Ideas about to create your own garden planning, potting spot
No matter the weather, the siren call of spring brings gardens to mind and it follows that we need a spot to sit, plan, ready the seed packets and dream a little about what’s to come.
Over the years, in earlier days, I utilized a plethora of wild and wonderful sites for temporary use. One place where I lived for a time when working in Spokane, had a big old-fashioned one-piece picnic table with attached board seats on each side.
I got a neighborhood “handy-man to bore a hole in the center of the table to hold my large sunbrella. Its pole was held in place under the table by virtue of a hollow concrete block and I kept seed packets, new seedlings, soil and such under it for protection. I used both ends of the table for whatever work I was doing and the long side-benches held pots, baskets with tools and such. It worked great.
I have, over time, utilized inside corners of barns, woodsheds and garages, often with just a rickety old wooden table and a stool to sit on. And during those times I became expert at figuring out potting places.
Covered porches are ideal and if you can steal just a small corner for a work-table and a bit of storage (old bookcases work great for pot, book, and basket-holders) you’ll have it made. Inside the house, unused breakfast nooks are utterly dream-perfect – and pantries as well. Outdoor access from a laundry room, “mud” room would make them great places to set up a desk and some shelves.
If the outdoors is where your site must be, find an ell on the house or even the outside wall of a shed or wall – if you have one. Use my trick of the big umbrella or fashion a lean-to top from plastic or canvas. By the way, old tents work well for potting places, too!
Bricks and boards make fine easy-made and easy take-down temporary work stations and can be stored at-the-ready most anywhere. Outdoor sites, no matter how humble, have one great benefit – that of being able to have all your equipment close to hand. Wheelbarrows, hoes, watering equipment and such can be factored into your organizational plans for best convenience.
By the way, though my suggestions are mostly for the benefit of folks without a potting place, I don’t mean to imply that they have to look tacky! Cheap, easy, convenient, Yes! Ugly, No! A little paint or a pretty oil-cloth or gingham table cover can do wonders for prettying up your little site.
I’d hang wind-chimes, hummingbird feeders or whatever suited the many places I utilized, to make them at least quaint or cute if not elegant.
If you’re able to make a fairly permanent workplace, consider a white lattice attachment – great for hanging hand-tools from on the work-side, and a lovely backdrop for sweet peas or other sweet climbers on the other!
I’ve found some clippings from about 20 years ago that illustrate a little of what’s been discussed today: Old chicken-coop nesting boxes – a lovely for-purchase setup (looks easy to make, too) – and a small corner in-house spot. Maybe they’ll offer some ideas to suit your needs.
I don’t do much true gardening anymore but use my no-glass, utterly naked metal-ribbed greenhouse for garden ornament storage, extra outdoor chairs and a few bags of potting soil that I use copiously. It wasn’t always glassless, but sited on my deck it was obviously overlooked by the crew that reroofed my house a few years back and threw all the old shingles and wood on top of it, shattering every bit of roof glass.
I countered this with a big plastic tarp for a roof. Later, a windstorm landed a massive cottonwood branch across it, imploding the remaining side-glass. It still looks cute though, naked though it be, and I have a tender spot for it.
Actually, it kind of reminds me of myself — beat all to heck, but still somewhat useful, and with years of happy memories of more fruitful times.
Valle Novak writes the Country Chef and Weekend Gardener columns for the Daily Bee. She can be reached at bcdailybee@bonnercountydailybee.com or by phone at 208-265-4688.