It's not that I procrastinate, exactly... It's that I'm what my mother calls a "Time Optimist." I think I have enough time to do everything. So when I have 18 more things to do than I can possibly accomplish, the stuff I don't do are victims of priorities - as in, they didn't make the cut.
The web site I promised a client will be ready to go live by next weekend? That's more important than reading up on how to prune a lilac bush or my apple tree. Planning my veggie garden beds to ensure complementary plantings that renew the soil and boost each other's growth? Really important! But, you know, not as immediate as that paper I have to write, or the dinner I have to make, or the laundry I have to wash, or the time I need to spend with my kids.
For these reasons, and others similar, I have yet to do much of any research about how to make the habitat I want in my backyard. I'm not the first person to notice how much less time I have to read now that I'm living full bore in the Information Age.
So, I plant stuff somewhat willy-nilly and hope for the best.
And I'm happy to report that for the most part, it works out.
My echinacea comes back. The monarda is spreading. The raspberry canes produced 3 actual berries last year before the deer ate them (shakes fist at that stupid deer) (I mean, yeah, I want wildlife...but wildlife that eats MY food [tongue-in-cheek...kind of]).
Even more heartening, though, are the slightly less obvious things I might not be in tune with if I didn't care so much about my little plot of land.
I have lots of different songbirds in my yard, but often they aren't eating at the bird feeder - they're eating morsels of naturally occurring goodness on the ground or on the bark of the trees. There are earthworms in my soil, not cut-worms. There are types of insects and spiders in my gardens I've never even seen before - and I grew up in the country, putting 'pet' spiders in vivariums made of plastic containers and a few blades of grass and twigs (we would kill house flies and mosquitoes and throw them in as food). I'm a little bit older and little more wary of poisonous (or just plain annoying) bites, but I'm encouraged by the bio-diversity I'm seeing.
The naturally occurring plants growing amongst my turf grass are a boon. Yes, some people call them weeds. I call them other things - such as plantain (not the banana-like plantain - come on, it's Minnesota), AKA 'White Man's Footprint,' which likes compacted soil and can be used in salves or to draw out types of infections; clover, which is not only pretty and provides food for pollinators and something outside of my veggie garden for rabbits to munch on, but is edible for humans and is a soil-amending cover crop; creeping Charlie, one of the most widely detested 'weeds' of them all, which is mostly content to live on the fringe of my yard and smells wonderful (and is also lovely to look at); and dandelions, which, if grown away from chemicals and toxins many people spray on their yards, make healthy greens for salads, are as beautiful as any cultivar and easier to grow, and have tap roots that are beneficial to the soil (aeration, breaking up compact soil) and help reduce water run-off after a storm event - complex, deep root systems retain more water than shallow root systems, like the one provided by turf grasses.
I'll admit, I got a couple of things wrong. That stuff that looked as though it might be mint? Um, it was itchweed. Did you know that 6 foot tall itchweed is incredibly difficult to get out by the roots? It took two years to get rid of what I let go to 'see what it is.'
But I don't let that daunt my spirit. I also let a vine grow just because I thought it was kind of pretty. It turned out to be some kind of ground cherry - beautiful, tasty, and free.
I love putzing in my yard. Like I said, I don't really know what I'm doing, and I don't always learn from my mistakes, but I enjoy the process. The plants and animals seem to be enjoying it, too.
I encourage all of you to resist the urge of fertilizing, watering, weeding, and mowing you yards (or paying a company to do it) and allow nature to take its course instead. It's not only cheaper, but it's more effective (and prettier!).
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