Planning A Garden Monday May 6 2019

Bobbie got up, put the coffee on, got ready for her day and went into her office to get her garden plans. She wanted a garden on the South West slope of the motel. The gravel road that ran on that side of the motel was already built and the contractors already used a small digger to make three shallow terraces down the side of the hill in preparation for the 12 garden beds she wanted.

The big hill the motel complex resided on was likely part of some ancient glacial drumlin because once they started excavating they found nice sandy soil, that was now in piles along the edge of each level of the terrace; waiting to be piled into the planting beds.

Those terraces were 8 feet deep and over 40 feet wide so Bobbie had planned to have 4 raised garden beds on each level. There would be 2 on each side, 12 total, with a crusher dust path down the centre with shallow stairs. They would be using wheel barrows along the sloped sides of the garden when needed.

Bobbie texted Roco and asked to meet him in the restaurant around 8:30. Mark would be there.

She heard her coffee beep so Bobbie went out to the kitchen and sat at her island drinking coffee and thumbing through garden websites on her phone. She noted that many gardens around town had large chain link fences around them to stop deer from eating everything. One place said the fences should be sunk two feet underground to inhibit smaller critters. She glanced at the time and went down to meet Rocco.

Mark was in the restaurant with continental breakfast and coffee for the guests so Bobbie refilled her coffee cup and took a few pieces of ham and thanked him. “Mark, I’m going to talk to Rocco about building our raised garden beds and am hoping we can get together and talk about what we’re going to plant.”

Mark sat down at the table. “I was telling my dad and my sister about this big garden and my father has an offer for you. He’s willing to help us and build in irrigation, amend the soil and add it to the beds, supply the seeds and seedlings and plant them for us. He just wants to know what we want to grow. Though I suspect he’ll have ideas about that too.”

Bobbie perked up. “That’s great Mark, I couldn’t imagine he would offer such a service, does he do this sort of thing often?”

“Well, he sells all the stuff to build and plant a garden so he does work with commercial interests and oversees the planting. You’re operation is small but you have connections.” He said, pointing to himself. “ So you will get a personal touch. He is very interested in maximizing yields in container gardening and will likely want to experiment with crop combinations and fertilizer needs.”

“Can you ask him to send me an estimate of costs?”

“Sure.” And he went back over to replenish the coffee.

Bobbie sat thinking. It was probably good that the Garden centre was doing so much work. She never realized how involved it was to be to run the motel. It was only the first week and the first couple of days had gone well. She was relieved that SPOKES didn’t have a happy hour anymore. Ironically that’s what she had wanted most of all at the start.

Rocco arrived on time and Bobbie explained what was going on. “I would like to build 12, 2 foot high, 4 X 8 foot square garden beds, 4 on each level.”

“Is pressure treated wood was OK? I was reading up on it and new pressure treatment is better for the environment and safe for growing food. The beds will last a lot longer too.”

Bobbie nodded in agreement. “We’ll also need a good nine foot fence around the whole thing. According to the web, it has to be sunk 2 feet below ground level.”

“I read that too. I’ll get the fence up today and tomorrow, I still have the digger here to help dig posts and sink the fence. If I can get the guys for Friday, they could have the beds knocked out in an afternoon. It’s supposed to be nice, maybe I’ll get them here in the morning and let them go early.”

Bobbie got up. “That all sounds perfect, thanks for coming to meet me. It sounds like you have been researching gardens too Rocco. I hope you like fresh veggies.” And headed back to her apartment.

Bobbie was excited about the garden. Bobbie’s parents always had a small garden while she was growing up. When Walter inherited his land, that was actually near the motel, they had a pretty good garden on that plot too. They travelled out to work on it a couple of days a week. Bobbie lived in Cid City back then and didn’t help them tend the garden much but did enjoy fresh green beans and potatoes when they came to visit.

Then Bobbie thought back to her grandfather’s garden. He had a large area behind the homestead that was nice and sunny. He had a tall white picket fence all around his big garden. In front of the fence he grew gladiolas that her grandmother cut and put in a crystal vase in the home’s front entrance. Cosmos grew along the sides. It seemed to Bobbie that Miss Mac, her Grandmother’s house keeper, mostly tended the garden and harvested the flowers. She kept it weed free and harvested the things she wanted to cook for supper too.

The front entrance to the garden had a gate with an archway and sweet peas grew over the arch. At the back of the garden there was a gate too. Just outside was a large white garden swing. Bobbie spent many days reading and daydreaming on that swing.

She remembered how her grandfather would clear away a little dirt from around a growing potato plant, harvest a few small potatoes and replant it to let it continue growing. He called it milking potatoes. He would also let her pick fresh peas to eat and raw carrots that they would wipe on the grass to clean. He let her help set up the three sprinklers that he rigged up to water the garden too. When they were small, he would set them up on the lawn and let her and Jamie run though them on hot summer afternoons.

When she was 15, Bobbie was in crisis and had to get away. She spent almost a year at her grandparent’s house. By then her grandpa sold his business and retired. He furnished his home study with everything from his factory office right down to the old linoleum, ceiling fan and filing cabinets. He set up the desk in the same position and everything. When he developed dementia he spent hours in that office thinking he still ran a paper mill and made phone calls to no one and wrote journals that said nothing.

During the year Bobbie stayed with them she learned that the housekeeper and her grandmother were very close. She also came to love Miss Mac. She sailed with her grandfather in his large sailboat. She played honeymoon bridge with her grandmother and she learned all about gardening and sewing and cooking from Miss Mac. Her grandmother taught her to knit and told Bobbie stories about her own father, Bobbie’s great grandfather, who was a county judge and her brother that was a country doctor, collected old cars, was a bachelor and still came to dinner every Sunday.

During that year that Bobbie pestered her Dad to get lesson plans from all her teachers and he found a series of distance learning workbooks that Bobbie completed and studied voraciously.

Now, no one lived in that grand house anymore. It was her mom’s now but she never went out there. Bobbie new her mom always liked visiting Her mother and Miss Mac and it might be hard to visit now that they were all gone. She should take Mom out there sometime anyway. There might be pictures or antiques they could salvage.

What would it even cost to renovate? Her mom could afford it but what would be the point? That part of the country had nothing to draw people now that fishing had died out and was so far away from a city. Way back, an environmental disaster destroyed the fishing grounds and the population just trickled away, leaving many abandoned homesteads. Maybe they could run it as a short term vacation rental.