It's starting to feel more like spring here in Boise. In the past week, the temperature has reached at least 60 degrees perhaps four or five times, but then again, it snowed on Tuesday. Thus is high-desert living, I guess. I'm itching to start a garden here, but I'm not sure where to place it or how to grow anything. My feeble attempts at container gardening left me excited to have grown anything at all worth eating, yet discouraged because they could hardly be called a bountiful harvest. Much of my yard is hilly, so it would be challenging to garden on it unless I do some terraces - a lovely idea, but maybe I should stick with the basics for my first attempt at real gardening. Plus, I'm just renting, so I don't want to push it on what the owners will allow me to do. There's a flat spot on the side of the house that looks perfect, but nothing is growing there right now except for some weeds. Does that mean nothing would grow there, or is it just bare because it doesn't get much direct sunlight in the winter? If we're still getting snow here, then there's still a danger of frost. Should I start my seedlings now, even if I can't plant them until May? Plus, here in Bambi's Forest, I have to keep out the critters - rabbits, deer, birds, squirrels, and foxes (would they eat from my garden too?) all looking for a juicy morsel of pepper, green bean, carrot, lettuce, and the likes. This means investing in some indestructible structures to keep them out. Oh, the pressure! I may just have to go into a garden center (maybe the North End Organic Nursery) or take a class through the Botanic Gardens and pick the brains of some experts. More to come as this adventure evolves.
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On a similar but separate note, yesterday I volunteered with Idaho Fish and Game to plant some year-old sagebrush and bitterbrush seedlings on a burned hillside in the Boise Wildlife Management Area off Highway 21. It was a team effort: some folks went through with a planter bar, creating holes for the seedlings, and the rest of us followed with bundles of seedlings wrapped in wet burlap. The holes were placed near the skeletons of burned shrubs, which would protect the seedlings a bit from erosion and from the elements. A seedling was placed in each hole, then the hole was filled in completely and the soil packed down. This would help protect the seedlings from the deer that would surely come through later that day and nibble the fresh greenery. As long as the roots and stems are protected, the leaves will resprout and the plant will grow. It was hard work climbing up and down the hills, and the frozen ground got squishy and slippery as the rising sun thawed the soil. It can take up to 10 years for sagebrush and bitterbrush plants to become full-sized adults, but in the meantime, it's exciting to think about how the burned landscape will return to life as the shrubs fill in. Fire is a natural part of the ecosystem here, but it can take a long time after stand-replacing fires in a dry place like this to reestablish native vegetation, so restoration like this is necessary to prevent invasive plants like cheatgrass to take over before the shrubs have a chance to fill in.
