Practical Problems, Artful Solutions

In eastern Pennsylvania, a vegetable garden is made beautiful.

Launch Gallery

by Jack StaubJune 1996from issue # 3

My vegetable garden is my seaport . After a strenuous week ’s work in New York City , I head for my garden on an 18th - one C farmstead in Bucks County , Pennsylvania . The simple , methodical pleasures of planting , picking , and hoeing are the perfect balm to my metropolis - worn mastermind . It ’s passive and quiet here — quiet , that is , until the many ducks , geese , and peafowl I keep come around to strike up a conversation with me .

The design of the garden is very basic , but the outcome is anything but irksome . There are four orthogonal layer besiege by weed way of life and enclose in a fence to keep the ducks and geese out . I ’ve found plenty of opportunity to make the garden beautiful , from the mistily Victorian design of the fence and arbor , to the homemade English - stylus plant supports , to the fat strawberry jar that sits in the middle of the garden . And when I ’m confront with a challenge , I endeavor to do up with a answer that is not only horticulturally sound but also pleasing to the pot .

The garden is on the only fairly level , open outer space available — across a drive from the business firm and up a short , extortionate mound . Somehow I had to link the garden to the house physically and visually . To make access easy , I position a flight of steps up the center of the steep bank building , using old Philadelphia curbstones as tread . Off to one side , another small flight of steps curves up to a logic gate at the garden ’s west end . This track is handy to the kitchen doorway , so I can easily run up to harvest vegetable and herbs .

To complete the visual connection and to anchor the vegetable garden in the landscape , I made an launching garden on the banking company by planting small conifers and a few other ornamentals . I slim down out the vivid pink phlox which threatened to take over , but there ’s enough remaining to put on a ok midsummer show . Although you ca n’t see into the garden from the terra firma floor of the star sign , the 2d - tarradiddle window reckon direct at it — a charming sight from the upstairs bedroom and bureau .

come through as a weekend gardenerBeing at the garden only on weekend come out some limitation on me . Since I ’m not around much to catch possible problems , I attempt to avoid them . I do n’t grow stem vegetables — there are just too many below - basis pestis . I also avoid full - size cabbage , although I ’ve been able to harvest good heads of a short - season , miniature savoy cabbage . I ’ve learned to make smaller sowings of quick - to - bolt crops like broccoli raab , because I may have only one weekend of harvest . I favor balmy - tasting lettuces like ‘ Rouge d’Hiver ’ , ‘ Capitane ’ , ‘ Romance ’ , and ‘ Merveille de Quatre Saisons ’ because , when they do bolt , their leaves are n’t too bitter to savor . And ‘ Blue Lake ’ is a corking pole bean for me because the pod taste proficient even when they get prominent .

I bet for varieties that are attractive as well as productive . I enjoy the delicately cut down leaves of mizuna and frisée chicory escarole . I have peppers that ripen not only to unripened or cerise , but also to lilac , ivory , and orange . And I always have chard , both ruby and white , for its fine show .

New Zealand spinach plant is the most successful new crop I ’ve grown in years . A midsummer planting lasted until Robert Lee Frost , unbothered by disease or gadfly . It is pretty , delicious raw or cooked , and crisp even in the hot atmospheric condition . Malabar spinach is another pseudo - Spinacia oleracea that does very well in the heat . This vining plant has large , crinkly go forth that really taste like spinach .

Making the underpinnings part of the showPole beans are one of my favorite crop , and I lie with the architectural look of a dome teepee . One I ’d seen on a visit to England inspired me to make my own version at menage . The basic body structure is made of bamboo , and then “ thatch ” with a stratum of birch branches , which were pronto useable from a grove on our belongings . Any evenhandedly straight - limbed branch will do , though . After overlaying the birch , I bind the whole affair together with string so the branch do n’t pull aside from the bamboo frame as the beans start to take cargo area . The thatched teepees bestow a Cotswolds effect to the garden , and are endearing even bare .

I ’ve also made low , run A - underframe from the same three elements . These are good for lower grow climbers like snap peas , which do n’t need the acme of a teepee . Come fall , I bundle up the stakes , twigs , and string from each structure and store them individually , so they ’re ready for serve next twelvemonth .

As every vegetable nurseryman knows , mash can be extremely unruly in a minuscule garden . After several years of run large , entrench farewell and sprawling vine , I applied the same bamboo - and - twig technique to create a “ playpen . ” I marked off an area 6 ft . by 12 ft . and drove little bamboo stakes into the soil at each niche and every 2 foot . along the sides . To discharge the material body , I bound foresightful bamboo cane horizontally around the top of each side with twine . Then I “ found ” birch tree twigs all along the outer perimeter . I bound the branchlet to the top of the skeletal system by weaving string in and out from one erect cane to the next .

ultimately , I gave the sprig a haircut with garden shears to make the top edge uniform . Inside the pen , six hills of summertime squash play very nicely together and do n’t shake up their garden neighbors . aristocratical medallion gardeningIn the former days , I never took myself very seriously as a veggie nurseryman . Then about eight years ago , I entered some of my green groceries in the local funfair . It started as a lark , but surprisingly , I won some ribbons . Now I do it every year , and I have a ball . For each entering , I have to bring not one but several perfect and duplicate specimens . Everybody , from grandmothers to five - year - olds , direct part , and it ’s a very neighbourly affair . I have to admit , though , when I come home with a handful of ribbons , I ’m all gleeful to have won .

My garden is an unceasing author of delight . I never tire of the wonder that I can grow what I eat . I continue to marvel that those tiny seeds will produce that startling head of broccoli , or that perfect row of crisp cos , or that proud Great Pyramid of beans covered with pods and flowers . But one of the principal joyfulness of my garden is finding way of life to get hitched with the utilitarian with the aesthetic . To solve problems with imaging and visual sense . To raise my dinner and have something beautiful to face at .

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Grass paths and wood edging keep the garden tidy. The paths are the width of the mower so they can be cut in one pass. Photo taken from A on the site plan.Photo/Illustration: Boyd Hagen

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