Daffodil Spring

  I really should not complain about the weather here in New England when tornadoes are hitting St. Louis and Texas is drying up and blowing away, but the last few weeks of colder than usual spring temperatures have been a bit annoying, especially following a long snowy winter.  But a remark from my brother-in -law Jon made me realize that there has been at least one good thing about the cool spring.

'Wow, your daffodils are amazing' he said several times as he toured the yard last week.  I looked around and realized that the early flowers were still blooming as the late ones began.  All around the garden my many clumps of daffodils were blooming so heavily I could  hardly see the foliage.  Not only had the cool weather prolonged the blooms, there had also been no pounding rainstorms to crush the fragile blossoms. I cut several bouquets for the house and felt a lot less annoyed.

   We bought our house twenty years ago this September.  The realtor told us the elderly owner had once been an avid gardener.  I thought a lot during the winter about what might sprout in the overgrown beds out back.  There weren't many perennials that survived, but there were daffodils-- hundreds of them, in many shapes, colors and scents. I studied bulb catalogs until I could recognize many -- big yellow 'King Alfred', bicolor 'Ice Follies', delicate little lemon species, intensely fragrant 'Double Cheerfulness', and more.  Many clumps were thick with spiky green leaves, but had only a few flowers. I knew they were crowded and needed dividing to reinvigorate them.

  I made a diagram of the locations of each clump, then let the foliage ripen until it died ( I did not cut it...  that would weaken the bulbs).  In September I began digging up the clumps. I put the biggest bulbs back into new planting holes with some fertilizer, planting them each about twice as deep as the height of the upright bulb-- pointed end up! I threw the rotted bulbs and the small ones over the fence into the briar patch.  Now there are some nice clumps back there for the rabbits to sniff.

 Did I mention that daffodils taste terrible? Apparently they do, since my healthy rabbit, woodchuck and vole population never even nibble them. Crocuses and tulips get eaten in my garden, usually just as the flowers are about to open, but the daffodils thrive.

  Over the years I've  planted even more daffodils,  both subtle and brazen. I love the delicate white  bells of fragrant 'Thalia', but I've also got a soft spot for the more garish doubles-- they make me smile at their silliness.

 My daffodils increase every year because I do three things for them. I fertilize them early every spring, often while snow is still on the ground.  I  also always let the foliage ripen and dry, even though  it makes my June garden untidy.  Finally, I  now and then mark and later dig up and divide overgrown clumps.  It's not much work for the show in my backyard every spring, especially when we have a 'daffodil spring' like this year.

Bearing Gifts Part 2

  My grandmother grew rhubarb,  and each year in late spring there would be a jar of homemade rhubarb compote in her refrigerator door.  Sometimes after lunch she would carefully potion out a dollop of this precious sauce over plain yogurt and eat it slowly.  I turned up my nose at the strange pink mixture, preferring maple syrup on my yogurt.  But I know she loved her rhubarb-- I can still see  her smiling gently as she ate it, the smile showing in the crinkles by her her eyes rather than her serious mouth.

  I discovered I like rhubarb about forty years later, when my neighbor Rick gave me some stalks last spring.  Rick's family and mine have an unspoken, twenty year mutual non-involvement pact that has served both families well, but recently we've modified our relationship to include limited transfers of garden produce. I gave him some arugula last spring, and he gave me some rhubarb.

  I took the rhubarb inside and put it on the kitchen counter. It looked like a pile of pink celery. How exactly was I supposed to cook it? I went to my shelf of cookbooks and started reading.

  My favorite rhubarb recipe is simple. Chop  a big handful of clean rhubarb stalks into half inch pieces, pile in an ovenproof dish with a quarter cup of good strawberry jam an a couple of spoonfuls of sugar or honey, and bake in a three hundred and fifty degree oven until soft-- maybe half an hour. Serve warm or cold over yogurt, ice cream, or cake. 

  I became addicted to the stuff, just like my grandmother.  I couldn't keep asking Rick for stalks-- I needed my own supply!  Luckily he said his patch was overgrown, and offered mt some divisions in the spring.

  I thought about those rhubarb divisions quite a lot this winter, and where I would put them.  I didn't remind Rick  of his offer during the  long cold snap in March, but last week I saw him getting his newspaper when I was walking the dog, and asked him if the offer was still good.  Yes, and they'd be dug that weekend.

  I came home from work on Saturday to find a big cardboard box from the liquor store by my gate, so full of rhubarb and dirt I could barely lift it. I had just the place for them, a new bed next to Sol's doghouse that I had stayed out until dark Friday night weeding.  I added a liberal amount of horse manure and planted the rhubarb.  Three big divisions (giant compared to the small pieces I had seen for sale at the box stores) spaced about two feet apart. If the middle one gets too big I'll move it, leaving plenty of space for the other two.  My mouth is watering at the thought of many years of rhubarb and yogurt ahead. Thanks Rick, thanks grandmother Alice.

  

Best Laid Plans Part 2

 On April 8th, 2010 the thermometer in the shade on my front point reached 92 degrees.  I had forgotten last April's heat until I consulted my garden notebook from 2010 to check on planting dates.

  That same thermometer registered 34 degrees, with an inch of snow on the ground, at six thirty this morning.  By five pm the temperature was 40, and the only snow left was a small pile on the deck beneath my solar power panels. 

  Many parts of Massachusetts got several inches of snow this morning, which was actually one of the warmest mornings  since I planted my first seeds on St. Patrick's Day.  I had planned to sow beets, carrots, Swiss chard, Fava beans and more peas in the intervening days, but the unseasonably low temps kept me from planting.  Past experience has proven that planting most crops before the days are consistently above 50 degrees is not efficient, because germination is so slow that seeds planted later mature simultaneously.  There has been some good news outside-- my   discarded storm window coldframes work!  Lettuce, arugula and spinach are growing  quickly under glass. I wish I had more windows.

  As  most of the outside plantings wait for warm weather,  the seedlings I've started inside  (in two upstairs south-facing rooms) are thriving in makeshift setups. I supplemented the window light first with fluorescent lights in emptied bookshelves, then under  one of the same lights tied to a broken lampstand. It may look funny, but everything is growing, especially the 'Mortgage Lifter' tomatoes, which already have two sets of true leaves and will need to be re-potted soon!

  Tomato 'Celebrity' is not far behind, while the pepper seedlings continue to mosey along at their own deliberate pace-- but I got around 95% germination, which is great for peppers. The bottom heat I provided for the peppers definitely helped-- I used an old plug-in back heater, separated from the plant tray by a steel baking rack.  Later plantings of more tomatoes, cabbage, moonflowers, chives and basil are all doing well. On the floor nearby are crates of potatoes 'chitting', or presprouting.  I did not find any local blue potatoes, but I got a great deal on Yukon golds at Tractor Supply.

  My planning and growing continue, a bit thrown off by the weather, but ready for Spring when it finally comes-- and it will!

Best Laid Plans

  St Patrick's Day here in Southeastern Massachusetts was  a comfortable fifty degrees and intermittently sunny.  Just after lunch I loaded my wheelbarrow with aged horse manure and rolled it into the fenced back garden. Then I paused and consulted my crib sheet, a barely decipherable list of beds and crops copied from  the lists carefully written out during the winter in my garden notebook. 

  I'm left-handed, and it takes considerable effort for me to write neatly--my mind seems to move too fast for my hand.  I spent a lot of time in January meticulously mapping out the garden on a large sheet of paper, using ruler and pencil, and compiling lists of what to plant where.   Yes, there are computer programs, but I like to keep my garden notes on paper. 

  The lists of plantings for each bed consider several things, from how much sun it receives to the crops planted there in the last three seasons. I try to keep a three year rotation for potatoes and tomatoes-- most other rotations are tricky in beds that grow two or more crops a year.  But somehow  I can't seem to follow my lists. 

  I think it goes back to the basic difference between cooks and bakers-- the first see recipes as guidelines, the second as scientific formulas.  I'm more of a cook in the kitchen, where being impulsive may ruin dinner.  In the garden it can kill the ingredients for a lot of dinners. And so  I stood and looked at my scrawled list on St. Patrick's day and fought back the urge to ignore it.

  By late afternoon I was finished with the year's first plantings, and had done well.  The onions, peas, lettuces and arugula all went in the beds on the list, and they were all labeled.  I saved paint stirrers (ok, I took a few extra at the store) and used these as markers, with the crop and date written on them in sharpie.  I added some radishes on the edges of several beds that were not on the list because I had forgotten them, and I put the spinach in bed eight instead of beets, but I also saved the right three spots for the potatoes that are now pre-sprouting on my bureau. 

  I also did not over-seed! In the past I've planted tiny seeds too thickly, resulting in several rounds of laborious thinning to get good sized lettuces, arugula and spinach.  This time I was patient and meticulous, just like a baker.

  I know the rotation will probably go awry later in the year as weather speeds or slows the crops. That's when my cook's adaptability will help out-- I may plant the butternut squash in a flower bed, or hold potted seedlings a bit longer than planned, and I know I'll be proud of of the creative solutions I come up with, and perhaps make them part of my plans next year.  And I'm going to relax a bit and realize that  sometimes the sweet June peas are worth keeping the tomato plants in pots in the cold frame a week or two longer than planned.

Spring Cleaning

  Yesterday felt like Spring. The snow had finally melted except for a few dirty, crystalized mounds in the shade.  The temperature by early afternoon was in the mid forties, and the yard called to me.

  I answered by searching the garage for my leaf rake. Then I went to end of my driveway and began to rake up the twiggy debris of winter that was scattered across my front lawn. It is not apparent from the street that an obsessed gardener lives here. There is a wide front lawn, which grows well although it is never fertilized, and some tasteful plantings of shrubs, bulbs and perennials.

  The front yard is split by a stone wall, and beyond the wall the signs begin.  There are four compost bins in the inner front yard, with the kitchen bin right by the front door for easy access.  Several other loose piles of debris are placed around the edges of the garden, and these piles are left as habitat for wildlife from skunks to salamanders. I carried my twiggy lawn debris to one of these piles, behind a bed of tall Siberian Iris that will hide it from sight most of the summer.

  I may allow the edges of my garden to go wild, but I am careful about cleaning the dead foliage out of the beds.  Many harmful insects overwinter as eggs, and by removing the foliage to compost piles on the other side of the garden I can reduce the pest load in summer.

  I cut back many perennials back in the fall, but there are always sections I don't get to, and I moved on to this work after raking the lawn. it was satisfying to see the new green growth revealed as I cut away the old, and to anticipate the lush growth of summer. I spent a happy afternoon cleaning the lawn and garden, beginning the season by removing the tired remnants of the last. 

  Finally, I sat in a chair in the middle of the back yard for a while, looking around and planning.  Sol came over around sunset, put his paws on my leg, and looked me in the eyes. I scratched the thin line of white that runs down the middle of his red forehead and was content. 

  This morning when I got up at 6:30am it was 15 degrees, but as I walked Sol in his warm jacket and looked over my newly raked lawn I knew  that winter's grasp was loosening.

 

 

Amaryllis Redux

  I'm sitting next to a small, dark wooden table with four pots on it. Three contain the bright green grassy foliage of paperwhite narcissus bulbs that bloomed a month ago. The fourth pot houses an amaryllis about to bloom.  I've grown winter bulbs for at least thirty years, but these pots are special- they reflect my new, less disposable view of the things in my world.

  One winter shortly after I graduated from college I gave paperwhites potted in mugs from a dime store as Christmas gifts to some of my friends. One of them was a recent art school grad, and several weeks later he showed me a vivid drawing of a sad, past prime narcissus.  I thought it was beautiful, but wondered why he didn't draw it at it's best.  'But it's about death' he said, going all art school on me.  

   He was wrong. The bulb was not dying, it was going dormant, just as it would every year in it's native climate.  But he was right that it would not bloom again, because once it dried up, he threw it away.  I did the same with my paperwhites and amaryllis for years. It seemed like too much work to try and coax another year of bloom out of these inexpensive bulbs. 

 But last year I changed my mind.  Money is tight, but not so much so that the cost of a few bulbs will break my budget. I think the amaryllis stands for a shift in how much work I feel should be expended to renew rather than discard.

I now have a complete sewing kit, with a range of colored thread to patch rips in clothing, and I use it.  I've also been organizing the tools I have scattered in drawers, closets and the garage, so that I don't keep buying the same screwdriver over and over again because I can't  find the last one....

  It turns out that tender bulbs are not that hard to keep alive from year to year.  I kept last year's amaryllis inside until all chance of a frost was past, then moved it to filtered light outside. I  watered and gave it some dilute fish fertilizer now and then until the foliage yellowed, and then stopped watering. 

  When the soil was dry I put it in the garage and ignored it for three months. In October I brought it in the house and started watering again.  Now it has five strap-like leaves and a tall flower stalk ready to open like a chrysalis to reveal it's scarlet blooms.  It's not an unmitigated success-- last year there were two stalks.  Maybe I'll try a bit more fertilizer this year. 

  The narcissus are the next experiment.  I'll give them about the same treatment, and we'll see what happens. Next winter I hope to be enjoying even more new blooms from old friends.

Going Amateur

  It's mid February and I'm getting excited about  the vegetable gardener's equivalent to Baseball's Spring Training-- starting my first seeds. They'll be peppers (which germinate slowly, and so get a couple of week's jump on the tomatoes). I'll plant the  'Jalapeno M' and 'Bulgarian Carrot' hot peppers I grew last year, as well as  'Hungarian Wax' and a sweet pepper called 'Big Red'.

  I'm still amazed that the tiny seeds I start in February will become sturdy plants heavy with peppers by July.  My selection is mostly hot peppers because I'm catering to the quirky and unique needs of just two people.  I have no roadside stand and I don't supply any restaurants. That's what being an amateur means to me as a vegetable gardener, and while it may not produce cash income, it gives me great freedom to garden by whim.

  This wasn't always so. I used to be a professional gardener. I began by weeding fields for minimum wage, got a degree in horticulture, and ended up helping to manage a retail grower of perennial flowers. For most of the years I was a pro I enjoyed it.  I loved being outside, touching the earth, being surrounded by birds, learning to read the needs of plants.  

  Then I became more of a manager, concerned with staffing,  profit and the current trends in shrubs and flowers.  I worked so much during the growing season that I neglected my own plantings, and I lost some of the joy I had found in the garden.

  When an opportunity arose to manage in a different industry, I left the farm and professional gardening.  I knew it was time for many reasons, most of which had nothing to do with my love for plants and the outdoors, and more to do with economics and personalities. 

  I moved on to my new job,  and for several years my home garden was only lightly tended. But soon the joy of gardening returned.  I grew for myself, creating a landscape that reflected my love of birds, native plants, and vegetables. Sure I still read the magazines, but not to anticipate my customer's needs, but to discover my own.

  My pro experience comes in handy sometimes.  I can dig, prune and divide perennials easily, having done each task thousands of times.  But vegetables are mostly annuals, and they grow at an amazing rate compared to perennials.  I'm still very much an amateur with vegetables, and enjoying every minute.