May Flowers and Vegetable Gardening Flourish

April was a perfect weather month in Maine but May seems that it might even top that phenomenon. The first week is ending and only two modest rain events so far but a lot of sun and warm temperatures. Hence I am planting more early crops than any year so far.  I have planted sweet corn; various beans for drying in the fall, namely pinto, cannellini and red kidney; kale; arugula; turnips; carrots; radishes; lettuce; Italian dandelion green; Swiss chard; scallions; green beans; beets; and broccoli raab. The onion sets planted recently are all growing very visibly and the potatoes are starting to emerge. I have now served asparagus for dinner three times!  The strawberries are growing well and the four beds of them are full of white blooms and the beginnings of small berries. The peas are emerging nicely as well and the rhubarb is close to the first harvest and that means some rhubarb pie.

I have used all the wood chips recently acquired and completed a few Field Garden paths with them after putting down some black plastic. I could use another couple truck loads of chips, easily. I have now resorted to covering the paths with leaf mulch now so that some of the essential paths are covered between the permanent beds of strawberries, asparagus, garlic,, rhubarb. etc.  It is important to create these weed barriers and buffers for the sake of the garden beds and to lighted my weeding load somewhat.  The Raised Bed Garden has wood frames and more years of existence so weeding is quite minimal. I believe the pictures below gives you some sense of the effort I speak of.  Note the garlic in the middle-right of the first picture, now a foot tall and looking like a bumper crop.  I bet the cow manure added to the soil will trigger larger garlic bulbs when harvested this July..

The next picture shows the first stack of wood right behind the fence and convenient to the deck and hence, the door near the wood stove. I will have the three pallets arranged there all covered with stacked firewood when I complete the cutting  to size and splitting of the wood awaiting that finishing in my wood staging area. You can also see thick leaf mulch spread before the pallets and fence.  This weed infested area in the past will become a nice place for some flowers and bushes when the mulch successfully kills off the weeds.

Lastly, I thought I would share some photos of the glorious colors of the spring flowers now blooming all over the place. The Raised Bed Garden is bordered with a wonderful display of tulips that seem to be more beautiful as each year goes by.  Behind the tulips the first five beds are almost completely planted.  Some closeups of lilacs, grape hyacinths, and creeping flocks seem to be the best way to share their bright colors. To me the prettiest spring "bloom" is the tasty green asparagus...so worth the wait and short season each spring. You can almost see it grow more each day. Hopefully, I will be able to harvest some regularly for the whole month of May.

A Glorious April in Maine

This is the eight spring I have experienced in Maine and certainly the best. March was a record breaking rainy month but April continues to be filled with sun and more warmth than usual. I have been loving it and am able to spend hours outside working nearly every day.

I finally developed the flowerbed near the road and sidewalk as you drive into my property. I was given five rugosa rose bushes last fall and had them staged in a garden bed awaiting my plan to put them in this flower bed. The forsythia bush planted in 2009 is healthy and flowering now. There is a culvert under the road at this point so much of this flowerbed is filled with stones for drainage.  I dug many of them and piled in the center and brought in several wagon loads of garden soil so I could plant the rugosa roses on the left side.  I also added some liastris bulbs  that will bloom later in the summer and transplanted some tiger lilies. Hopefully this will be a low maintenance and colorful flowerbed from now on.

I couldn't resist adding another photo of the magnolia tree that graces the yard so beautifully at this time of year with its fragrant white flowers. Yes, that is my trusty 1992 Oldsmobile near it!

I have on occasion, but not for the past two years, landed a free dump truck of wood chips from a local tree service. My prayers have been answered again for I just acquired a load of fresh oak chips and have begun to spread them in garden paths, as mulch around trees and bushes, etc. Two photos below show such use. I plan to use most of them between garden beds in the Field Garden. The five dwarf fruit trees are all looking healthy and starting to show some budding and flowering so I am hopeful that this year will bring some peaches, pears and apples.

The remaining two photos show the blooming weeping cherry tree overhanging the garden pond and another showing some blooming hyacinths on the edge of the Peace and Joy flower bed.  The tulips are starting to bloom now and the endless daffodils, hyacinth, jonquils and creeping flocks add color throughout the flowerbeds.

As to vegetable crops...I have now planted 100 feet of potatoes, including Yukon Gold, Kennebec, and Red Nordland varieties. I also have 100 feet of onions sets in as well, red, white and yellow varieties. Some peas are planted too.  I have now planted more seeds indoors for late May garden planting, including: winter and summer squash, watermelon and cantaloupe, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, cabbage and marigolds. The previously planted tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, red cabbage, leeks, tomatillos, green, red and various hot peppers are all doing well under grow lights.

The strawberries are all looking good and the first asparagus spears are almost ready for picking!  I can also report that I now have two cords of wood cut, split and stacked for next winter. I want to have three plus cords so will keep at it to complete that task before mid-May when the full focus on gardening occurs and the weather gets a bit warm for wood splitting.  Oh yes, lawn mowing has begun!

An early spring has sprung in Maine

A month has flown by since the last post and I can't blame a lack of interesting news to report on this Garden Blog for the silence. I did travel a lot during March though. I attended the CFA Consumer Assembly in Washington DC, traveled on to Richmond VA to visit the Coplan clan and flew back to Maine only long enough to celebrate St. Patrick's Day at the Wonder Bar in Biddeford before heading on the train to New York for another Brooklyn visit and some enjoyable babysitting duties with Cotton. There was also a day trip to Boston at the end of the Month. But every free moment while in Saco was spent enjoying the wonderful weather here. Snow is a distant memory and even chilly, rainy spring days are not very frequent.

There was another horrible late March rainstorm triggering the biggest garden floods I have experienced though before sunny, warm days took over ever since. The garden ponds created by the nearly five inches of rain brought a pair of ducks to the homestead for four days until the pond disappeared. Cotton, Julian and Roxi were able to make an unexpected Easter weekend visit here and certainly enjoyed the warm, sunny weather and the burst of spring flowers all around the property. Cotton enjoyed an Easter Egg hunt and played for hours in the sandbox. The flower beds have been cleaned of mulch and debris and many perennials are popping forth: peonies, hosta, ferns, hydrangea buds,lilies, lupine, sedum,and bulbs everywhere.

My new garden cart...a freebie along the side of a country road...has new wheels and worked perfectly behind the riding mower for gathering all the debris piles around the yard. The family pet, a rabbit named Ms. Clarence, moved into her summer home in the garage from indoors and has a pleasant visit around the yard thanks to Roxi. The pond had the pump activated and was cleaned of fallen leaves and is ready to gain some water plants. The magnolia tree alongside the driveway is nearly in full bloom.

I am busily splitting and stacking wood since major garden work is still a few weeks away. My goal is to have a couple cords all ready for next winter, covered and seasoning over the summer months. But the seeds of many vegetables and flowers are already started indoors and I am planning my planting locations in anticipation. This has been the nicest late March and early April in my nearly eight years here so I am confident the planting peas, potatoes, and some other early crops are merely days away. The lawn is so green that I may be mowing grass well before the end of the month!

Here's hoping that this surprisingly sunny, warm spring is an indication of a great, long, hot growing season and the best garden year ever. But remember all gardeners and farmers have to always enter the spring season brimming with optimism and I am no exception to that rule.

Enjoy some images that visualize the above words:

 

A Winter Storm Hits the Maine Coast

Southern coastal Maine escaped the most recent snowstorm that buried much of New England, New York and Pennsylvania AGAIN. But we did experience high winds and tons of rain triggering flooding and power outages. My house lost power for about 20 hours and since I do not have a generator the sump pump sat silent and the water covered the basement floor but fortunately only about a half inch before the power returned. The ground was still generally frozen so both gardens flooded as the pictures below indicate.  Camp Ellis suffered a lot of damage from the high seas and powerful waves rolling down its coastal streets.

In my immediate area there were few trees knocked down but enough fell overall to impact the power lines. A tree in front of the rectory at St. Margaret Church in Old Orchard Beach was uprooted.  Since I have a good “connection” there, namely my brother David, the acting pastor, I was given permission to remove the tree for my firewood use.  It has been a four day chain sawing effort and four pickup truck loads of wood but I now have nearly a full cord of wood I can burn next winter in my wood stove.  The wood is all here but a lot of sawing and splitting remains to complete the job.  When those tasks are done it will be stacked and then season nicely by next winter.

As previously reported, gardening work has yet to begin so my focus continues to be on wood gathering and cutting so that I have three cords or more all set for next winter. I am getting organized though for some indoor seed starting in the basement under grow lights.  My seeds are order and arriving in the mail. My garden layouts are taking shape as well.

The first three months of the new year is a time for me to do some traveling as well since the demands of the garden are minimal. I recently went to New York to do another babysitting stint with grandson Cotton and will return in the third week of March for further duties. Cotton loves playing with his trucks and wooden train set…endlessly! I will also fly to Washington DC for the Annual Consumer Federation of America Consumer Assembly next week. I wonder if there will be signs of spring in DC after their challenging winter. I will take a three day side trip before returning from DC to visit the Coplan clan in Richmond.

Sunny and Cold but no new snow therefore....

I tackled the long dead cherry tree along the driveway yesterday and today. The bark was long gone and it is dry, seasoned hardwood ready to burn. The challenge has always been whether it would fall down easily after cut with the chain saw or get hung up in some branches of the neighboring healthy tree and create a nightmare calling for ropes, tree climbing or other tactics beyond my skills. Well it came down easy and clean as one of the pictures below shows. Next came the task of cutting it into usable logs ready for splitting. It took nearly forty cuts with the chain saw but that task is now completed and as you can also see below it is neatly stacked awaiting splitting and hauling to the ready-to-use woodpile behind the garage. About half of the supply prepared for this winter is now gone so there is amply room for new additions.

I hope that the remaining stack of wood will be enough for this season but one never knows how cold March and April will be here in Maine. I can certainly report an easy, but quite cold winter so far. The snow total has only reached 32 inches and no storms in sight. The relatives in Virginia are facing a bigger snowfall this year than Maine...how ironic! Winter in Maine is always very unpredictable but when it isn't snowy I am happy to report that the days are usually sunny. I have spent a lot of time this winter sitting by my wood stove and reading in my new chair as previously reported on this blog. But I like to put in some outdoor time each day no matter what the weather. On cold, sunny days I am able to at least spend some time wood gathering as I have done with this big tree falling and cutting task the past two days. It keeps me in shape for the long (hopefully) gardening season I am now starting to think about and plan for more and more as we near spring, in spite of what the famous Pennsylvania groundhog might predict.

The Latest from the White House Garden

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I have a great interest in the White House Garden that Michelle Obama initiated in early 2009. It has been a great success for the first season in terms of the harvest but of far more importance has been the educational and public opinion influence it has triggered. First lady Michelle has masterfully used it to let it speak loudly about food policy and personal eating habits. It has also done wonders for the locavore gardening and farming concept. Her emphasis on the value of involving children in gardening and food education has been especially valuable.

If you are a viewer of the Food Network on Cable TV then you have probably seen the recent Iron Chef battle that featured vegetables from the Obama Garden and even had a brief appearance of Mrs. Obama. It is clear to me that the impact of this White House garden goes far beyond the periodic photo event and occasional media coverage of a "pet cause" of a first lady!




The White House blog periodically has postings about the garden and here is the latest link to that story about the iron chef http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/05/iron-chefs-and-healthy-eating

There is another posting as well as a nice video about the effort just taken to both make the vegetable garden become a productive winter garden and also the latest policy effort of the Department of Agriculture to encourage farmers to do the same: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/16/planting-winter-garden

I am doing my planning and research as to how I can make more use of my garden in early spring and late fall as well. Of course this year it was a struggle to get it to produce well during the SUMMER given our dismal weather in June and July of 2009. I do see some cold frames and hoop gardening as essential in my own garden in the future.

The Snowy New Year Begins

My "Let it Snow" sign by the front door is working well as 2010 begins. The slow moving snow storm lasted three days and left a solid 12 inches of snow on the ground here in Saco. I used my trusty snow thrower three times on my long driveway. This snow will not melt away before future snow storms so the wood gathering efforts are now over for some time. Hopefully I have an amply wood supply in or behind the garage for the steady demand of my wood stove. My new canvass log carriers are working well as I transport loads of it on a daily basis to the living room. The living room has a major new addition thanks to the generosity of Ben, Julian and Roxi. I was totally surprised with a new living room set that is both beautiful and very comfortable. My parents 1950's couch is still in use in another room but no longer the living room seating option.

So now I can sit comfortable and read my 2010 seed catalogs and ponder and plan for the next gardening season. January is a good time for reading, soup making and crock pot cooking. Maine in the winter is a quiet but beautiful time with the white snowfall so untarnished by urban grim and grit. If it is not snowing, there is almost always a sunny sky to help show off the beauty of the snow and ice and animal tracks on and surrounding my homestead. New Year's Eve had its first Blue Moon in 19 years to add a special beauty to the first major snowfall. So LET IT SNOW...I am not anxious for spring to come....yet!