The Empty Nest Garden
Totally out of control
The empty-nesting years; time to do what you want, when you want. The kids were off at college, and we finally moved to New Hampshire. Time to build another garden, the garden we’ve nicknamed The Empty Nest Garden. With the goal of “keeping it simple,” we immediately, and accidentally, threw it into high gear! Why? Little did we know covid was heading our way, and we moved into our new home two months before covid hit. Our new home was lovely. Unfortunately, our yard was a disaster. Luckily, we had years of experience building gardens from the Community Oasis Garden, The Gardening Passion Expands, and Quick Turn Garden. This yard was the perfect blank canvas. Besides, Covid… what else were we supposed to do?
Then suddenly, the kids were sent home from college due to covid. Needless to say, they were less than thrilled to be pulled back to their parents’ house, mid-college – essentially grounded by covid. But, to be honest, I loved it! It was like a bonus time with them before they started their life. Much to their chagrin, cabin fever eventually got them, and we had two free, twenty-year-old strong and experienced garden laborers. Besides, what else were they supposed to do in-between classes?
The Empty Nest Garden began as the forgotten yard
When we moved in, we estimated this yard had been growing wildly for about thirteen years. The Empty Nest Garden began as essentially uncovering a forgotten yard.
The saplings were at least a decade old. The bittersweet invasion was extensive, including thirteen vines, each 3″-4′ in diameter. Along with the bittersweet vines, we had brush, poison ivy, downed trees, dead trees, brambles, boulders and rocks, garbage, and stumps everywhere we looked. The drainage ditch on the side of the road was filled with years of winter road sand and acorns. There was so much brush growth that after we had cleaned up the yard – we found two rock walls! We cleared and piled up brush piles for months, awaiting the next rainy day to burn massive brush piles.
At one point, a kind neighbor took pity on us and came over with a walk-behind brush hog. The machine was soon overwhelmed. That’s when we knew we needed to call in some serious muscle. A high school buddy came over with his tractor and pull-behind brush mower cutting through two acres of ten-year-old brush like butter! It was then we could finally see our canvas.
All the cool kids have a tractor
After spraining every joint in our bodies for a solid month – we couldn’t deny it anymore. We are too old for all this manual labor, the yard is too large, and my gardens got too big not to have a tractor. We needed a tractor for this yard. I love that tractor. As soon as the soil sets up in mid-April through November, we use the crap out of it; my husband has literally hundreds of hours logged on the tractor.
Wifey Gets What Wifey Wants – a big a** garden
As soon as we could see the actual land, we could see we had a LOT of dead trees, dangerous trees, and trees to remove. The initial yard was relatively shaded. Gardens, as you know, need six hours of full-sun minimum but thrive with eight hours of full sun daily. To open up the yard for more sun, we removed eight trees because they were too big, too sketchy, or too close to the house. My handsome husband cut down about twenty-five trees. At one point, we had a massive pile of logs in the yard – I posted the wood on Facebook and found a friendly farmer with a large farmhouse to heat. He needed fourteen cords every winter! We were happy to get rid of the wood, and he was happy to put it to use.
My husband is a good husband. I don’t say that to brag. I say that because he has spent hundreds of hours on the tractor and in the yard with me. Wrangling this overgrown mess into whatever I could think of to splash onto our garden canvas. Simply because it makes me happy. That’s a good husband. And also a husband who has doomed himself to truckloads of mulch every year – now that’s love! Ha!!
The Empty Nest Garden’s Many Gardens
The Empty Nest Garden is actually many gardens. The Kitchen garden and rock wall garden are the only two gardens with a water source available and have been heavily amended. The wildflower and sunflower beds are down the hill, planted in unamended beds. The Main Garden comprises five 3’x30′ hugelkultur beds, three 3’x25′ fruit beds, and a five-foot wide and 24′ long garden arch. In addition, a row of Annabelle hydrangeas, lupines, lavender, roses bushes, peonies, and an herb and succulent garden weaved among the gardens. Not to mention the four landscaped beds. See? Totally out of control.
The Main Garden
The main garden is eight 30′ rows built in a modified Hugelkultur method. I built these beds in a modified Hugelkultur method because I didn’t trust the soil. I had plenty of materials, and there isn’t water at this location, so I needed to adapt my gardening to fit the site.
We used the tractor to dig a 20″-24″ deep trench to begin building each bed. Even with the tractor, the trenches took some effort; the ground was a compacted soil of sand and clay. First, we place dead logs in the trench. If they are green, they will sprout, so make sure they are dead and dry. Then, fill the trench like a compost pile with sticks, manure, leaves, coffee grounds, and green material, weaving the original soil back into the pile. Make sure to save most of the top soil for the top layer to have a planting base when it’s time to plant. Ideally, the bed will sit for a year. However, I’m impatient to wait. I’ve previously learned the hard way that first-year beds do not fare well for vegetable crops. Flower crops can sometimes be a little more flexible.
The eight beds consist of five beds that we can rotate crops through and three that are permanent. The permanent beds consist of a 25′ row of raspberries, a row with five blueberry bushes, and a 25′ arch trellis.
The Kitchen Garden
Where the Kitchen Garden is was a forsythia bush the size of a minivan! No kidding, it was so huge that we found two rock walls when we removed them. It was also the turning point for the tractor. After that, we just couldn’t do any more by hand, and there was still a LOT to do. The area is a little tricky because there are a few hidden boulders, so I have to be a little creative when placing supports in the ground. The Kitchen Garden and Rock Wall garden are the only two gardens near the one (and only) water source in the yard – the house.
Rockwall Garden
Simply put, this bed is hard. It was hard to beat it into submission. It’s hard to plant, maintain, and harvest from. The problem is that it’s on quite a slant. The uphill side is very tall, and the downhill side with a short wall. I’ve tried a few layouts for this garden and have another planned for 2023. Ultimately, the rock wall garden will become a wildflower garden. Or, we will remove it altogether.
Herb Garden
The herb garden bed used to be in full shade with two giant trees looming overhead. When we removed those two trees, the herb garden really took off. The herb garden has thyme, sage, oregano, chamomile, and feverfew. Because we are in zone 5b, warm-weather herbs such as cilantro, cumin, fennel, dill, and basil will be added when the soil warms.
Echinacea, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano, Chocolate mint (in a pot), Apple mint (in a pot), Spearmint (in a pot), Chamomile, Lavender, Lemon balm (in a pot).
Landscaped Beds
Around the house, on the other side of the lavender bed, along the street, around the mailbox, and even the propane tank are perennial flower beds. Like I said in the beginning…. totally out of control!
Lavender Bed
The lavender bed lines the driveway on one side. Initially, we didn’t even know there was a three-foot-wide bed there. In fact, a neighbor asked if we “built that wall?” He was shocked to find out we had just unearthed it from a mountain of juniper. I promptly filled this bed with lavender because it was in full sun. It would likely be scorching right off the driveway; the soil was not good (very sandy) – everything a Mediterranean plant like lavender would need to thrive, especially in zone 5b. I adore lavender!
On the bottom side of the Lavender bed, we have a row of pink and purple lupines – although short-lived, they are majestic when in bloom. Because lupines are bi-annual, I’ve planted new seedlings yearly for a few years in an effort to keep some blooming every year.
Peonies
Along two of the six rock walls on the property (this doesn’t include the property borders) is a row of various peonies. It’s a small two-foot-wide bed along a rock wall. I didn’t want to designate one of the main garden rows to peonies, and I thought it might act as a nice feature along the rock wall rocks. As it often happens, six peonies turned into nine peonies, which promptly turned into thirteen peonies. What can I say? It’s like chicken math for peonies.
Traditional Beds
Wildflower Bed
Hey, why not? I mean, this is starting to sound crazy even to me at this point. Covid was intense, though, right? To begin this bed, we laid and weighed down a 25’ x 100’ black, heavy-duty plastic on the ground for an entire year to kill weed seeds and lots of stubborn burdock. After a year, I manually dug up as much burdock as possible (those roots are more than a foot deep). Some of that burdock pushed right through the plastic! Then we loosened up the soil with the tractor and planted what I now know is way too much wildflower seed. It’s definitely too densely seeded. I’ll be interested to see how that goes this spring goes in this bed.
Sunflower Bed
What’s one giant rectangle of black plastic in your yard when you can have two?? This time I only left the plastic in place one summer, winter, and fall and removed it early spring – impatient remember? We tilled it up with the tractor, and I got busy planting 600 sunflowers in a mix of 5 varieties! At the last minute, I remembered to succession sow some sunflowers, so I did have two or three waves of sunflowers come late July and all through August.
The Empty Nest Garden produce
Raspberries, Strawberries, Blueberries, Pumpkins, Birdhouse gourds, Peas, Lettuces, Kale, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts, Cucumbers, Jalapenos, Peppers, Beans, Garlic, Plum Tomatoes, Onions.
2020-2022 The Empty Nest Garden Evolution
A couple of years into this yard and gardens, I can honestly say we are totally out of control. Send help – or at least a part-time laborer. My husband is tired of mulching, and our kids are through school and onto their own life!
The Empty Nest Garden is still a work in progress. 2023 will be our third gardening season, and I’m looking forward to it!
Have questions? Drop them in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them!
~ Lola
“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments!”
The Gardens we’ve built
Why I Garden; if you grow it, they will eat it
Community Oasis Garden; exploring the passion
The Gardening Passion Expands; the garden that created a bidding war
Quick Turn Garden; two years and counting
The Empty Nest Garden; totally out of control
The Coops we’ve built
How NOT to Build a Chicken Coop
The Bored Engineer’s Coop
This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see our disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting The Gardening Passion!
This content was originally published at The Gardening Passion and is copyrighted material. If you are reading this on another website, it is being published without consent.
