Well, Something's Lost but Something's Gained in Living Every Day

I just love this time of year, when things first start to poke out of the ground. I get to see what has survived the winter, and I go on treasure hunts, looking for plants that have seeded, spread or otherwise popped up in an unexpected place.  

One summer I enjoyed a Datura that thrived on the periphery of one of my garden beds. I hadn’t had a Datura growing for at least 5 years. It must have grown from a seed that had remained viable in the ground for that long, its will to live and its drive to survive stronger then time itself. 
This year I am delighting in the downy soft new growth of catnip,

and I’m happily watching gooseberry volunteers sprouting their thorny selves beside their mother. Last year I worried that I was going to become overtaken by my Lemon Balm, so in the fall I ripped out all my plants, roots and all. I tried to worry that I would have to buy new plants this year, but I just couldn’t muster up a good level of anxiety. Why? Because just as I was pretty sure they would, a few patches of Lemon Balm have already made their presence lustily known, their slightly pebbly new growth gleaming with a deep, luscious green glow. 

Ah, but the losses. My beloved Black Raspberry did not survive. I didn’t think it was such a terrible winter, so I just can’t understand why it died! It was positively luxuriant last year, and sent up very healthy new growth, which I dutifully trained on its arbor all summer and fall.  I had discovered this bramble in the deep shade between my house and the house of my neighbour to the west. It was tiny and twisted, and gave only a few precious berries every year. A few years ago (and I sometimes wonder why it took me so long) I had the brilliant idea to take the tiny, struggling twig of a cane, and transplant it to a proper garden bed where it could enjoy proper sun, water, care and trellising. Well, this plant rewarded me with the most exuberant explosion of growth that you could imagine. It went from producing six berries to 6 cups of berries, and did better every summer. Until, I am now sadly realizing this summer. Now I am combing my property, looking for just one, tiny, thorny volunteer – perhaps from a seed dropped by bird, a squirrel, or even by me. Something thorny is growing in my gooseberry bed. It’s definitely not a gooseberry, I can tell because of the leaves. I have just sold my last jar of Black Raspberry jam, so I’m hoping against hope that what I am watching is a new black raspberry plant reaching towards the light from under my gooseberry bush. 

Speaking about reaching towards the light, I have been crouching daily beside my asparagus bed, delicately scraping away the layers of winter mulch to see if I could detect any indications of growth. Today I discovered asparagus, starting to break the ground! All different sizes and colors  – some thinner, some thicker, some still stark white, some beginning to darken to green, and some even having what seems to be a bit of a purplish cast.  

Something has been nibbling on my pea sprouts, and I’m wondering if I need to protect my asparagus. What should I do? I’ll have to go back to my shelf of garden books. I’m sure Rodale has some advice for me. But nothing ever ate my pea sprouts before! How am I to grow peas if the sprouts keep being eaten to the ground??

It’s now past the last frost date for Toronto, and warm enough at night now, I think, to plant the tomato seedlings. I have grape cluster tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and some midsize tomatoes. I am staying with smaller tomatoes this year, as I have better luck with them. At the end of the season, I always have so many large green tomatoes. I figured if I stay with smaller ones, they would have a better chance of ripening before the season ended. This year, if I have green tomatoes, I’m going to try a technique I read about. Before the first hard frost, the technique requires that you pull the whole plant out of the ground, and hang it upside down in a cool dark place, such as a cold cellar or garage. Word is that the green tomatoes will ripen. I’m slightly skeptical, but, after picking a few green tomatoes for slicing, breading, and frying, I will have nothing to lose.

So far I have planted 10 tomato seedlings, using lots and lots of my homemade compost. I have also put my home-rotted compost around my raspberry sprouts, on my asparagus bed, and around all my garlic sprouts and new herb patches. I sure hope it’s good compost, or my garden is in big trouble! I’ve spread four large buckets of it, and I have at least eight buckets left. Perhaps more.  After I planted the tomato seedlings up to their necks in holes back-filled with compost, I then take a handful of the huge pine needles I have laying under my trees, and build a little nest on the ground around the base of the plant. I snuggle the needles up against the plant, to help support the leaves. 

I like to think it gives them a bit of protection during their first few days and nights – especially from wind, which they have had only little opportunity to experience. My seedlings were bought from a nursery that stores them outside, so I figured they were already hardened off to some degree, but as I always say, a little support can never go amiss. 

I plan to go big in the lavender department this year, so I augmented my two lavender beds with some new seedlings. My lavender has been spreading, but rather slowly, so I supplemented it’s journey down the side of my driveway. Last year was such an awesome year for the garden, with such a warm, early spring, hot summer, and warm fall. I had three flushes of blooms on my lavender, and on my roses! I will continue to deadhead earnestly, of course, and also send messages of love, support and gratefulness to Gaia, hoping to foster in her warm and generous sentiments which she will translate into a special growing season.

My garden addition this year that I am most excited about is two Sea Buckthorn plants – two two-year-old trees, to be specific. Not only are Sea Buckthorn saplings difficult to find, but trying to source quality plants is even more of a challenge. I found one farm in Ontario that sells beautiful plants, and I am now the proud owner of a “family,” one female tree, and one male tree. Can I really use the word "owner" if I'm referring to new family members?  I have beautiful visions of jars and jars of jam, jelly, and juice. I know I’ll likely only get a handful of berries this year, if any, but I am promised that the trees should be as tall as me in two years, if grown under optimal conditions. I have also been counseled to keep them pruned at about that height, and not let them get taller. Likely because they will become unmanageable. I will definitely keep posting on their progress.  

I have another goal this year, to do something I have not done before, which is to weigh all the produce that comes in from the garden, and keep a record of the weight, and what I did with it, such as eat it, freeze it, dehydrate it (i.e. fruit or vegetables) for future consumption, or dry it (i.e. herbs and flowers) for the production of Arethusa’s edibles and skin care products.

Once again, raccoons have made their presence known in my garden. There is a nicely protected corridor between the last row of berries and my deck. Year after year, the raccoons adopt this spot, to put it bluntly, as their toilet. Each year I try a new way to discourage them.  The “scarecrow” which has a motion detector, and which will send jets of spray at anything that moves within its range of detection, does work well, but if I forget to turn off the water before I go weeding or berry picking, I get quite the hard spray. Sometimes, if I’m lazy, I’ll try to sneak around the scarecrow, but more often then not, I grossly overestimate my skill of being able to sneak about my own garden undetected, and return to the house abashed, and dripping. This year I’m taking a two pronged attack. One, the scarecrow.  Two, I have acquired a large amount of rosebush clippings, and I have constructed a deep pile of them where the raccoons like to go the most.  So far, no “fresh” signs of raccoon visits. May it continue to be so.