food crop) or reach an aesthetically pleasing state (if a non-food crop).
Success Rate: In Testing: I have not yet had enough experience with the crop to deem whether it is a full success, a partial success, or a failure. This is not to say that a crop, once designated as one of these, might not be later relegated to a different category.
Planting Method: Self-Regenerating: An annual crop which self-seeds and comes up again year after year.
Planting Method: Sustainable: An annual crop which fails to self-regenerate adequately, but which can be regrown each year by saving and planting the seeds from the previous year's crop.
Planting Method: Non-sustainable: An annual crop which is neither self-regenerating nor sustainable. Must be re-planted each year from new seed material.
Growing Season: Summer: The annual crop is planted in the spring, grows throughout most of the summer, and is killed off by either the late summer heat or fall frost.
Growing Season: Winter: The annual crop is planted in the fall and survives the winter.
Crop Type: Food Crop: Each year the crop produces a significant quantity of a food that I like.
Crop Type: Non-Food Crop: I grow the crop for aesthetic reasons.