RE:Aground on the rocks

Hi Claire,
 My gosh what gardeners won't do (to our backs, tools, etc) in order to
garden!  I live just a few miles from the Columbia River Gorge - one of the
scenic wonders of the world - and one of the rockiest.  I am gardening on a
river bed eons old - and in a wind tunnel to boot!  It never ceases to amaze
me how I can work the same soil year after year and continue to pull out
very large rocks.  (I think they breed when we are sleeping)  But I don't
have boulders.  If I had boulders, I could do something decorative with
them!
To make matters a tad worse, this is still a rather heavily forested area -
second growth Douglas Fir - with very dense canopies that make lovely dry
shade.  I have limbed my trees up 30 or 40 feet to let some light in.
	When you can't go down, you must go up.  So, like you, I start a new bed by
making it my compost pile for at least one year.  Kitchen scraps, newspaper,
chipped prunings, leaves, garden waste, rotted manure - they all go into the
pile and it isn't even turned much, just kind of muddled around.  But by the
next spring, you can plant right into it and the plants take off like a
shot.  It is very satisfying.
	I have one Ann Lovejoy's books she signed - "make beautiful dirt"
..........Yes, yes, we are trying,  Marilyn

-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-perennials@mallorn.com [owner-perennials@mallorn.com] On
Behalf Of CPep@aol.com
Sent:	Tuesday, June 19, 2001 10:52 AM


Until one puts a shovel in the ground and hits a rock nine times out of ten,
one does not understand mountainside gardening.  Marilyn, one house that I
owned, years ago, had a blue colored clay close to the surface.  That was as
bad as the rocks.  Another house had sandy soil, no rock, no clay but also
held no water.

If anyone has a perfect garden site (and good weather - no humidity) write
quick.  We'll all come and look it over.  Thank you for the kind thought
Marilyn.

Claire Peplowksi
NYS z4


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