Vitamin G: A Heavy Hit of Garden Love

It’s been wet and muggy throughout the day. The only time it looked promising, dry that is, was when I left the house this morning for work. Once I got there, I didn’t give the weather a second thought. Instead, my mind was a mash up of papers and files and the grudge I carry against office machinery.  I wouldn’t have even looked out my office window had a friend not texted me, amused at how happy my snails must be today. I appreciate a friend who can so easily steer my otherwise task focused mind around to thoughts of my garden.     The snails have been a frequent topic of conversation for several weeks now to anyone who will listen which is approximately two people. I have friends who will humor me but two dear friends will commiserate at length on the subject.  We’ve discussed decollate snails vs. the common garden snail, a snail’s insatiable appetite, a snail’s ability to make their way up a tree and how eas...

  Oh, the Beauregards . I always forget which sweet potatoes are best suited for my garden and for some reason I gravitate towards the Beauregards. They are a semi sprawling sweet potato so I’ll probably have a big vine-y mess on my hands in a few months time.  Vardamans, on the other hand, are a more compact grower. That is the one that I should put in the ground but the nurseryman recommended the Beaus and I went with it.  I have to say, I was a little disappointed with the slips, they didn’t look so hot and I felt skeptical as I sunk them into the ground. Some had no green whatsoever but they did have roots so in they went. It won’t matter in the end because if the bed is at all sparse the bush beans that I interspersed among the slips will fill everything in. For good measure I sowed French marigold seeds along the perimeter. Every garden needs some pretty in my opinion. Now let’s talk about seeds. I don’t know what’s going on with me and seeds this year. I bought fou...

  The problem with growing carrots is that I cannot keep my hands off of them. I just can’t. They come up, they get some green going and I just want to poke around to see if I can get a peek at the top, maybe gauge the circumference. Is there a root under there? I think that they become so disturbed that they just hold out on me. I don’t blame them. I’m worse than a mole. Or a vole. Or any other dirty digger that loves root vegetables.  This season I forced myself to just leave them be. I didn’t dig or pull or poke. I pretended that they and their snobby little bed mates, the leeks, didn’t exist. Sure, I’d water them and on occasion I’d pull a nearby weed but touch? It just didn’t happen. They toughed it out in the February cold, the snow didn’t phase them. And now it is April and we have rain. I circled my garden this evening to see who was doing what and with whom. Then there, a tiny orange crown. The rain had washed away the soil. I tugged at it just a little and it seemed ...

I finally strung the prayer flags across the back of the enclosed garden. They are a beautiful royal blue and move effortlessly in the breeze.  I’m curious to see how this small enclosed garden progresses, I don’t have a solid plan for it. I have some ideas but they are a little vague at this point.  The tomatoes were put in simply to protect them from the dogs and hens, I won’t put them in every year and if I do, there won’t be many, maybe two or three. I planned to put the tomatoes out front where they would get more sun and be safe from the aforementioned beasts but the season got away from me. I mean, how is it April already? I like that the space is a work in progress and to think it all started because I found a length of picket fence along the side of the road. We took our time constructing the rest of the fence, M. went to great lengths making the new pickets. The only thing we did not do was paint it. Maybe someday, but I’m not sure that it needs to be painted.  ...

  Woolly Thyme   Arrow, only the best garden pal ever A rather exotic cucumber Out with the old

 The optimist in me says that this very, very sad gardenia just needed a little TLC. She really does look beyond all hope and I told M. that anybody in their right mind would have just put her out of her misery.    But I didn’t have the heart to just discard her. Instead, I pulled her from the terracotta pot, added new soil, mixed in some blood meal for good measure and watered her with Maxi-Crop for acid loving plants.  I think she has a good shot at making it. I’m curious what I’ll see in a matter of ten days. It may take longer than that, two to three weeks? Who knows? I may just gain a reputation as a gardenia whisperer. 

Well, hello. I'm back. I've had a few plants that have said that very same thing to me. A few that I was sure were goners, leaving behind a bare little patch where they'd once lived, maybe even thrived for a time. Seeing this makes me feel like I've failed as a gardener, the spot of death reminding me for an entire growing season or two that I'd killed something holy.  Why did it die, I wonder - could I have mistakenly planted an annual? Some plants, in some areas are annuals but under the right circumstances may be perennial. I can't think of one right off the top of my head but I do believe it is true. And of course, you have to consider that the ground there, in that spot, may quite possibly be cursed. But one day, poking through the leaf litter, a spot of something green. You'd never see it just walking by, but you might notice it if you were watering say, and in that gardener's trance. This is where I am today, climbing through the surface to g...