Garden Under Construction

I am late getting to the posting today-but I did manage to get planted all 32 giant pots for the City of Birmingham.  Not that my crew isn’t eminently capable of this; I am always the lame one.  This year I was determined to get every pot designed, transfer that design to a piece of paper in a readable form,  assemble the material, and help load.  Diana and her crew take care of the rest-I did not  hear from her all day.  Except at 4:30-her call that everything was done.  She rocks.  
This vegetable garden, with a must complete date of June 6 is coming to a construction close .  We have set the 14 foot tall beech arbor, underplanted it with asparagus, (put your imagination to work about how this will look in 3 years) built the vegetable boxes, and planted the columnar apple trees from Henry Luthardt.  We installed drain tile, excavated soil and installed a  decomposed granite surface to walk on.   How I love the sound of gravel underfoot-and this 3/8 inch and down decomposed granite compacts hard enough to take a pair of Jimmie Choo 4 inch heels without the slightest dent. In the center, an herb theatre, with steel arches reminiscent of the Roman aquaducts.  Tomorrow we plant the “wild at heart” apple espaliers, install the tomato cage/obelisks, and the tomatoes,  plant the vegetables, rhubarb and strawberries.  We need to doll up the grade in one spot, and resod.  Today, the irrigation is getting installed.  Copper, with spray risers.  I like the look of overhead irrigation-its beautiful.  I hate drip irrigation-it clogs, and malfunctions-you can’t spot any malfunction until things are crisp.  And the water is never where you want it, with drip. Drip irrigation is a great idea that the reality is not where it should be. For now,   I like water when I can see it.  And I like how this garden is at the fun tune-up stage.  My most favorite part of a job coming to a close, is washing off the walks, and terraces.  Washing off the digging, the sweating, the agonizing over this choice or that.  This feeling lasts the better part of 3 seconds, as every gardener knows no garden is ever finished.  It is either going backwards or going forwards.  No neutral.