My highly unnatural garden

I love my potager and the plants, animals, and microbes therein. I would never dream of using synthetic chemicals, or even organic pesticides, in the garden. I eschew plastic for the most part, the main exceptions being chairs, buckets, and watering cans. Yet my garden is arguably one of the most unnatural sites on the property.

It is a caged rectangle of nutrients, organic matter, and exotic and pampered plants, perched atop native red clay. Thick mulch regularly applied, and lots of weed-pulling, keep it in a suspended state, preventing natural succession. Not only do I remove thousands of the usual weeds that plague vegetable gardens, I also remove tree seedlings that would gladly act as pioneers in the development of forest.

Mulberry, sycamore, black locust, oak, and innumerable black cherry sprouts have been yanked out so I can continue to enjoy the herbs, perennials, and various fruits and vegetables that feed my family, and nourish my soul. It is a high maintenance endeavor, but the level of labor is matched by the rate of return. I've never documented the amount of edible material that I've carried out of the garden by weighing it, because I don't have a proper scale and this would add even more work, but I know it's an enormous amount. Furthermore, the personal peace, joy, and satisfaction that the garden provides is incalculable.

Maintaining this level of upkeep for a large area is very difficult. Such gardens are best kept small and manageable. I've lost many plants because I planted them in areas that I was unable to keep weeded; subsequently, ground ivy invaded and smothered them out. My strategy outside the potager is to use aggressive herbs and ornamentals that can survive under such conditions. If I ignore them for a year, they are still alive when I find time to work in these areas. Echinacea, black-eyed Susan, and daylilies are tough enough to compete. Mints of all kinds do fabulously under these conditions--if you're hesitant to plant them in your main garden, set them out in marginal or semi-wild areas. Bee balms, catnip, mountain mint, lemon balm, and all your other favorite members of the mint family have a place here.

Inside the fence of the potager I regularly go on weed patrol, hoping to stop any problems before they start. Thick mulches, applied year-round, help immensely. I focus on squeezing as many desirable plants into the space as possible, maximizing yield and leaving less room for invaders.

While I'm hellbent on stopping succession in the garden, I actively encourage it on most of the property. The former corn field that occupies the southernmost part of the land is striving to become woodland and is hindered by poor soil combined with Japanese honeysuckle and multiflora rose that overwhelm native saplings. Ironic as it may seem, I spend lots of time weeding this area too, meaning I remove pounds of unwanted plant matter on a regular basis to achieve the goal of native forest. Though the desired results are quite different here from those in the garden, the work is similar. In fact the majority of the work I do is plant removal.

I'm not the type of gardener who thinks the goal is to eliminate weeding, although I try to minimize work, and recognize that as native trees get larger, my forest weeding will lessen greatly, as the invaders are shaded out. In the unnatural potager I will continue to interrupt succession. The plants I remove are very useful as compost components, mulch, and chicken treats, and the work is not unpleasant. The garden is the place I want to be and I jump at any excuse to spend time there.