Messy things

I was excited to receive an email yesterday from the chair of this year's Real Gardens for Real People tour informing me that she was forwarding information about our "Arizona Backyard Eden" to the people who are planning the 2013 tour. Because the 2011 tour was in the west valley area, it's not likely that another tour will be scheduled in this part of the valley, but her email was very affirming and complimentary. It did get me to thinking "what if", though. What if our garden is selected for a future RGRP tour? Although productive and pleasurable, it's rather messy compared to the ones we visited on last year's tour.

There's a large pile of vegetable debris under the lemon tree, evidence of our current experimentation with open-air composting. We have two purchased compost bins, a traditional squarish one and a cylindrical tumbler contraption. Neither have worked very well for us, most likely because I haven't been diligent about keeping the material in them sufficiently moist. So this time when I cleaned out the broccoli and cauliflower leaves after last harvest, I just dumped them on the ground under the lemon tree. It's too shady to successfully grow much under there anyway. I also dump coffee grounds, banana peels, and other kitchen scraps directly into the raised beds outside the kitchen. Not very attractive, but the vegetables and flowers growing in them seem to like these additions. I also don't rake up fallen leaves from around the citrus trees in the gravel yard; they too compost in place and add needed organic material to the heavy clay soil.

Then there are the dandelion-type weeds, which seem to explode on some kind of exponential curve this time of year. I don't "dig up" the beds very often- an idea I took from a Phoenix Permaculture Guild class- and I prefer to minimize the use of chemicals, so that means lots of hand pulling of weeds, which takes lots of time I don't always have. Our largest pond is currently overwhelmed by cattails that are crowding out the water lilies. (Cattails are #3 on my list of "things I wish I hadn't planted", along with Mexican primrose and Mexican petunia.) Of course, the fish don't seem to mind living in an underwater jungle, and the hummingbirds can use the cattail fluff as nesting material. The sandstone pieces lining our lower pond are crumbling in places because I step on them while dipping water out to water potted plants...but the plants love the nitrogen-rich pond water.

Yes, our yard is messy, all right. Hopefully I'm not justifying my own laziness, but I see meaning in its messiness. When I think about it, life can be pretty messy too. We can spend our time raking gravel and spraying weeds into submission, and end up with a barren moonscape of a yard...or a life. I think I'd rather tolerate....and maybe even learn to appreciate.....a little messiness.

No picture this time, though! Not comfortable enough with my messes for that!