First thing first. My grandmother had a massive stroke in May. When Obama was at the over exposed Notre Dame commencement thing, I was literally at the hospital across the street with my gram gram. She was moved to a home and after an incident, I will not go into, we moved her to a really nice place near where we live as opposed to where she lived. This is good for many reasons that you don't care about, but the main one being that we live in an extreme lake effect snow belt. I'm literally at the tip of Lake Michigan if you look at it like a large finger.
It is completely normal for the west side of town to get 2 inches of snow and the east side of the same town to get 24". That sounds like it would be a fluke, but it isn't. Why am I telling you this? I have no idea. We have a huge front lawn, side lawns, a mega-pond with its own ecosystem, a decent sized back yard, and then a field thru a tiny bit of forrest (or extended natural pond ecosystem). My goal is to enhance the field to bring more animals to the area, more animals out of the water, and to make the fox/deer feel a little more at home. Because my grandma is not well and likely won't fully recover (it has been 6 months almost already) I want to make a place that she will love in the spring/summer. Of course I will enjoy it too, so it is not selfless at all. I want to build a path that she can either walk on (if she gets to that point) or can be taken down, from the house to the back field and have it like a giant park. Right now it is undeveloped and we just mow it, so it is a huge field surround by forrest and then some horses, goats, and other stuff like that. I'm going to work on getting photos up. So that is probably the biggest part of my drive. I'd like to have hammocks up back there and stuff so it is a total retreat. BTW, we have a golf cart (this whole neighborhood does) so I can take her back there like that if need be.
I need to learn as much about gardening as possible. In regards to wildlife, soil, sun, and the stuff that will grow in this climate. I suppose I'm lucky to be in the midwest where the climate is ideal for this sort of thing, but I am also cursed being so close to Lake Michigan (2 miles maybe?). The topography here is totally unique. We have sand dunes. I don't know if you've heard of the Indiana Dunes, and frankly I don't know where the sand came from. The Wisconsin Glacier pushed its way down to maybe 5 or 10 miles south of me which has brought a ton of nutrients and has blessed the area outside my zone with extremely fertile soil. The thing is, we are at the edge of where it was so everything it was scraping off the ground as it was moving settled here (probably where the sand came from). We have this weird soil/sand mixture that is better than it is bad, but my point is it is not idea. Then I have a giant natural pond with forrest, I dont' know how that effects the root systems. As far as I know there is beautiful soil beneath the grass and trees. I don't have an bulldozer, so I'll never know. I just noticed I am rambling. In case you haven't noticed, I write like I speak in conversation, so things get away from me.
The main things I think I need to grow are different kinds of lettuce and salad stuff, tons of tomatoes, corn, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, all kinds of other berries, and then I don't know what else. Potatoes probably. I'm not a foodie, though I've been trying to learn how to cook. I'm currently trying to perfect frozen french toast sticks, but I fuck it up every time. I tried to add ovaltine (can I grow that?!) and it ended up not mixing and then burning the fuck out of the bottom. Yes, I'm still eating them. So, I guess I'm asking you guys right now, what should I grow?
The test garden wasn't tended to very well, because of the sudden health crisis with my grandma. We were able to grow corn, tomatoes, 2 watermelon, lettuce, zuccini (we didn't even eat it), squash (we didn't eat).... It was kind of a failure, but we know that we can grow tomatoes and watermelon. My goal is to basically only use the grocery store for eggs (will not get chickens), bread, milk, and condiments. I'd also like to grow herbs. More for medical benefit than taste, but I'm 100% ignorant about the pharmacology of that stuff. Herbs will likely be a sub-side-project. I am really looking for ideas or pointers for any of this stuff. I don't know your experience at all.
Then, I want to clear out a little bit of forrest (mostly brush, not trees) to get down to the pond. It is so lush that it is impossible as is. Dump a bunch of big rocks for the cold blooded animals to sit on during the day, so my grandma can look. It would also provide habitat for the mink and other weasles. I want to build little artificial caves for the fox to use as dens too. Right now you are thinking, you want to bring more fox in and stuff, but you are going to have a garden full of food to fight over... YES. How do I keep fox, who dig dens into the ground, out of my fenced in garden?
Now there is a ton of left over field... I want to plant wild flowers galore. The area I live in is EXTREMELY diverse for butterflies and plats. I think the dunes (which I basically live in) is the 7 or 13th most bio-diverse habitats on the planet when talking about plants. I'm going to talk more about the animals that live here later with photos. I think I can get a field of hundreds of thousands of butterflies. Realistically. I think flowers and butterflies + deer and fox would make my grandma happy if she is going to be housebound for the most part..... BTW this is the only reason I left my luxury apartment to live in the middle of nowhere. She really has no place to go, and if I didn't do this she would be stuck in a home forever. Its strange though, because she doesn't know me as an adult. The past 10 years I've seen her maybe 5-7 times, because I've been all over the country.
So this all has to be planned out right. I have 7-8 months to figure it all out, and I can get started on making the soil better now. So I am looking into composting. Then I am going to start getting seeds and probably trying to start them all out inside for a few months before planting them (I actually want to get experience in this area for less than reputable reason as well). Don't tell anyone. This all has to be done on the cheap too, because I just lost all of my money in the last month, but it may not be gone. I don't want to share, so don't ask. Basically now I'm probably poor and it is that much more difficult to get this stuff done. When I was writing about how my generation is fucked, that came from personal experience. In case you were wondering why I wrote so much or got so passionate about it. I'm just trying to get proactive and feel less like a victim right now.
As I learn stuff about composting I will post stuff on here. Feel free to ignore it if you like, but the reason I am putting it on here as well as my personal blog is so that I can get ideas from some very smart people and learn from your experience. Then when I start building or converting something into a compost I will take photos and post them. If I run into problems I will post them. You get the idea. How does all this sound? Does it sound interesting? If you have stuff that you don't want that you'd be willing to mail me that might help that would be appreciated too. I know when I try to germinate seeds I will need yogurt cups or something to put the soil in. Stupid little shit like that if you wanted to help. I want to learn how to can and jar stuff to use during the winter too, but that is like a year away.
Please tell me what you think. Let me know if there is any advice you can think of. Do you have experience in anything like any of this? Are there things I'm not even thinking about that I should be, like regarding the wild life - I will not destroy habitat, I promise. If anyone knows how to work with someone who's had a stroke and can't talk well, gets frustrated, and gives up, please let me know. I have a documentary posted on my youtube about music therapy and it lead me to a few things, and I've found that if I get my grandma to hum a song first, she can speak with less frustration for about 45 seconds. It is so frustrating, but 500x more frustrating for her. I have not met her new speech or occupational therapist yet, hopefully that is who i'll be working with this morning.
I think since this is like the longest post ever, that it may be enough for the day. Before anyone even responds I just want to say thank you. If this ends up helping me, it is a whole other purpose that I did not intend for the blog. I made it because Lisa wanted something more personal. I like to just help people out, but now I may benefit from it in real life. It's one of those little things that life throws at you, that was completely unexpected - but in a good way.
