After drooling over cute veggie gardens and potagers, I decided to rip out all of the clover in my veggie beds. Whether they did anything for me as a cover crop, I have no clue. I just know that they were smothering my brussels sprouts, onions and garlic and was unattractively patchy. The clover that grew along the soaker hoses were lush and healthy. Everywhere else was dirt.
Also, finally fed up with the crap weather, I went to Home Depot after work and got pvc, clamps and 4 mil plastic and made a hoop house over half of the bed that is right off the patio. I decided to let the pvc criss-cross when they go over the bed, then I zip-tied the point of intersection. This just feels like it provides a sturdier structure during a strong wind storm. Currently the plastic is thrown over and then held down by fist-size rocks…not really working. I’ll be trying to fix that after writing this post.
Then Saturday, left home alone, I took scraps from mending the fence and made a cold-frame-esque structure over my smallest veggie bed (aka my experiment bed). I also added a huge bag of soil, planted more tomato seeds and transplanted my scallions there. The 4 mil I threw over it was blowing around in the wind even worse, so with duct tape in hand, I made a nearly fitted cover over the frame. I know that one of the universal truths is anything made out of duct tape is automatically white trash. However, since this is a temporary solution only, I’m dubbing this my Ghetto Greenhouse. Besides, it rolls off the tongue better.
So between web surfing and then many of the gardens I saw in Napa, I feel like I’m back to square one as far as thinking of a future, more permanent veggie garden. I fear I won’t be able to come up with a solution that I will find as cute. I know that sounds dumb. It shouldn’t matter that it isn’t cute, but that it produces good crops. I want both.