Flowery Mead

Flowery Mead is a medieval term, referring to a meadowy area (think exact opposite of a modern, sterile, monoculture lawn) lushly carpeted with a mosaic of tiny flowers. Like these wee naturalised crocus!

Think of medieval tapestries, with their often very lush portrayals of turf grass intermingled with cowslip, violets, periwinkles, trefoil, columbine...the poet Giovanni Boccaccio described, "in the midst of the garden a lawn of very fine grass, so green it seemed nearly black, coloured with perhaps a thousand kind of flowers..." in his Decameron of 1348.

While my raggedy patch certainly doesn't compare with the wonders of gardens past, it does bring a smile to my heart!

How does your garden grow?

Thoughts on Fruitfullness

Flowers signal a promise of fruit...and yet they do not bear fruit unless certain conditions are met. Proper minerals in the soil, light and water must arrive at the right times and in the right amounts, bees or butterflies or other pollenators must be present and working... and even then flowers may fail.

When my son was 3, my sister in law and my best friend were both pregnant with twins. Naturally that led to questions and conversations about how babies are made. I did not want to fob him off with fairytales about storks - but nor did I feel a technical explanation was appropriate to his age. So we left it at "to have a baby, one needs a mommy and a daddy and a miracle from God". Simple and in no way contradicted by later conversations that discussed the more technical aspects of human reproduction.

Even with all our technological advances, the best we can do is plant seeds with high hopes and tend to their needs...we cannot create increase...

So I look over my strawberry blossom with care...and will savor the small miracle when the berries arrive in June :)

Time Began in a Garden

It is such a delight to come across these beautiful pocket gardens all across my little town, with their vibrant colors and fluttering wildlife!

I pass this cottage garden every day on my walk to the train, and I enjoy noting the small and large changes as the seasons shift. Now in summer mode, it is visited daily by a variety of butterflies and hummingbirds.

The Spring garden is started!

Over the weekend, in between helping a friend move and my mom to tidy her yard, I achieved more than I imagined possible in my own garden!

Pots all cleaned and refilled with fresh soil

Seeds planted: radishes, scallions, mint, cilantro, spinach, spring lettuce mix, elephant ear bulbs

Starts planted: pansies everywhere (because their sweet faces and bright color are irresistable!) and broccoli.

Decrepit wicker porch settee finally disposed, and a nice painted rocking chair installed in its place

Much general raking, sweeping, tidying

Planning where the backyard plot it to go this year (last year the squash did not do well, so the garden will move to a better spot)

All of this involved much running up and down three flights of stairs between the deck garden and the compost pile, which doesn't seem much at first, but really does start to catch up after the 10th trip or so! It also entailed observing the amusing antics of spring-crazed squirrels, local children, and migrating geese and ducks (flying in formations overhead).

I gave the local children a spare 6-pack of pansies to put in their own garden, as they spent a great deal of time watching my activities with grave interest (and many questions). I love encouraging children to grow things!

Has anyone else started a vegetable garden yet?

Basil and mint from cuttings

A super-easy way to create new plants for indoor pots (or to increase your outdoor garden) is to propagate by cuttings. I have a few cuttings of basil and mint in this glass of water - in a few days they will have wee white roots and that is the time to pop them gently into the soil. I use organic potting soil.
You can also do this with those packets of fresh herbs purchased from the produce section of the grocery store!

Fall garden

My garden is still producing, but now that cooler days and nights are here it is time for my fall garden.

This morning I am potting up cuttings of basil, rosemary and mint to bring indoors for the winter. Tomorrow we will pull up the lettuces that are going to seed and the tomatoes that are done for the season, and in their stead we will plant kale, spinach, additional green beans and cabbages.

We will also figure a strategy for over-wintering the strawberries :)

Fall garden planning

I know its a bit early, but since I will have some heavy work ahead it seems a good time to start planning my fall garden. The dreams can start today - and the hard work can wait til mid-September :)

I never had the chance to prepare raised beds for my spring planting, so I will get at least one bed done and transplant the strawberries in late September. (Emergency back-up plan is to overwinter the huge pot in the garage)

If I can get two beds done, I will do beets, kale, spinach, cabbage and maybe one or two other hardy fall crop plants in there. Otherwise I will do spinach and kale in containers, and hold off on beets and cabbage til spring.

The long container is currently holding carrots and green beans. Once these are done I plan to re-sow the same. They did well :)

I am already rooting lots of basil and mint cuttings, in hopes of 1)extending the outdoor crop til frost 2) expanding the plantings to beds and 3) potting up some plants for indoors over the winter. I managed to successfully overwinter rosemary last year, and will do so again.

I may also experiment with potting up some tomato shoots for wintering indoors. I don't expect fruits, but I want to learn if they will survive til spring and can be transplanted back outside successfully to bear fruit.

What are your fall garden plans?

The Great Celery Experiment

It is now official - you can grow new celery from the "stumps" of average grocery store stuff! I had read about this on several blogs, and tested it to see if it would really produce something truly edible. You take the "stump, and put in into a container with water coverin the bottom (not unlike starting an avocado pit). Place this in a sunny windowand keep the water up. Soon, you will see new growth out of the top. Keep at it a bit longer and you will see tiny roots out of the bottom. That is when you can transplant into a pot with clean soil.

Voila!