The Farmer is a Builder as well...

The Farmer is a Builder as well...

Twilight Project Updates 2011 / 2

The entry to the Spiral Garden at Twilight is arched with a trellis... which on its left is home to a climbing tea rose, a small delicate pink scented rose, symbolizing the female principle...

This area measuring approx 36' x 24' is fenced in & up until a couple of months ago had remained vacant... except for the piles of unattended dead weeds, a feeble attempt at passive composting.

The plastic storage shed used to be in front of the rose but Bruce & I relocated it to the other left hand corner of this fenced area which has now been dubbed 'The Side Garden'.

At about the same time, one of our neighbors down the road was in the process of selling their property and offered me the opportunity to inherit a huge pile of their lumber... many of which were 2" x 8", 10" or 12" timbers.

Bruce & I leapt at that incredible good fortune and hauled it all up as fast as we could to Twilight (just in case they changed their minds) lol. The master plan was to build a series of raised beds in which Bruce, the farmer, could happily grow vegetables for his family...

And so this farmer, who is a builder as well, planned out the Side Garden and began the construction of 9 raised beds...

The ground, of course, was not level since the Spiral Garden was created on a faerie mound... so each raised bed needed individual attention in terms of grading and leveling.

Gurdy, who is Bruce's faithful canine, supervises as each plank of wood is inspected & cleaned. Most of these planks, in the past, had been used for concrete foundation work so a little effort had to go into scrapping off residues from the lumber.

Four beds done & the first row completed... Bruce commences row two and bed 5 which runs along the inside edge of the Side Garden.

The exterior boundary of the Side Garden is lined with alternating rosemary bushes and Italian cypress trees which energy represents the male principle.

Here's a birds eye view of the first 7 beds... two rows have now been completed and there are two more to build on the southern side.

The beds built so far are all 3' wide with an equal amount of space around each of them to serve as a wheelbarrow & foot path.

Bed number 9, the final & largest bed of all, is done and our farmer/builder looks at it in awe... this one is 4' wide and needed to be built up on one end at its bottom because of the downhill profile.

Well done Bruce !

Phase I of the Side Garden is complete...

Tune in Thursday to see Phase II

xo