Out Of The Gate (Take 2)
So much for sticking with a daily/weekly gardening blog last year. It seemed like such a great idea at the time. Someday I would like to be disciplined enough to actually start some serious writing , and "what better way to prepare for that than to work on the necessary skills regularly with this simple little blog?", I naively thought to myself a year ago.
How quickly the demands of home and business take front seat , and those vapid little aspirations of one part-time writer quickly vanished like so many early morning fogs on Hardy Pond .
So here I am, a year later, some may say a year wiser ( I dispute that point of view) back at this anew, ready to commit, reinvigorated from the contact high of my first ever surprise party. Still coming down off that one actually. Then there is that one unavoidable, stone cold, hard motivator Tuesday when I awoke: "40 years?! Can it be? But I just turned 30? WTF! When the hell did this happen?! I wish someone could have let me in on it ."
May was a very busy month around our little backyard "farm". We are about to embark upon a major home addition project, and the small, back corner of our rapidly shrinking yard( where the garden beds lie,) will be affected somewhat, to what extent I still do not know. Trying to get a straight answer out of a contractor seems to be as hard as getting Bush to leave Iraq. This project has been in the works for over a year now , yet we still have no definitive starting date.
So I had to scale back this year and the first 2 weekends in May were spent constructing two 2x8x12" boxes and moving the 3'x8" deep beds into them. Hopefully where they are located now will give the contractor enough room to do what he has to do, while allowing me to have at least some gardening space to work.
May is a month that passes much too quickly in my opinion. It truly is one of New England's finest .The spring sibling to autumn's October I like to think. What great weather we have had to kick off the outdoor season! This weather could not be more of a 180 from what we were experiencing during the spring monsoon of '06. Bright , sunny, dry, warm days with few if any clouds in the sky. Makes me think of summer in Nova Scotia .
Last week my son (he is 6) and I marked off the 32 squares in the boxes for our square foot garden, and planted some roma bush beans, some wax bush beans, a couple varieties of carrots , and some romaine lettuce. So far we seem to have almost 100% of both of the beans, as they began poking through a couple days ago. It also looks like maybe some carrots ( or something - I cant remember what- was planted in that square) or lettuce are coming on strong as I write this.
We are trying our tomatoes on the side of our house along the driveway this year. Should get plenty of sun and warmth , just what they love. The soil there is a bit suspect I am afraid so will have to make a major effort to stay on top of feeding them. Usually I plant and forget and we get way more toms than we can eat . This year we went with beefsteaks, brandywine I think, that we started from seed on Easter . Should be tasty . We also have some watermelon next to them , but I do not have high hopes for the melons based on how anemic they have looked since they sprouted. Oh well . Keep our fingers crossed I guess.
D is so serious about his efforts in the yard. Whether its helping Dad build a container, or hosing off his chalk artwork from the driveway, the intensity with which he sets about is not to be trifled with. I am amazed at what a great little helper he has become ( and he is only 6!) He loves playing with the all the cool tools and hopefully he learns a little something along the way . And I cannot forget to mention little Mimzee and her absolute love of everything that flowers-perennials, annuals, weeds , if it has a bud she is ready to hug ! Needless to say there are more flowers in my garden than ever before this year. Up until my daughter was born I really only spent my efforts on veggies. But the delight in her eyes when she see a dandelion, let alone something really impressive like a Mammoth Sunflower, hell for that moment, I'll cover the yard in flowers.
Until Next Week
R
How quickly the demands of home and business take front seat , and those vapid little aspirations of one part-time writer quickly vanished like so many early morning fogs on Hardy Pond .
So here I am, a year later, some may say a year wiser ( I dispute that point of view) back at this anew, ready to commit, reinvigorated from the contact high of my first ever surprise party. Still coming down off that one actually. Then there is that one unavoidable, stone cold, hard motivator Tuesday when I awoke: "40 years?! Can it be? But I just turned 30? WTF! When the hell did this happen?! I wish someone could have let me in on it ."
May was a very busy month around our little backyard "farm". We are about to embark upon a major home addition project, and the small, back corner of our rapidly shrinking yard( where the garden beds lie,) will be affected somewhat, to what extent I still do not know. Trying to get a straight answer out of a contractor seems to be as hard as getting Bush to leave Iraq. This project has been in the works for over a year now , yet we still have no definitive starting date.
So I had to scale back this year and the first 2 weekends in May were spent constructing two 2x8x12" boxes and moving the 3'x8" deep beds into them. Hopefully where they are located now will give the contractor enough room to do what he has to do, while allowing me to have at least some gardening space to work.
May is a month that passes much too quickly in my opinion. It truly is one of New England's finest .The spring sibling to autumn's October I like to think. What great weather we have had to kick off the outdoor season! This weather could not be more of a 180 from what we were experiencing during the spring monsoon of '06. Bright , sunny, dry, warm days with few if any clouds in the sky. Makes me think of summer in Nova Scotia .
Last week my son (he is 6) and I marked off the 32 squares in the boxes for our square foot garden, and planted some roma bush beans, some wax bush beans, a couple varieties of carrots , and some romaine lettuce. So far we seem to have almost 100% of both of the beans, as they began poking through a couple days ago. It also looks like maybe some carrots ( or something - I cant remember what- was planted in that square) or lettuce are coming on strong as I write this.
We are trying our tomatoes on the side of our house along the driveway this year. Should get plenty of sun and warmth , just what they love. The soil there is a bit suspect I am afraid so will have to make a major effort to stay on top of feeding them. Usually I plant and forget and we get way more toms than we can eat . This year we went with beefsteaks, brandywine I think, that we started from seed on Easter . Should be tasty . We also have some watermelon next to them , but I do not have high hopes for the melons based on how anemic they have looked since they sprouted. Oh well . Keep our fingers crossed I guess.
D is so serious about his efforts in the yard. Whether its helping Dad build a container, or hosing off his chalk artwork from the driveway, the intensity with which he sets about is not to be trifled with. I am amazed at what a great little helper he has become ( and he is only 6!) He loves playing with the all the cool tools and hopefully he learns a little something along the way . And I cannot forget to mention little Mimzee and her absolute love of everything that flowers-perennials, annuals, weeds , if it has a bud she is ready to hug ! Needless to say there are more flowers in my garden than ever before this year. Up until my daughter was born I really only spent my efforts on veggies. But the delight in her eyes when she see a dandelion, let alone something really impressive like a Mammoth Sunflower, hell for that moment, I'll cover the yard in flowers.
Until Next Week
R
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