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.