Because Lauren is going to Boston tomorrow and I'm going to Charleston with my family on the 9th, I worked an extra day at Vance this week. And after three straight days of nothing but torrential rain, the sun finally came out!
Today was planting day, YAY! When I went in this morning I did not know that I would be planting, so I was really not dressed for it. I wore my dark blue day dress and my Mary-Janes. I did not let that stop me though. So with determination, I took off my shoes, tied up my hair and got to work!
Because I was unprepared for planting I didn't have my gardening gloves, cutters, or trowel with me, which meant I had to improvise. Lauren found me an old pair of artifact gloves, and I found a ladle and a knife in the kitchen. With these tools in hand and the bigger tools in the tool shed next to the garden I had everything I needed to work.
The first thing I did was assess what plants Kimberly had been able to buy at Reems Creek Nursery earlier in the week. She was able to get me, Lavender, Yarrow, Garlic chives, two Tricolor sage, two Chamomile, and two different varieties of thyme. I was also able to salvage the Bee balm that Mr. Bemis pulled out on Wednesday! That is the tall plant in the center of the photo, gotta love small victories!
The next thing I did was figure out where I wanted to plant everything. I made the decision to plant along the outside edges of the fence for two reasons, 1) guests on a self-guided tour can walk into the garden and get a closer look at everything, and 2) guests on a guided tour can stand against the wall of the tool shed while the interpreter, whether that's me or someone else in the future, can stand in the center and explain the importance of herbs in an 18th and 19th century kitchen garden.
After I had decided where everything was going to go, I knew I needed to delineate between the beds and the walking area. While Mr. Bemis and I had been working on cleaning the grass away from the outside of the fence, I found five, relatively flat, river rocks buried in the ground. I made sure that they had been put somewhere safe, before I left that day, because I knew I wanted to use them in the garden somehow. The garden at the Schiele museum had used the same kind of rocks, only larger, in the herb section of their garden and I thought I might be able to replicate what they had done, but in my own way. I took the five I had and placed them in a straight line, in front of the plants on one side, just to get an idea. I thought it looked good. Now I just needed more rocks! I looked around the garden fence and the tool shed. I found more under the tool shed and a couple half buried in the dirt of varying sizes. I laid them out the way I liked them and proceeded to plant my herbs. After I planted everything, I removed the rock border, dug a trench, and re-positioned the rock border. Then I filled in the dirt around them, so they lay as level with the ground as possible. I didn't have any mulch so I used the rest of the dirt that Kimberly had bought me. I was a different color than the existing soil which makes it look as if I applied mulch to the beds. I was very pleased with with the garden when I was done, as was Lauren. She thought it looked fantastic!
When I was finished with all I wanted to do for the day, I was covered in dirt. I cleaned up all the plastic pots, and debris then took a bowl I'd found in the visitors center kitchen and headed down the hill to the spring house. There is a pool of water just at the bottom of the stone steps. I used bowls of water to clean myself up. It felt very historically authentic to be washing up in the spring house.
The garden may be planted, but it's far from finished. I found a very large flat slab of rock that I want to use at the entrance to the garden, but I need Dennis's help with that. I also want to put the bench near the back door of the main cabin in the garden so people can sit and enjoy it if they want, but I need Kimberly's approval before I can do that. Oh and I brought home some of the broken fence pickets because my dad is going to help me cut them down into labels for each of the herbs.
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