Archive for the ‘gardening’ Tag
I’ve been having some fun with lists for the last week but I think it’s time to step back into journal mode to update a few personal things. With this continuing rain we’ve been having the garden has really taken off. Last year when I planted my first rhubarb plant after three months it was approximately one foot high and I was really concerned that it wouldn’t make it through the winter. As of yesterday that stupid plant is now over six feet high and going strong. It looks like I’ll harvest enough seeds from it to plant a few more places around the property. You just can’t have too much of that wonderful stuff around since this years current price is hovering around $3.80 a pound. That s just highway robbery in my view so the more I grow the better.
Last weekend I spent a portion of Saturday doing the ceiling fan shuffle. I installed a new sleeker model fan with a light kit in our bedroom and a matching fan without a light kit into the room I spent all winter remodeling. The remodeled room is almost ninety percent furnished with nothing left to do except put a organizer system into the closet. It looks freaking fabulous. I then took the old fan from our bedroom and installed conveniently into my man cave directly above my computer desk. That will make for a nice cool blogging summer.
Tonight we were invited to my better-half’s daughter’s home for shish kabobs on the grill. With the school year almost over she’s preparing for her first summer vacation with the new baby. After teaching everyone else’s kids all year, she can now spend some quality time with her son. I see a lot of beach time in his immediate future which he will probably love. We were able to catch up on things a little and enjoyed the meal and conversation immensely. We made an early night of it and returned home with full bellies and smiles on our faces. It was a very nice visit.
We’re do for what looks like two or three more days of rain which is always badly needed to keep the garden healthy. That should give me enough time to continue work on a project I started more than a year ago. I’ve been working off and on a somewhat strange abstract bust of my better-half and I’m finally making some real progress on it since the room remodel was completed. I recently finished the hair which was a tedious job and within a month I should have this project finally completed.
We’re having a really great start to the Spring and Summer and plans are already taking shape for a long weekend to the wilds of northern Maine to get into the woods and take as many pictures as necessary to fill every memory card we have.
We also have an obligatory two day trip to visit her family in Rhode Island which should be fun too. This could actually turn into a rather nice summer barring any unplanned catastrophes. We plan on enjoying it as much as we possibly can before the next long winter begins. I might even be talked into a night at the amusement park in Old Orchard Beach. You’re never too old to jump on a ride or two and have a little fun.
Enjoy your summer.
I thought I’d stop complaining about politics for a few days to begin complaining about Mother Nature and her lack of respect for me and my gardening skills. We seem to have the start of a summer with no moderate weather conditions. For most of the month of May we had warm days and very cold nights. We also were taken by surprise by a late frost or two that hit us with almost no notice. The days were warm but the wind had a cold edge to it that just wouldn’t let up. The frost ended up costing us a few dollars when it killed a number of the recently purchased cucumber plants.
In past years that would have set me off but I guess when you can’t do control something you have to move along and not let it make you too crazy. I replanted the cukes again after being assured by a nursery owner friend that we were safe from another frost. Do we get a few days of moderate weather? No effing way.
A week ago I was sitting on my deck relaxing and talking with my sister in Pittsburgh. It was warm but still had a bit of chill in the air. My sister was complaining about the heat wave they were suffering from and that the temps had been in the eighties for a few days. We here in Maine usually receive the exact weather as Pennsylvania just three or so days later. We had a day of moderate rain and then our heat wave arrived just as expected. For three miserable days the heat was almost unbearable. It was too hot to sit on the deck until late afternoon and sleeping became a freaking nightmare. All of this weather and it wasn’t even June yet. On top of the stifling heat the sun effectively roasted and toasted a large section of the garden.
So I make another trip back to the nursery for a few more replacement plants. A number of other plants were slightly damaged as well but we were still hoping for a little rain to help them survive. Three days later they died as well as did some of the latest replacements. This kind of stuff is expected these days with weird weather patterns slowly becoming the norm. It gives me a whole new understanding and appreciation of how it must have been back in the day when your life and your families life depended on having a successful garden and crops. Those old time farmers must have had a great deal of faith and a lot of guts.
Once again I replanted all of the cucumbers, watered them in, and prayed the weather would moderate a little with just enough rain to keep them healthy. It was now the first of June and I hoped for the best. Another mistake for sure. I monitored the weather and soon became aware of possible thunder storms heading our way. It began to rain and it poured for hours. It was so bad that some of my newest plantings were washed out of the ground. I’m beginning to get the idea that the gardening gods are messing with me.
If your going to garden you must be ready for almost anything. Patience is required as well as a supply of really good cuss words. They don’t actually help the situation but they do have the ability to make you feel a little better.
I’ve just replanted the cukes for the third and hopefully last time.
At the rate the grass is growing it should be knee high in a matter of days. That should give me something new to stress about. Mother Nature is definitely not our friend so far this Spring.
It appears that Spring Is really here this time. The night time temperatures are rising and yesterday they made it into the mid-eighties for the first time. Maybe just maybe we can put the worries about frost and cold air behind us. We suffered a light frost two nights ago which was more than a little unusual for late May even here In Maine.
The garden’s been completed with all the plants in the ground and on their way to producing the things we require for next winter. The herb garden had some recent issues with space requirements due to an out of control apple mint plant that was determined to take over the entire area. It grew up and over an oregano plant that I’ve had for years and killed it. I was forced to attack that plant with a shovel and cut away close to sixty-five percent of it. I then surrounded it with a box that extends deep into the soil to stop it from spreading it’s runners in every direction. I replanted three new oregano plants nearby and hopefully they’ll grow healthy and keep us supplied through next winter. I need to be extra careful that I don’t harvest too much or I’ll be the idiot responsible for killing them.
Last year at the beginning of the season I planted two rhubarb plants. I knew it would be at least a year before I could harvest any of them for jams or jellies. The plants need to be firmly established before you can start chopping away at them. I think I’ve been successful because both plants are growing out of control already. Normally my neighbors, who also grow rhubarb plants, see theirs grow not much more than two feet high. Both of my plants are going strong and are already three and a half feet high and I can just about taste that strawberry-rhubarb jam we’ll be making later this Fall.
I can now sit on the deck and watch the garden grow for the next three months. I’ll be forced to kill some insects, slugs, and other assorted pests but that’s just normal gardening activities. My biggest fears are the deer that love to show up once the plants are a few inches tall and chew them off a ground level. This is the same battle my father fought for years and never was able to completely win.
Everyone I know has their own methods for dealing with deer but honestly they don’t have much more success than he did. I’ve been told to spread powdered blood around, hang human hair in panty hose from the trees, build a six foot high fence, and the best and most disgusting solution was for me to urinate around the garden whenever possible. As much as I like peeing outside, I think I’ll skip that one. It could very quickly make my neighbors a little uncomfortable.
My better-half has suggested we build a human size scarecrow in the hopes it will scare the deer away in those early hours of the morning when they usually visit. I think I’ll try and create one that looks as much like my ex-wife as possible. It should certainly scare the hell out of them just like it will scare the hell out of me. I guess I can deal with that kind of trauma if it keeps the freaking deer out of my garden. Man just thinking about that sends a cold chill up my back.
Thank God there aren’t many moose in this general vicinity. Even a scarecrow of my ex-wife wouldn’t scare those big bastards away. Life in Maine is always interesting.
After today I came to truly understand why I’d never have made a very good farmer. It’s one of the hardest working careers someone could possibly pursue. I was advised by my nursery owning friend that the final fear of frost had finally passed and now I’m free to begin planting my garden. I’ve been waiting patiently for this day for weeks which should explain just how stupid I can be.
While my garden is not a full fledged farm, it still requires a great deal of work and attention to be successful. My preparations for this summers garden started last Fall when I composted the entire garden. It’s continued until today with making the decisions on what will be grown, how much to plant, where to plant, and when to plant. I purchased the majority of the plants early but it was too cold to plant them. I’ve had them stored in a cold frame for almost two weeks until the fear of frost had passed.
I started my day today by planting kale, spinach, beets, kohlrabi, and a selection of new herbs. For the second year I’ve been forced to replace a number of herb plants that didn’t survive the winter. It’s frustrating as hell but it’s something I’ve learned to live with. I added thyme, lime basil, dill, cilantro, rosemary, and curry to the already existing plants. The herb garden is now complete for this year and I hope I can harvest enough this Fall to get us through next winter.
After having a quick lunch I began planting the remaining plants I’ve been nursing along for all these weeks. I planted my zucchini, yellow squash, and pickling cucumbers. A few years ago I picked up a tip from an old gardener on how to grow these types of plants. He explained that when planting just place a partially crushed hard boiled egg a few inches beneath each plant to provide extra nourishment during the early growth weeks. I tried it for the first time last year with excellent results. I grew a number of plants with eggs and an equal number and type without. There was a marked difference in the size of the plants with eggs as well as the amount of squash, cucumbers, and zucchini s they produced.
After completing the planting I watered everything by hand to help them get established. I then hooked up the sprinkler system and tested it. As always problems arise at the worst times. One of the sprinkler sections refused to work requiring another hour of my time to repair it. One last job was to de-slug the garden. Our worst problem here are slugs that can be really destructive if not properly controlled. I spread a sufficient amount of pellets around each plant to begin the battle for this year. I’ll be forced to do this at least three more times this growing season to keep those damn slugs under control.
Water every day, try to chase away the deer, rabbits, and other creatures at night and maybe the garden will be a success. Expect the worst and hope for the best. I couldn’t even begin to understand how farmers with hundreds of acres ever get all of their work done but I’m glad they do.
Hopefully after today I can sit on my deck for a few months and watch everything grow. Then it will be time to harvest all the goodies and prepare the garden for next year.
Our fear of snow and frost has finally past and I can get on with our Spring and Summer plans. I’ve been sun burned once already and now I’m taking extra steps to be a little more careful. With the remodel in the house completed I can now center all of my attention to the yard and garden.
I visited a friend yesterday who lives nearby and owns a small nursery. He is a supplier of plants to many of the local and larger nurseries in southern Maine. He’s been very helpful over the years in educating me on growing plants in this State. I decided to shop around a little because every year he offers plants for sale that many others in the area do not.
I started looking through his new greenhouses and I couldn’t stop myself from loading up on plants. I have a fairly large cold frame at home and I purchased enough plants to completely fill it and then some. I filled my car with hot peppers, pickling cucumbers, squash, zucchini, and mustard plants. It was an excellent start for the season. I also purchased seedlings of three types of lettuce, spinach, and a couple cherry tomato plants. I’ll be planting the cold resistant plants today but waiting another week before starting anything else. The weather here can be weird at times with unannounced frost occurring well into May. I’ve been burned before so I won’t let it happen again.
Every garden has issues and mine is no different. I’ve been trying for years to grow big, fat, and red tomatoes with absolutely no luck. We instead plant the cherry tomatoes which always thrive in the same damn soil. I had the soil tested and added whatever was needed to get it balanced properly and still no success. I love making my homemade pasta sauces and salsas but it’s always much better when made with freshly grown tomatoes.
I finished construction of a new type of trellis for my beans. I’m planting both red and yellow climbing beans which should completely fill this trellis in no time. We always do well with them and eat those beans all winter long. There is nothing better to eat on a cold February night.
I’ll be looking for some kale seedlings in the next few day as well. Our harvest of kale last summer made our winter soups pretty damn tasty. I just wash it, blanch it and the freeze it. I like it almost as well as frozen spinach and I’m hoping I’ll have the same success as in the past.
My better-half is obsessed with sun flowers and required me to set aside an area in the garden for them. She usually plants a large variety of sizes and colors including the mammoth plants that can get 10 to 12 feet tall. At the end of the season we allow the heads to dry and they feed hundreds of birds for a few weeks.
Well, the plants have been transferred into the cold frame to await a warmer week. I installed my simple but effective sprinkler system which should keep all of the plants well watered and healthy. Now all I have to worry about are Mother Natures little helpers. Deer, rabbits, squirrels, horn worms, and all of natures other little inconveniences that make gardening such a challenge.
I’m lying here this morning and cursing the fact that Spring has apparently sprung. These last few days of beautiful weather must have effected by mind and made me even more stupid than people say I am. I’ve been completely caught up in the Spring Fever craziness and I’m paying the price for it today.
Yesterday was my first full day dedicated totally to yard work and garden preparations. I dearly love gardening but I made a rookie mistake and allowed myself to forget about the basics of working outside. Full sunshine should never be ignored or forgotten, EVER. I started my day by pulling out the rototiller and spent an hour turning over the soil in the garden to loosen it up before planting. Then getting even more stupid I continued working by placing black landscape fabric over the garden frames and attaching it to the ground with large metal staples. This fabric is cool because it eliminates weeding but still allows the rain water to soak through. The sun was very hot but I was in the gardening zone, unfortunately.
I was still pumped about the day so I decided after finishing the fabric installation to fire up my riding mower and do a quick yard cleanup. Now I’ve been in the sun without any lotion or hat for some four hours. I was still feeling good so I kept on going by cutting the grass for the first time this year.
If you look up the word stupid in the dictionary you just might find my photograph there. I am the poster boy for stupid as reflected in my cherry red head, nose, cheeks, ears, and lips. I took a shower before going to bed and I’m surprised the neighbors didn’t hear all the screaming. I am an effing moron who looks like a French Fry. I slopped at least a pint of lotion on my face and head hoping that it would help but it didn’t. I probably won’t be able to shave in the morning or even smile.
After all of that I still had a great day. Having been sick for the previous week really put me behind schedule on the garden work and unfortunately Mother Nature waits for no man. Now I’m fully up to speed and back on schedule. As soon as my face stops glowing I’ll be right back out there playing in the dirt and enjoying as much of the warm weather as I can.
I’d like to continue this posting but a cold shower and another bottle of lotion await.
I think I’ve survived my bout with the flu and it appears the worst is over. My ribs are still killing me from all the coughing but that will pass in a few days. What I need most right now is to get up and out of the house to enjoy the beautiful weather that’s expected for the next few days. The good weather and a little yard work will be just the thing to get me moving again in the right direction. It’s time to change clothes and begin my Spring in a proper fashion.
My better-half is already out and about and doing her gardening thing and she’s awaiting my arrival. The herb garden is in grim shape so that’s where I’ll start. It appears that due to the heavy snow cover this winter most of the plants survived and are beginning to poke through the ground already. I’ll just need to replant the basil and parsley which are annuals and a couple of thymes that didn’t make it. That to me is a good winter result. In almost every winter since moving to Maine I’ve found it necessary to replace on average of eight to ten plants.
The neighbor’s outdoor cat should be really happy too. The catnip is already two inches high and there are a bunch of tiny little footprints already in the area from his nightly visits. That dumb cat loves getting stoned on that catnip.
I’ve just about given up on growing thyme and I’m really tired of replanting and replanting with nothing to show for it. We use a lot of herbs in our cooking which requires harvesting and drying them each Fall for storage. I try to harvest only thirty percent of any plant because any more than that will kill them. The thyme seems to be so delicate that if I harvest any of the plant at all it doesn’t survive the winter. I could try a large number of plants and take just a little from each but we don’t use enough thyme in our dishes to justify that.
It’s noon already and I’ve cleaned at least eight bushels of dead plant material from the garden. Things are looking good here but we have a few more things that require our attention as well. My better-half loves lilac plants so last year I purchased her two as a birthday gift and we planted them along the side of the house. They made it through the winter and appear very healthy. Unfortunately the amount of sun they get in that location could be better. After some discussion yesterday we’ve decided they need to be transplanted elsewhere.
My better-half spent her morning creating a new flower bed in front of the house that receives more than eight hours of full sun each day. We just finished transplanting the lilacs to their new home and I expect them to easily double in size by the end of the summer. Once they start blooming that wonderful scent will make sitting on the deck a lot more enjoyable.
We just finished cleaning up the remainder of the debris from the backyard. It’s surrounded on three sides by woods and believe it or not trees make one hell of a mess. More goodies for the compost pile which is beginning to look more like a compost mountain. Thank God I use a lot of it each Fall to re-energize the gardens but it really does pile up quickly.
It’s early in the year but all of my better-half’s efforts from last summer are beginning to pay off. She has daffodils, tulips, and many others flowers already in bloom and the front of the house looks fantastic. It’s time for us both to put the tools away and call it a day. These kind of days are always hard work but it’s well worth it. It’s always been a great way for us both to clear our heads, forget about all of the everyday nonsense, and just dig in the dirt for a while. It’s a great stress reliever and way cheaper than therapy.
My drywall frustration continued again today shortly after I started priming the ceiling. I’m enough of a realist to understand that no matter how hard you try it’s almost impossible to do a remodeling project in an old house that is just perfect. I accepted that fact and decided early on I would deal with those problems as they occurred. Well, they did.
I purposely made the decision to for this to be a winter project and to take as much time as necessary to do it right. From the first that freaking ceiling was a problem. It wasn’t level and the room wasn’t square but I fixed each issue as best I could and proceeded on. In my heart I knew that no matter what there would be certain areas I could never get perfect.
As soon as I began painting today I discovered a new drywall rule of thumb. Everything good is really bad and everything bad is really good. Every area that I was concerned with turned out perfect and the two areas I was worried the least about became the biggest problems. One area couldn’t be properly fixed and will require additional repair work once the remainder of the room is completed. It’s just so damn frustrating.
Enough with the damn remodel. I finally made my way outside and it was the most gorgeous day so far this month. I managed to complete some of the yard cleanup, chatted with a neighbor or two, and cleared my head of remodeling issues. After my better-half arrived home from work we sat down and began to plan the garden. What and where we should plant, buying additional soil to fill the frames, and a possible expansion of the garden to allow her to plant thirty of forty of the larger species of sunflowers. It was an hour well spent that will make this year’s garden preparation less of a challenge.
One of our neighbors stopped by and he really has a bad case of garden/spring fever. Over the past few summers he and his wife created a basic home garden and discovered how much they enjoyed it. This year their two young daughters, ages five and seven, are becoming more involved. The girls are are ready to jump into things immediately and have already started a few seeds and can’t wait to get a little dirty with their mom and dad in the garden. It should a great summer for all of us exchanging gardening tips and canning techniques. I’m looking forward to my first visit from his girls to talk about our gardens. They’re too cute to be believed.
My book reading goal was reached last night when I completed both my sci-fi and non-fiction novels. I read well into the night and had a great time in the process. Now I can finish the third book at my leisure and take a little time to properly enjoy it.
Slowly but surely I’m making progress.
I can hardly believe that it’s sixty-five degrees here in Maine today this early in April. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I find myself doing yard cleanup and loving it. I didn’t put on a normal summer outfit like shorts and a t-shirt because I’m not a total idiot. All you have to do is walk into a shaded area and you’ll realize almost immediately just how cold it still is. I’m dressed in long sleeves, jeans, and a light coat. I’ve learned the hard way in past years when I dressed too lightly and ended up with a Spring cold that took forever to go away. My better-half has been complaining for the last couple of days about her cough, runny nose, and scratchy throat. I think she’s about to come down with something that I’m sure she’ll pass right along to me. Isn’t true love wonderful? Just one fantastic perk after another.
We both felt the immediate need to rush out to one of the big box home improvement stores yesterday to begin our Spring spending spree. It’s never too early or too cold to begin loading up with seeds, plants, yard tools, and the occasional yard gnome. We both realize it’s way too early in the season to start this nonsense but we can’ seem to stop ourselves. We apparently aren’t alone because the store was crowded with shoppers filling their carts with anything and everything imaginable. I managed to escape the madness with an expenditure of just a few dollars less than a hundred. Madness I tell you, just freaking madness.
After returning home my better-half immediately changed clothes, grabbed a rake, and began working furiously in the yard. It would have been useless for me to try and stop her so I didn’t even make the attempt. I found a really comfortable chair and placed it on the deck where I could watch. There’s nothing much better than loafing and watching someone else work. She’s got Spring Fever so bad she’s almost out of control and I won’t be the person who tries to slow her down. She can become dangerous when fooled with.
After raking for an hour she finally gave it up and returned to the deck where I’d been saving her a seat. She lasted about thirty minutes longer than I thought she would. We enjoyed the sunshine for another hour and I do believe we got a pretty good start on our summer tans. It eventfully became a little too chilly for comfort so we grabbed up the cat and returned to the house. It was a nice start to better weather but we’re still a long way from actual warmth and real sunshine.
I’ll be returning to the woods later this week with camera in hand to begin my search for a few of those illusive creatures that escaped my notice last fall. Patience usually pays off in these matters or so I’ve been told. I love being out with Mother Nature without two feet of snow slowing me down. Another week and the snow will be history and the fun summer can begin.
Another winter month coming to an end. It’s hard to believe that it’s March already and we’re within a few short weeks of April and the beginning of another Spring. Even with all of the snow, sleet, and ice we’ve had this winter it’s just flown by.
Since I’m the ultimate planner I ‘m already looking forward to gardening and how I plan on improving our garden. You really can’t start too soon in Maine because our growing season is so much shorter than the norm. Last year we had some successes with the garden and a couple of abject failures. For the first time I planted collard greens just to see if they’d grow in this colder climate. OMG, a huge mistake on my part. I didn’t realize just how freaking big those plants could get. I planted only six plants and they just took over the entire corner of my growing frame. I was so pissed I jerked them out of the ground and personally delivered them to the compost pile. I wasn’t even smart enough to keep one or two to eat. I’m guess I’m in need of counseling to help me manage my Garden Anger.
I like keeping a medium sized garden that produces well and anything that I deem a problem or an obstacle to my goals is gone, gone, gone. I guess that’s why my compost pile is fifteen feet long and three feet high.
My biggest disappointment is growing tomatoes. I love to eat them and use them in a variety of recipes but it seems that successfully growing them isn’t likely to happen. Cherry tomatoes seem to do well both in the garden and containers on the deck but regular tomatoes, no such luck. I’ve tried different fertilizers, had my soil tested and adjusted, planted a number of variations, all to no avail. I even went so far as to buy a couple of those upside-down growing bags that were advertised on TV for a couple of summers. They were a huge pain in the ass to start with and never produced a single tomato. Very frustrating to say the least.
I have a sizeable herb garden which always does well and supplies us with a variety of herbs for cooking year round. I may try a few new and different things this year like adding additional garlic chive plants, a chocolate mint or two, and maybe two or three varieties of basil and sages. It’s much more fun to experiment with your plantings when there’s no fear of the plants not growing as expected. I’ve discovered that most herbs will survive almost anything except a lack of water.
Well, so much for my first taste of Spring Fever. It all started with this little burst of warm weather today. I feel as most people in Maine do. We’ve had our long and snow-laden winter which was beautiful and all but it time to move on. Very soon we’ll have warm weather, the smell of cut grass, walks in the woods, strolls on the beach, and vacation visits from family and friends who refuse to come to Maine in the winter. Can’t wait!
Here’s hoping 2013 is as good as expected and even better than last year. C’mon warm weather, you’ve been missed.
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