The Name

Ryan asked me to explain the name. Well first let me admit it is a bad name. But it came to me, and made me giggle. Essentially consisting of two made up words, it is bound to avoid conventional online searches. But it fit my mood.

I was playing around with "Pike" because my garden/farm is right near the Columbia Pike in South Arlington, Virginia. I love the Pike, so I wanted it in the name. The Pike is diverse, busy, ramshackle, weird, and alive. You can see everything on the Pike. Signs in Spanish and Amharic, and if you go out far enough, Korean. Great ethnic restaurants - Salvadorean, Ethiopian, and Thai, Thai, Thai. Odd little shops selling bikes, magic candles, and ethiopian spices. Many people in Arlington seem to hate the Pike - too diverse, supposedly difficult traffic, messy, etc. The neighbourhood is changing slowly, but I still love it.

So I wanted Pike in the name. Then I thought I would modify it for laughs...I was playing with different things - thought Pike-ular as in modular, spectacular, etc. In my mind I felt like I was reaching for something else, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. So the first name was actually pikeular which is what is in the URL I think. But then it hit me that I was really reaching for peculiar which fits the garden better. This is not an ordinary garden - a few flowers and shrubs providing eye interest to a useless lawn. No - we dug up everything. No lawn remains. No space is wasted. So then I went with Pike-uliar as in odd and by the Pike.

As for "gardenings" - well I have no idea. I suppose I could have just used "Garden," but I guess I wanted to verb it in an unusual way, so I did. Gardenings reminds me of meanderings and I like that word. It seemed to fit the garden which does not always proceed on the shortest path to each destination. It is the 4th year and we are just bumbling along discovering things haphazardly but making progress most years.

So that's the name story.