Gardening season is really starting to pick up here in New England. The grass is green again, the Robin’s have built their nests and are sitting on their eggs, we are getting daily visits from turkeys and the cherry blossoms are on the verge of bursting open.
Yesterday I found a bunch of sedum in a wooded area and dug it up and planted them in front of the potting shed. Now all I need to do is find some purple coneflower and a white calla lily and that area will be finished.
The lilacs are beginning to bloom and I think in another day or so I’ll pick a giant bouquet for the kitchen table. We are very lucky to have found a home with so many established plants scattered around the property. Each season brings it’s own gifts. {By the way, if you have lilacs in bloom you should try Susan’s Lilac Blossom Jelly, it makes a fun an unusual hostess gift.}
The second of five ornamental cherry trees is in bloom.
Barktopia 2019 is well underway…
Remember the house where this all started? And all that ORANGE BARK I was always spreading? I’ll totally admit now, that I was totally addicted to the stuff. You know, kind of like those people who are addicted to fake and bake tanning salons. I just couldn’t get the backyard orange enough!
Here in New England though… I think the brown/black mulch fits in a little better with the landscape and all the rocks we have. Last summer I couldn’t keep up with the weeds in the flower garden beds, but this year {and thanks to a few bags of casoron} I think we have a better handle on things.
Also, ripping out the plants I didn’t like {or that were overgrown} has helped tremendously too.
The other day while I was looking around the barn I found a bale of horse panel. I think I’ll grow a wall of spinner gourds {which I will then turn into the coolest craft project ever!} along the back of the house where I grew mammoth sunflowers last year. It’s good to rotate crops every year, so hey, why not. It might look a little funky at the beginning of the growing season, but I bet by the end of summer a wall of green and a bunch of little gourds will look pretty cool.
Today I’ll start the seeds for pumpkins, gourds, summer squash and sunflowers in those thin little breathable on non restrictive fabric pots. I like to wait until it heats up a bit {June 1st seems like a good date} to set out the squash plants so they have a fighting chance.
In years past, I’ve had a hard time keeping the birds away from the seedlings when I have sowed them directly in the soil, so getting them started in the pots, and then setting out the plants when they are about 4-5″ tall, really helps.
In other vegetable gardening news….
We have asparagus!!!! The asparagus crowns I planted not even a month ago are already sending up spears. We won’t harvest any this year, but still they are cool to look at.
The raspberry canes I planted are just beginning to show new growth as well. I think I remember reading that the first year you plant raspberry crowns you’ll get about a 25% harvest. The second year 50% and by the third year the raspberry plants will be producing at a full 100% capacity.
The rhubarb crowns I planted last year are doing well too. I think I’ll make a strawberry rhubarb crumb pie this week.
And last but not least…. The back patio. It’s a work in progress, but I hope to have this area filled with all sorts of terracotta pots and overflowing with color by the end of summer.
Summer… it’s almost here! 🙂 🙂 What have YOU been up to in the garden lately? Curious minds want to know.
Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone,
~Mavis
Deborah says
We haven’t been gardening. It’s been too wet. We have been fighting getting stuck in the driveway. The ground is so saturated, it just sits there.
Barbara from Oregon says
What a difference a year makes! Your yard is looking so good and much more manageable! You and the HH are doing a beautiful job! It is your home now.
Tammy says
Noticed some bleed on your roof. We have the same thing on ours. Going to try bleach and a product I saw advertised. Have you done that before any of the readers and what works thks tammy. Your place looks amazing. Wish I could have mine as neat.
Mel says
Our overwintered sprouting broccoli and carrots are done, and I probably need to go ahead and dig the shallots I overwintered, but the onions and garlic can continue. We’re picking lettuce, strawberries, and peas now, and I’ve planted peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and cucumbers, but I still need to plant beans and sunflowers. I also planted lupine, snapdragons, asters, cosmos, zinnias, milkweed, nasturtiums, and bee balm for pollinators, and I let our overwintered brassicas bolt to help the bees forage before other stuff got going. I pruned the herbs and replanted Tarragon since our parsley swallowed it last year, but we’ve had so much rain that I may need to replant that again. I also need to bag the apples forming on our apple tree, weed the blueberries, and mulch just about everything.
Lisa Millar says
Hey Mavis!! Everything is looking amazing! Just love all the gorgeous new flowers – so fresh and pretty!
Today I built the start of a Hugelkultur garden!! I learned about them last night online and got into it today!!
Its quite a cool process and an interesting idea – mine still needs a bit more work then it can happily decompose over winter and hopefully be ready for spring!
Enjoy your beautiful garden days!!
Mavis Butterfield says
Make sure you are taking lots of pictures of your Hugelkultur garden! They are really cool.
Susan H. says
It’s been so cold and wet here in northern Ohio I haven’t had the urge to shop for veggie plants yet. We have been eating green onions I planted in hanging baskets. So good! I found from experience not to plant the onion bulbs too thickly and only plant with small amount of soil as the onions tend to become rootbound quickly and if you pull one you pull them all 🙁 I did see my red oak leaf lettuce peaking through the soil in my planters! It’s been perfect weed pulling weather though.
FarmGirl says
Everything in my garden drowned b/c all it has done here in SE KS in rain and rain and rain. I’ll have to start all over maybe next week. Right now there is just water sitting everywhere.
Love your new place. It looks lovely. I love how you are making it your own.
Terri says
I’m a resident in an independent living cottage. I have minimal landscaping area, but I love reading about your gardens!
I did finally weed this morning. We’ve had nearly 8″ of rain since late May. A few days of sun really made a difference 🙂
Angela Elias says
Hi Mavis ,
I bought a bag of Noxall and the directions scared me to death. I have pine straw here in the south in my beds and have weeds growing through it in my flower/shrub beds. Can I use it there? Do you just sprinkle it liberally? Can it be used in beds that are already planted? Thanks LOVE your blog
Mavis Butterfield says
I have only applied Casoron/Noxall to freshly weeded flower garden beds before the beginning of the gardening season before the weeds have emerged. I am unfamiliar with pine straw, I wish I could be more help.
Tracy says
Mavis, a word of advice for your consideration: Don’t cut our lilacs. Lilacs are a woody shrub, as you know. But as such, they really don’t recover well from having their branches cut. The top horticulturist at my nursery says there is no faster way to deplete a lilac’s strength and vigor than to cut its branches in the spring.
Christa H. says
The spinner gourds love compost. I grew them a few years ago and still have over 40 left. I took a bunch to school and many students made ornaments out of them. Sharpie markers work well on them to do Zentangle designs.
Gee says
A word of caution, Mavis, on your compost. Don’t know if you’re far enough out in the country to have your own well for water, but if you are, look out. That nice brown compost (or orange compost or red compost) is dyed. The dye eventually leeches through the soil and into your water supply. Yuck!
My brother had used red compost and discovered this problem when their water turned a lovely shade of pink.
And about cutting lilacs? They are my most favorite cut flower that scents the whole house up. And in my experience (which has been my very long lifetime) they usually produce two stems where you cut one flower. This makes it branch out farther and fills in the bush. I also have an old one that had been cut down to about a foot from the ground before we bought the property. It’s now about 12-feet tall and blooming like crazy. Maybe the newer varieties don’t do that.
And a tip to make the flowers last longer? Take a mallet or hammer to the cut ends against a hard surface until they smash and spread out. It lets the stems suck up more water. 🙂
Amber from Ontario says
Your gardens are looking wonderful Mavis ! I love following your progress !
Here in Southern Ontario it has been raining almost every day, in April and May, sometimes heavily, and some days just a few showers. My perennials like peonies and alliums are shooting up. The daffodils and tulips are blooming, and the flowers are lasting longer because of the cooler than usual weather for May.
I had to go out and cover some of my containers planted with arugula and beets. The baby seedlings are up, and there is a danger of frost tonight ! This is the third time in late April and early May that I have had to do this. My tomato plants are struggling even in my sunroom due to the lack of sunshine. The poor farmers cannot plant seed because there is so much water laying on the fields, and it will be a bumper hay crop if they can get it off. It is one cool rainy spring. The countryside looks beautiful and green when you are driving through. The trilliums are blooming in the woods, and many fields look very green.