Tag Archives: gardening

June is Bustin’ Out All Over

I started writing this a few days ago before being saddened by the recent act of mass murder, this time in Florida. John Donne wrote long ago “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind.” I see that of course as “any person’s”. Once again we are all diminished because an unstable person was able to obtain an assault weapon.

I find comfort in our increasingly violent and also materialistic world in living things that don’t know about and are not affected by these things. Animals are top of my list, both domesticated and wild. Plants are next. So, I continue to happily engage with animals and plants and put the rest of this world in the back of my head when I can. I come out of it refreshed and a little more ready to cope.

I am helped by the fact that June is really busting out all over.

yellow iris iris

I have always loved musicals and even ones I haven’t seen for years leave their songs in me. This blog title is a song from Carousel which was set in Maine making it even more endearing to me.

Our growing season isn’t all that long here in Massachusetts which doesn’t bother me because as much as I love to lose myself in gardening, I am ready for the change of season to fall when it comes.

more iris By the same token I appreciate the opportunity to grow things when spring arrives. The explosions of color do feed the soul. Most of the iris were already here except for the dark purple ones that were given by an iris expert friend.

Before we moved here I had only seen the house once. I told myself that I would plant a peony bush here because I had one at our other house and loved its old timey appeal. peonies

After we moved in I found there were already 10 peony bushes! lupine

I planted lupine last year because we were once lucky enough to have a house on Prince Edward Island and they were everywhere up there. This is their first year blooming.

I plant annuals too. I had just put these in so they weren’t acclimated but I was transfixed by their shadow on the shed wall. windowbox shadow

I couldn’t resist this cute little fairy. My over active imagination likes to think she flies around when I am not looking. In fact I am sure she does. Maybe she shape changes to one of the hummingbirds at our feeder sometimes. fairy

well Each year when I put a flower pot by the well I think about the first woman who lived here, Julia Ann Storey, in the 1830s. She must be shaking her head when she sees that I have the time and frivolity to use the well for decoration, not for lugging buckets and buckets of water from it each day as she likely did.

I have planted some tomatoes and plan to get the rest of our vegetables from a great Farmer’s Market a mile away. There are other plants here that will feed us, some eventually. This elderberry bush that our son put in for us was 24″ tall when he planted it. Six weeks later it is 38″ tall.

He and I also put in an herb spiral that will grow both in number of plants and spiral over time.

herb spiral

My sea kale is coming along. I don’t expect to eat much of it this year, maybe a little in the fall, because like many perennials it is around for permanence, not for quick growth. sea kale June

The chickens aren’t left out either. Of course they would rather eat their garden than admire it. I hope what I see as cuteness isn’t torture to them! The plants in their garden must truly be hardy New Englanders because the hose doesn’t reach this far so they don’t get watered as much and it gets a lot of shade. In here go plants I transplant from other parts of the yard and ones left over from the annuals. It is never the exactly same year to year. The three chickens watch my every move when I am working in it and comment to each other. chicken garden

June is busting out all over with the help of gifts from the past of peonies, iris, the old well, hen house and shed with window boxes, gifts from others of plants and time like the purple iris, elderberry bush and planting of elderberry and herb spiral, maybe the magic of a little fairy and as always watered by happy sweaty labor of the gardener, me.

There are even more plants with stories and I appreciate what each one brings to my life. I hope everyone who loves to garden is getting the same chance to enjoy it and that those who don’t can fully enjoy their own passions.

Little rose bush who flourishes despite not enough attention and too many bugs

May!

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May is great month, second only to Autumn in my mind. It is a month of revitalization.Trees and perennial flowers are blooming. Gardening really gets going. This year for us it also includes being the lucky receivers of a permaculture plan for our property that our son is developing for a class. I find permaculture hard to define. It has many different levels to it but in a general sense it means working in harmony with nature while achieving resilience by using natural patterns. Because of his interest we have also been motivated to do some things we think about but haven’t seemed to get done. I have been inspired to finally start some perennial kale plants which is called Sea Kale. Once they are established they will come back every year. They fit into the permaculture model because they will come back over and over on their own and be a ready source of food. I am happy to see the new leaves growing.

A perennial kale called Sea Kale

Our son gave me an elderberry plant for Mother’s Day and planted it too.

Elderberry Bush May 1 2016

I like to measure dramatic things like the amount of snow during a big storm and found that when he put it in on May 1st it was 23″ tall. Today it was 28″ The reason it interests me to measure it is that it will get to be 10′ tall and 8′ wide . It is a resilient bush, won’t need help once it gets established and its berries can be eaten..

I grew up on the coast of Connecticut and for me there is nothing like water. I crave seeing it and luckily we are only 35 minutes away from towns on Buzzard’s Bay and another 10 from the Cape. But I want more of it in my life so I finally this May bought a small fountain after talking with our son about a water feature. I can hear it (right now) from a room in the house where we sit and read, and can hear it when I am working in the backyard. A silly little thing but I like it! The plant hadn’t started growing when we placed it there but it adds to the quirkiness of it.

Fountain

He gave his permaculture presentation of our plan last weekend in Portland Maine at the inspiring spot where he took this course and one before it. Back among old industrial buildings there is a revitalization going on that we see in many towns throughout New England in spots that have been or still are down on their luck. The setting for his workshop is in a place called the Resilience Hub. Next to it we found the Maine Library of Tools which we had to see. This is a place that lets out tools that people may need for a project but don’t want to or can’t afford to buy. Not only were there chain saws and the like but also things like large kitchen mixers. Such a good cooperative idea. I was gratified to see spinning wheels on their wish list! I didn’t expect to see that.

Since we were there we went to the waterside of course since I couldn’t leave without time there.I like to make water pictures big so I can really look into them.

Portland Maine wharf May 2016

Of course not a day goes by in any month that I don’t do fiber related activities. As part of our Eagle Lake Fibers tiny business we took a free two hour workshop on Legal Considerations for New Business Owners.

It was offered by another commendable organization based in MA called the Center for Women and Enterprise. They offer on-line classes as well as those that can be attended in person. Many have fees but a few are free as was this one. Lots of good information was provided. It was held in their Central Mass office in Westborough in an old -you guessed it- revitalized mill building. Lots of charm. As we were leaving we went down a hall and came upon: spinning wheel at mill

Spinning Wheel and Bobbin

I of course had to gently touch it and analyze missing pieces.

As far as creating goes this month, this is a table runner that I just wove on my rigid heddle loom using a cotton warp (the threads that go up and down) and my handwashed, handdyed hand combed and handspun yarn from Romney, Kerry Hill/Border Leicester and Cotswold sheep.Not in finished form here.

Handspun wool weft and commercial cotton warp

Gradient Spinning Batt

I have also been trying my hand at creating gradient batts which means the color of the fiber goes from light to darker. This one has rare Wendsleydale wool, alpaca and mohair in it and it is in our Eagle Lake Fibers Etsy shop.

Finally, a helpful retort found in a Portland coffee cafe and memorized:

The Land Breakers

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Currently I am reading a book, The Land Breakers, by John Ehle. It was one of the book orders I placed with my family for Christmas and luckily they complied. 🙂 The book was published in 1964 and is a novel about the first white settlers in Appalachia set in 1779.

I was reading it the other day as I rode the bike at the gym. I came upon 2 lines on page 107 that caused me to stop breathing for a few seconds because they put into words something deep inside me that I have always known and could never find the words to explain.

I imagine most would read them here or in the book and leave scratching their heads about why this would be interesting. These words don’t describe a choice of feelings.They do describe an undeniable and good force that won’t leave some of us alone. We don’t even want it to.

“The family and the clearing and the crops and the stock and the tools were part of the same thing. The family and the place were the same thing and could not be separated one from the other.”

They describe something inside some of us since birth I think. A feeling of deep connection, working cooperatively with living things around us, that although we are part of the picture on our property, humans are not the whole picture. It is a wonderful feeling.

permaculture beginnings

Not my lamb but I enjoy them when I get the chance!

My little sweetheart helping me spin

I still can’t explain it. It does help to explain why one of my favorite things is to be home working on things, why I only want to travel if it means spending the bulk of time with family and friends, why even on those trips I have in the back of my mind the number of days until I can get back to New England and these things.

alpaca fiber I dyed and is drying in the backyard

A Cape Cod winter sunset

It just is.

Dyed with my marigolds

My sourdough concoctions

It’s All About the Solstice

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I have never understand the hoopla around a new year arriving on Jan. 1. It is just another date on the calendar to me.

What does attract and motivate me are the solstices. As I have mentioned before, in the winter the snow and cold don’t bother me and I am happy to put up with them because I love New England and I don’t want to live anywhere else. But I don’t like the early darkness. I look forward to the winter solstice, the day with the least light, almost as much as a former co-worker did when she said it is better than Christmas. After that it will get lighter. I have coping strategies which help. One of our rooms gets the last light of the day and beautiful sunsets.

Gentle pink sunset today

The morning sun floods our kitchen so I work there when I can be home then. I am not the only one who uses morning sunshine for contentment.

A warm Pippi dozing

Ancient people kept track of time passing by the phases of the moon and notching wood. They knew when to celebrate the solstice and the light that was chasing away darkness. Even more ancient people must have felt they needed to stay in favor with a god so that the light would increase. I would do both if I was around then! Can’t be too sure. I wouldn’t forget to do the notching chore if it was mine in fact I would demand to be the one who made the notches so I would know it was accurate. If I wasn’t allowed to do it I would keep my own record secretly. Furtively. Stealthily.

Some people must have used the darkness as a time to spin by the fire. Thank God for electricity and central heating in 2016. I can do those things whenever I want. I am back in a batt making frenzy and have pulled out the fiber I put away before Christmas to make the house neater. It does distract from darkness. Here are the makings and some results:

A creative mess

Loveliness that rises out of the mess

We have 2 workshops coming up to teach this month so getting ready to create new addicts- giving free stuff first really does help- also dispels darkness.

The chickens are happy to stay out a little longer too. They are back to laying after the molting ended. Sometimes in winter we literally get up before the chickens and find them still perched up high and looking at us with the “what are you doing here so early?” look in their eyes. Yes, chickens have moods too.

Chickens ready for winter with a snow fence and the cord from the electric water heater

I am looking at the FEDCO catalog and dreaming about spring planting. We have an excellent farmers market a mile away that comes twice a week during the growing season so I am idly thinking about planting asparagus and a perennial kale and getting the rest there. We have no snow so I could put down newspapers covered by a tarp to kill the grass in the areas needed. But at the moment just winter day dreaming is fun.

I am reading these three books I received for Christmas. Actually I told the givers to get them for me so I suppose I sort of ordered them.

Books for any momentary whim

So, the days are slowly getting longer. I do like to feed the wild birds, light candles, and can appreciate not needing to go out and weed but instead can read or spin. I do like to settle in with these activities for awhile. Since I know the darkness won’t last.

The Morning in Vermillion

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It is said that the best things in life are free and I would say that many are free. I finally got back to doing some weeding this morning and went out about 9 so I could stay in the shade as it moved.

As I weeded and transplanted I began thinking about all the plants here that were given to me, or were here when we moved in. I took a picture of the vermillion (I have also seen it spelled with only 1 “l”) astilbe that I put there 2 summers ago. I am sending the picture to my lifelong friend because her father gave it to me out of one of his gardens. I spent a great deal of time in that house growing up and I treasure it.

Astilbe

Then I started noticing all the other flowering plants and bushes with similar colors.

This spirea and at least a dozen of its cousins were here when we moved in as was this rose bush. We had a heavy infestation of winter moth caterpillars this spring. I saw what seemed like an infinite number of them hanging one day from our apple trees and realized the chickens might like to eat them. I started gathering them, as they hung by their yucky strings from branches, on the trowel I had just used to put things in the compost heap. If anyone saw me they might have thought I was acting like Don Quixote tilting at windmills as I swept my sword (trowel) around to get them. The chickens were indeed happy and I felt slightly victorious..

spirea

But back to the little rose bush. It too was there when we moved in. The results of its infestation can be seen but it is gathering its energy and surging forward with blossoms anyway. Not so the apple trees. New foliage has grown but we won’t have blossoms there. Luckily the pear tree doesn’t interest the moths.

Rose survivor

Cascading Beauties

This hanging plant was sort of free for me anyway as it was a Mother’s Day present from my husband.

This lavender was from a group of herbs my son gave me a few years ago. The butterflies and bees and I are drawn to it. Long ago when I started gardening it was common to see honey bees out gathering. They have been decimated and I never see them now but bumblebees are all around as are other wild pollinators. This picture shows a white butterfly and a bumblebee but the bee is hard to see. It is the couple of dark spots in the upper left corner of the plant.

Lavender with butterfly and bumblebee dining

Steve was just given these two pots of salvia. I will eventually plant them but like them on the deck right now.

I do have many more perennials of other colors. It is said that perennial flowers are like friends for gardeners because their return is always watched for and celebrated after winter. My hanging plant won’t survive but all my perennials and the memories I have of them will keep on growing for years to come.