Some Decisions are Easy, Some Not So Much

Some decisions are so easy - I knew just where to put the Sea Buckthorn, just as I knew where to place the peach coloured rose bush our friends gave us, whose blooms, by the way, smell just like a bowl freshly picked raspberries, still warm from the sun. So why can't I decide where to put my Lemon Verbena? Each afternoon I come home from work, determined to plant it. I pick it up. I look at it. I sniff it's leaves. I carry it around the garden, and then I put it back in the "nursery", beside my other pots of little plants; mostly rescued volunteers that will also need a home soon, too.

I can now see little apples on the very top branches of my Apple/Crabapple tree. I hope I get a bite or two of some of them. The tree's branches are growing on either side of the hydro lines, and the apples are growing at the very top of the branches, so climbing and picking them is not an option. Really, no decision is necessary. I have to wait, and hope that a few apples will drop when they are still in relatively good shape, and that I'll find them before too many other hungry things do, so I can get a bite or two. I don't know what kind of apples they are, but I do know that they're yellow skinned, and the sweetest apples I've ever tasted.

I'm having a great harvest from my chamomile, pennyroyal and roses. It's a difficult decision to harvest the rose petals. If I leave the flowers on the bush, the petals wilt, fade, fall off, and become impossible to use later. If I pick them when they're bright and fresh, I can't sit and enjoy looking at the flowers on the bush. I must say that I'm not agonizing over very petal, but I am glad to say that I'm gardening consciously and deliberately. I do confess that at times it's nice to be out, just letting my mind wander, but there's also a great deal of satisfaction to be had by being present in the garden, and working mindfully, paying attention, and paying gratitude, to everything.  

I do love it when I see the garden preparing for the following year. The raspberries are simultaneously bearing fruit on last year's canes, and sending of strong, tall straight canes for next year. The Tayberry is doing the same, and if I let them, the new stalks, which are thicker then my thumb, will continue to climb upwards of eight feet. This is not convenient, as you can imagine, picking berries eight feet off the ground is no simple task, especially when I'm competing with wasps for the ripe berries. I will nip then ends off these stalks when they get to about five feet high, and I will then train the side shoots to grow on the arbor that I have build for them. Last year, the side shoots where so thick that Cardinals, who have build a nest somewhere on our property for the last 10 years, decided to build their nest nestled in the side shoots that I had secured to the arbor. Unfortunately the babies didn't survive, so I hope that the Cardinals will find a new spot for their nest this year.

My beans are growing, well, they're growing as fast as bean stalks! They'll grab on to and spiral around anything they touch. The tomatoes have finally caught on, and have become ready for support, so I've been putting the cages around them. I've decided this year to keep better control over the tomato side sprouts. Yes, yes, I know, I say that every year, and every year I get these multi-stalked, out of control tomato jungles that are difficult to approach, much less harvest. Well, I really mean it this year! Every day I have been inspecting each tomato stalk, and picking out the tiny sprouts that reappear over night, as if by magic, and the base of every leaf where it meets the stalk. Those plants never give up, no matter how many sprouts I nip from the same spot! Has anyone ever found out how to prevent this?? I for one would love to learn. The plants are now flowering, and a few even have a few tiny baby tomatoes starting to grow.

Another easy decision is to pull out all the mint I can find. One day, many, many years ago, I was thoughtless enough to plant mint in my garden bed. Although I did finally eradicate the spearmint, through thorough and frequent digging, I was not as effective with the ginger mint. Regularly during the season I dig out all the sprouts, trying to take as much root as I can. At the end of every season, I do a really good, careful dig, again trying to remove what I hope will be all the roots. So far the ginger mint continues to regrow, so I have mint to harvest all season. I can harvest wantonly, with abandon, even, all the while being quite sure that it will not be my last mint harvest. Oh well. Tea for all, I say.

After the Rain

Last Wednesday, I was in the garden about 6:30 p.m., when suddenly it seemed as if someone had turned out the lights. It got dark in an instant, and then the wind picked up, and the sky turned that scary green colour that means "take cover, and not under a tree". A fierce storm came through, complete with hail. I was concerned for the garden, fearing the worst for my young seedlings. I was reassured to find that only a few plants were laying down, such as my Lamb's Ears:

  
and they all popped right up again.   Just to the right of the Lamb's Ears are some Lady's Mantle. The shape of their leaves allows them to hold on to water droplets, and they rest on the leaves like sparkling gems:

My trick of propping little guys up with pine cones worked very well, and helped my tomatoes and ground cherries to remain standing throughout the onslaught of wind and hail: 

 
The garlic is now thick and lush. The slender spates have grown into curls as elegant as a swan's neck. Here is one, which grew surrounded by a volunteer copse of Love In a Mist:

 As delicate and romantic as the spates appear, alas, what starts in the garden is often destined to end up on the table. I'm seeing salmon, steamed with lemon, a little freshly cracked pepper, and these spates, photographed beside their cousin, a chive patch in bloom: 

Speaking of volunteers, I continue to be surprised by what sprouts in the garden in what is most often a rather unusual place. I never plant Pennyroyal. Instead, I hunt for the volunteer patches that grow every year. This year they are growing on the path between two of my garden beds. Now I have to tread carefully along my paths, while I train the Pennyroyal to grow in the beds, instead of where I need to walk!


I have a bramble volunteer in one of the containers on my front porch. It sprouted along with the greens that I have sown in the container, hoping to outsmart whatever is eating my greens in the beds at the back of the house.

I'll have to wait until it has some berries, to know exactly what kind of bramble it is. 

I get so many evergreen volunteers, and I don't have the heart to pull them out, so I'll either let them grow in place to get a little stronger, or I'll transplant them to a pot, and hope that I'll find a good home for them. Here's a cedar and two pine trees (although I think one of the pine trees isn't looking so good):

And here's what happens when I don't find a good home for them - I continue to foster them until they are teenagers....

These are some four and five year old cedars, who need a home. If you look carefully, you can see a two year old pine tree peeking out from under the cedar on the left. We have one of these adult trees on our lot - and it's one of the largest pine trees in the neighbourhood.  I am overrun with Lilac and Ironwood seedlings, and I do, with regret pull them out. Please speak up if you would like some.


As for the rest of the garden, it is growing slowly but surely. I have managed to keep some peas safe from the slugs - whether it was the weather, the location or the coffee grounds I suppose I'll never know, but here they are, slowly climbing their trellis.

The gooseberries are looking promising, hanging like beautiful emerald drop earrings:

And the red currants are doing well also, supported this year on tomato cages.

  
Thankfully, the Black Raspberry continues to thrive:

And the Elderberry, Lavender and Peach Roses are ready to bloom:

As much as I love the Sweet Woodruff that's growing in the rock garden, and I did know it would spread, (that's one of the reasons I put it there), I wish I had known that it spreads faster then mint, and makes such a thick carpet that it even out-competes the Forget-Me-Not! Here's the Sweet Woodruff in my rock garden, flanked by some Hyssop, Day Lilies and Carnations. Soon it will have tiny, delicate white flowers.

I could spend whole days in the garden, making tour after tour, always finding something to do on each trip. One tour to see what needs to be done in the next hour, day and week. One tour to dream about what to do next year. There's always another sprout to celebrate, another harvest to bring in, another feeding, another weeding, another staking, another pruning. Another tendril to train, another scent to savour, a few minutes to spend taking in all the different shades of green, and a few more to spend listening to the wind in the trees.




























 

Delicate Potential

This is such a delicate time of year. Seedlings have just been planted, or seeds are just sprouting. Both have so much potential, and both are also so terribly vulnerable. I can look at the garden in the morning, and think that things look good, plants look happy and healthy, and I can imagine the bounty to come. I can come home later that day, and if it's been very hot, the little plants might be soft and wilted. If there has been a hard rain, some of the plants might be found sideways, their first leaves stuck in the mud. At these times it's more difficult to conjure up the images of full salad bowls and long rows of preserve jars. I can finish weeding some tender seedlings in the evening, looking forward to beans and peas. In the morning I can wake to find stalks with chewed ends where so much life force was a few hours ago. Even now I am sprouting yet more bean seeds, to replace those that were lost to someone or something's meal. This time I'll wait until there are at least two, and maybe even three sets of true leaves, so if some are eaten, the plant may still survive. When the plant has only its first leaves, if they are eaten, the plant has no recourse but to waste away. There doesn't seem to be any node type area where more new leaves can sprout.

My husband was so clever, and noticed that a local supermarket had frozen Sea Buckthorn berries. He bought some for me, so I could experiment with some recipes, in preparation for future harvests and preserving marathons. My little trees are happy in their new home, doing well and settling in.

A friend has given me some large collard green plants. I'll find a place for them in a shadier part of the garden. I just learned that Bulk Barn carries grits, so I'll be able to have Collard Greens and Grits later in the summer!

Gardening is such a mix. Preparing and repairing, hoping and mourning, pulling things from the ground that I don't want, and pulling things from the ground that I do want. Planning where things will go, and planning what things must go. Anticipation and dread. Happiness and worry.

Sometimes when I'm out working in the garden, I imagine being a homesteader one hundred, two hundred, and maybe even five hundred years ago, depending on the food that will come out of the ground. I try to imagine what I might be thinking throughout the various gardening phases of the spring, summer and fall. Stakes were mighty high - survival through the winter depended on garden/farm success during the growing seasons. I try to make the effort to optimize success, in solidarity with all those past gardeners. If they hadn't succeeded, where would we be? I know how fortunate I am, that in truth, my gardening is play. I can always go to the store if I have a crop failure. Even so, I garden with my whole heart, just as I would if my life really did depend on it.