gardening

It’s been several years since we’ve had a vegetable garden. Not since we moved in fact. So this spring as I was moving perennials around, I was also contemplating where to put in a raised bed. I decided to remove a tired flower bed that had been taken over by primroses. They were quite a sight in bloom but not so much to look at the rest of the summer and a black hole for balls, toys and the feet and even backsides of children running through the yard. I gave away at least 50 bags of the plants through our local freecycle exposing a large area of dirt. So when we decided on the spot for the raised bed, Rich removed the sod before putting the wooden frame in place and I transplanted the chunks of sod to the site of the former flower bed. It worked wonderfully.

Two months later we are enjoying the fruits of our labor, a few purchased seedlings and a number of gifted transplants (and a yard+ of loam/compost). The blackberries came from a few old plants barely visible among the brambles at the edge of the woods behind the house. We’ve also enjoyed fresh dill, chives and greens this summer. I’m waiting on more cukes, zukes, ‘maters and squash to ripen in the coming weeks. The peppers, alas, have shown little inclination to do anything. I may pot them and bring them inside.

I don’t have a lot of pictures to show for it just yet but I’ve been spending a lot of time bent over a shovel out in the yard. I’m going to share with you the best gardening tip ever, received from my mother, who doesn’t think she’s creative. Divide hostas using a cordless saw. Now if that’s not creative thinking, what is??

Of course I didn’t have the foresight to strip the sod out of the desired planting area beforehand. When the kids (my two and one of the neighbor’s) asked to help plant the chunks of hosta I just had to dig the holes as fast as I could and let them plunk the hostas into the ground. I also received some Solomon’s seal from a freecycler and put those in behind, also some upright phlox which I hope will flower white. I do plan on removing the rest of the sod and filling in with some lily of the valley that are not happy in their current location, and perhaps some white tulips and then a really short groundcover if necessary. Maybe just mulch. Anyway, the north end of the house, once bare, is now beginning to take on my vision of a green and white shade garden.

I started container gardening when we moved to our first apartment in Maine. We had a small balcony that got just enough sun for me to grow a few tomato and pepper plants on the railing. I enjoyed how clean and easy this was, no bugs to combat, no bending over. When we moved into a house, Rich built a raised bed and we had several gardens there. That was nice too but I still found it really convenient to grow our salad greens in planters on the front doorstep where I could just snip a salad without putting on my shoes.

This is our first summer in the new house and while I had really hoped to put in a vegetable garden it just hasn’t happened. In hindsight it’s probably better that we didn’t as here we are approaching July and we’ve had about three days of sunshine.

But I did start some salad greens in this hanging basket. I had the seeds and I had the basket and the hooks were still stuck in the ground where they got “planted” on moving day. I should have planted both baskets for a more frequent harvest, I still could given the cool weather here in Maine. But the rain-loving slugs and snails that have been eating everything on the ground haven’t bothered my salad greens at all! Salad greens don’t need a deep container and once the leaves are 3-4″ tall you can harvest once a week or so and they will continue to send up new leaves as long as it doesn’t get too hot. You can even move the baskets or planters around!