Roses

Since I mentioned in another post that HG likes to give gifts of plants, I wanted to post a picture of the Tropicana rosebush that's covered with buds about to bloom!  The color is a lovely, brilliant coral.  I hope your computer does it justice.  But the scent!  Hothouse roses wish they smelled like this.  

This rosebush was his gift for my first Mother's Day.  That baby will be 25 years old in September, and a few weeks after that will present us with our first grandchild!  Don't worry, sweetie, your Pappy will teach you to love the outdoors and eat your vegetables just like he did for your Mommy...

Visitors

Just when I thought the planting was complete for this season, another box of "Live Plant Materials" was delivered this morning.  It was from a company HG had not used before, and he was anxiously anticipating this particular shipment of cabbage plants, lilies, and pumpkin "trees".  Having been bitterly disappointed in the condition of plants shipped from well-known companies in the past, he was thrilled when he opened his box this morning and found the plants beautifully green and moist in their protective packaging.  Here is a shot of the cabbage plants; Teddy the omnivorous cat approves.

We've had lots of visitors to our garden in the past 2 weeks: friends, family members, lots of rain, and critters.  The ground hog (Nemesis) or one of his descendants has returned following a 2-year absence.  HG thought he was rid of the pest at last, but it seems the war will begin again (cue menacing music).   A family of very cute but destructive rabbits has been chewing on the hollyhocks and my pansies planted along the side of the house.  One day HG had a present for me on the front porch - a freshly shed snake skin - and 2 days later found the shiny youngster slithering around in the grass behind the main garden.  It was a 3 foot long milk snake, and a welcome visitor despite most people's reaction, as it will take care of smaller vermin like mice and voles.  I don't think I'd welcome a snake big enough to threaten the ground hog...

Waiting

Will we or won't we get it (rain, that is)? Earlier this month we had nearly a week straight of rain, we've now had nearly a week with no rain, so HG spent the morning watering the garden...when suddenly the clouds covered the sun, and the sky to our north darkened alarmingly.  It's like washing the car is a sure way to bring on the rain, better than an Indian rain dance.  We quickly shut the roof windows and decided to see a movie.  It's now early evening and still no rain, so it was a good thing he decided to water.  

The plants are coming along beautifully now: the beans are up, and each day a new shoot appears in the asparagus beds.  That's a new plant for HG; for some reason, he had never grown it before.  I guess the 4-year wait for the harvest seemed either too daunting or too much space to devote, or maybe it was the fact that we really didn't know how to cook it! But this year he took the plunge and invested some of his garden to asparagus.  So, maybe this year we'll have enough for a meal.  By the way, he did learn to cook it and it was delicious: very different from the olive-green stringy and tasteless stuff I remember from grocery store cans.

We also had 2 more cold nights and frosty mornings this week, so HG had to cover all the plants again!  Unfortunately I missed the whole process, as it happened on days when I had to leave early for work - after scraping my car windows in May - and HG was enjoying vacation days.  The good news is that everything survived except for some beautiful basil (Pesto Perpetuo from Burpee's) which he had in a planter box on our deck.  Really too bad, because even as a tiny plant it smelled delicious.  

Busy

The Humble Gardener has been quite busy the past few days, having taken some vacation days from his 'real' job.  He has finished planting out the vegetables he started from seeds, either in his own garden or someone else's; spread mulch around the grape vines; planted the pear tree and raspberry bushes (sticks!) that finally arrived via UPS; mowed the lawn; washed out all the trays and flats he used to start his seeds; and cleaned the boxes off the front porch now that the danger of frost seems to have passed. 

Yesterday when I got home from work I found him in the garden, placing said boxes over each tender plant.  The forecast called for temperatures below freezing overnight, and he was not about to take chances with his garden! I left early this morning (before he had gone outside to remove the boxes) so I didn't find out until this evening that all his plants survived.  *Whew!*  He does this every year...unfortunately our growing season is relatively short, so he plants out early and has to anxiously watch the weather.  This year, he only had to cover up one time.  His father, also a farmer/gardener, always used to say, "Never plant your tomatoes until after the last full moon in May."  Well, the moon was full on Saturday evening, so another Farmer's Almanac aphorism bites the dust. 

He is counting 2 mini peach trees among the lost, however.  Just a few weeks ago, they were healthy and blooming.  Yesterday he noticed that the blossoms had withered on the tree, rather than falling off as usual when the bud behind the blossom begins to swell into fruit.  He thought maybe they had been touched by the cold, but not frost, that had come several days ago. But why these two and not the rest planted next to them? Of course we'll never know, but we can't help wondering.

Beets, Beans, and Sprouts

Today was the first non-rainy day in about a week.  HG had to content himself with planting containers of impatiens on the front porch.  The grass is thriving all over town, and HG spent the day in his garden planting row upon row of red beets (Harriet and the tried and true Lutz), wax beans,  and Brussels sprouts (Tasty Nuggets).  Mmm-mmm!  This coming from a reformed vegetable-hater.  One of the things HG is most proud of is that he has gotten his family to enjoy eating fruits and vegetables as much as he does.  Of course, he grows tomatoes and peppers, but beets and sprouts are such a treat, and probably our family's favorites.  Have I mentioned that HG is an excellent cook, too?

The honeyberry bushes arrived and have been planted in the bed next to the raspberries.  HG reports that a honeyberry is similar to a blueberry but is in the honeysuckle family.  Sounds delicious to me!  Tomorrow, he's planning to plant pickles and Swiss chard.  And if UPS visits us again, there will be more raspberry plants to add to his beds...

A word about the wax beans.  We are very thankful to live in a small town where you can still buy seeds by the pound in the hardware store!  So the beans are not a fancy variety, but are in support of the local economy.  

Peppers

It's a mild, slightly overcast afternoon in Northeastern PA, so H. is out in the garden planting his peppers. I love sweet peppers, so he plants several varieties of those. But over the past few years HG has really developed a taste for hot peppers. (The picture is from '04.) This year he's planting Biker Billy (jalapeno), Hungarian Volcano, and Zavory (which is supposed to be a mild habanero; that sounds like an oxymoron to me). I don't know about you, but those names tell me all I need to know!

He preserves his hot peppers in jars of salsa, or pickles of all kinds. (He'll pickle any vegetable he can fit through the mouth of the jar.) Of course his idea of "hot" is very different from mine: hot is the label for those who will eat a habanero whole, while a sprinkle of ground pepper on a whole plate of food is enough for me. So when he makes a jar of salsa and labels it "mild," it's got a kick. If he calls it "XXX" consume at your own risk, and have a glass of milk in your other hand!

Surprise

Today after dinner I showed our younger daughter the photos I'd taken of HG's garden yesterday, some particularly good shots of the blueberry bush's blooms, and she said, "Oh, Mom, have you seen the pansies?" "Pansies??" I asked.

"Yeah, I helped Dad plant pansies today...oh, maybe that was supposed to be a surprise...come on outside and see."

Well, did they ever plant pansies, of every shade! Knowing that pansies are my favorite, every box on the deck (which last year held tomatoes and peppers) was lovingly filled with young bedding plants. What a sweetheart he is! That is his love language: he may not always say the right words, but he shows how much he cares by thoughtful gestures like this.

I'll admit that in our early years together, I wasn't so keen on this type of gift. I mean, I would have preferred a dozen roses to the pathetic-looking bush he planted for my first Mother's Day. But over the years, that barren twig has yielded hundreds of fragrant blooms, while that vase of roses I thought was better would be so much compost. So now I have a redbud tree, a gorgeous lilac, that Tropicana rosebush, and a porch full of pansy plants courtesy of my humble gardener.

Delivery

HG is going to take some of his tomato plants to his sister.  He likes to plant many different kinds of seeds, and of course ends up with hundreds of seedlings...more than we could ever use.  So, he distributes them, like lovingly raised pets, wherever they will find a good home: family members, neighbors, co-workers.  

HG and his brother planted more than 100 leeks and onions about 2 weeks ago; apparently they are hardier than the tomatoes.  (I meant the plants, but the same applies to my husband and brother-in-law: they are the kind of people who make this country great - kind, generous, loving, stubborn...)  My BIL's garden is more accurately known as a "truck patch."  It covers about 1/4 acre.  The garden in our yard began 29 years ago when we moved into this house.  It started in the southern corner of the yard, probably 12x20 ft, and has increased over the years, spreading like crab grass, until it now occupies the southern half of the yard and is at least 20x60.  This is not counting the containers that dot the sidewalks, porch deck and railing, and the hanging containers which depend from the roof and the deck!

Entry #1

Good morning! I'm the gardener's wife, and because he really is a humble gardener, I'll be logging his progress with his garden this year.  He began weeks ago planting seeds of all kinds, nurturing them along each day after work:  watering, feeding, transplanting, hardening...and now that it's (almost) May they are ready to plant.  The weather has been glorious here in Northeastern PA this spring.  The ground is ready, and so is the humble gardener!  

Yesterday, he planted the first of his tomatoes in a strange-looking contraption called a Topsy-Turvy, in which the plant grows out of the bottom of the device which hangs from - something.  In our case, they are hung from the eaves of our house next to the back porch.  He tried this for the first time last year and was so pleased it's back for an encore.  The flowers planted beneath didn't fare so well: the tomatoes growing down from above completely overshadowed them!  

He's been collecting unwanted boxes from work to place over the tender plants in case of frost.  I'll make sure I get pictures of him covering in the evening, then uncovering before we leave for work in the early morning!

His fruit trees are blooming well, some are grown in containers, and others traditionally in the yard.  He has high hopes for a variety of apple tree planted in September '08 called Liberty.  Some other new varieties for us this year are Sundance, Pixie, and Goldrush.  A pear tree highly anticipated and currently en route from the company is called Collette, an everbearing tree.  I can't imagine how this is possible, sounds like Heaven!!