April Wamhoff

When I affectionately say that I live on “the rock,” I don’t think people realize that I seriously mean that there is an abundance of well, rock, and a real lack of soil. Anything resembling soil, dirt or sand must be hauled out to the rock. So, if you think that a flower garden over there might be nice or a home-grown tomato would really hit the spot, yup, you gotta haul dirt.
I have hauled all kinds of dirt, gravel and sand to the rock. Sometimes in buckets or bags in the boat, or on a good year, when you’ve got all your ducks in a row and the weather and ice conditions cooperate, you can have it hauled to your piece of the rock. When I decided to spruce up the yard and plant a garden, I decided to have a load of black dirt hauled to the boathouse and bring it over in buckets. Lots of buckets, many, many buckets! A friend of mine had a slightly larger boat than I did so he could haul three more buckets of dirt per load than I could. Lucky him, and the poor man is still my friend. I think in the end we hauled over 500 buckets of dirt at 17-20 buckets per boatload. But I got dirt!
I plant a small flower garden over my water line. I pretend that small amount of dirt insulates my nearly exposed water lines in the winter, but I know it doesn’t do much. But my rhubarb plants like it there as do my irises and rose bushes. They come up early in that coveted soil because the water line is heated. I also plant my deer and critter resistant annuals in there. This year I only made five last trips to the green house. The year before it was seven.
I also have a bucket garden. Thirty-two buckets of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. A friend of mine who came to visit from farmland was unimpressed with my bucket garden and thought I should just start colleting soil from around the rock. I asked him how much he thought I could plant in 2 cups of soil? But the buckets do pretty well, and I am considering expanding to a few more vegetables next year. Maybe critter resistant beans or pumpkins.
One garden had to be abandoned after the first year because there was a serious lack of sunshine there. I will reclaim the dirt and add to the other gardens as time allows.
Lady V and living on the rock present a bit of a problem, but not an impossibility for gardening and treating that itch to have dirty fingernails in the spring. Its lovely to see growing things and colorful flowers out the windows and it sure is hard to beat fresh veggies. And the bonus is that Lady V holds off the frost just a little later in the fall. I think she likes the flowers, too.