Think versus do

I am a thinker in my approach to many things. I research, analyze, and ponder. Then when I feel I understand, I take action. I started to get this way about my garden. The first month we lived here, I hardly did anything hands on. I bought a bunch of books that looked suitable for beginner gardeners and began studying them. I bought copies of Canadian Gardening and Gardens West and admired the spectacular gardens featured in beautiful, full-colour, multi-page spreads. I Googled topics such as deadheading bulbs and companion planting. I visited Rona and Home Depot—both of which are nearby—regularly to check out the gardening sections. I became engrossed in the Lee Valley Tools website.

Eventually, I had to stop myself. I needed to just get outside and get my hands dirty in the earth. I needed to start learning by doing. What was the worst that could happen?

I found out last week. I had to do some trickier work than I would have if I’d done a wee bit more thinking and research before planting my veggie patch. This challenge had nothing to do with the vegetables in the patch. Rather, it stemmed from what was around the patch.

The length of my vegetable garden is beside a fence, and right against the fence was a narrow tangle of vines and plants that I didn’t pay that much attention to before I put the veggies in. I thought they were just plants used to cover up the fact the fence is falling apart and will need replacing one day soon.

After planting the veggies, I learned that these plants were periwinkle (vinca minor) and St. John’s-wort (hypericum perforatum). Above, climbing up the fence was a tangle of three different vines that had roots and suckers winding up and down within the periwinkle and St. John’s. The only creeping vine I’ve identified so far is winter jasmine, and it seems too be all over my front and back garden.

I had three concerns about this situation:

1. Everything along the fence was getting bigger. The periwinkle and St. John’s were starting to creep into the veggie patch, and the vines were getting so thick that I expected they would soon start creeping into the veggies too. Not only that, the whole area seemed a good deal shadier than it had been a few weeks before.

2. Although it looks rather attractive with its dark, shiny evergreen leaves and small purplish pinwheel-shaped flowers, periwinkle is considered an invasive plant in Greater Vancouver. It certainly had lived up to its invasive reputation in my garden. I had ripped out a stretch beside the fence in another part of the backyard, but I hadn’t gotten to the area on the other side of the fence. Slowly but surely it started creeping back inside the fence. I wanted to get rid of as much of it as I could sooner rather than later. St. John’s-wort is considered a noxious weed in British Columbia and it too was proving to be a pain, sprouting up here and there in the backyard.

3. If I didn’t act fast, it would be harder and harder to do something about these plants. I didn’t have stepping stones in the veggie patch, so, once the vegetables grew bigger, stepping around them wouldn’t be so easy.

If the veggie garden wasn’t planted, getting rid of this mess would have been easier. But the tender sprouts and a row of marigolds right beside meant I had to tread carefully to avoid squishing anything. Consequently, I was basically pinned against the rickety old fence for nearly three hours while cutting vines and shoots and hand-pulling periwinkle and St. John’s!

First, I cleared out the vines. They were thick and overgrown—shooting up, down, and across. As I cut away at the creepers, I discovered a large piece of wire mesh about 3’ x 5’ wide leaning against the fence. It looked like it had being used to train the vines, but now it was bulging out from the fence, seemingly because the vines were getting so thick and weighty they were now pulling the top of the mesh horizontally with them.

Initially, I was going to just leave the mesh in place and get rid of everything around it. After a while, reaching in and trying to pull stalks through it became frustrating, not only because it was awkward, but also because I didn’t feel like I was making progress—I was only grasping a couple of stalks and so things looked the same after a half hour of pulling. The mesh and the vines tangled in it had to go. I snipped away until I freed the mesh and I tossed it, along with the swirl of vines still wrapped around it, over the fence onto the driveway. Phew. Finally, a sense of accomplishment! Next, I had to work around a fennel plant that I wanted to keep. It seemed like I’d be there all afternoon. But I just kept pulling and pulling, focusing on how good it would feel to be rid of the plants. Suddenly, voila! I was at the end of the veggie patch.

When I look at this little section of my garden now, I feel happy. It’s not perfect—the fact the fence is falling down is more evident for sure, and maybe I shouldn’t have been so brutal about hacking back the vines. But instead of getting stuck in a book, I got my hands dirty and finished a project.