Doings in Gardens

The frogs have quieted down, settling in, I liked to think, with their chosen mates.  Not.  That may have been true the other day.  Now they're restless again.  I’m beginning to realize frog sounds have something to do with the weather. 

The grass isn’t growing an inch a day any more, so we’re no longer raking up haystacks of clippings.  But in the meadow the grasses are as tall as a person, nearly hiding the old hay bales. 

The sugar house is almost hidden behind grass.  Fortunately Ken cut trails through the meadow in several directions.

The hay bales are actually a problem, because the farmer who usually mows the field will have a devil of a time mowing with old hay bales in the way.  He wasn’t the one who left them there in the first place.  A Department of Agriculture guy we talked with downtown in Middlebury a month ago, when we were still trying to figure how who did what, was pretty certain the bales hadn’t been left by that farmer.  “Not good mowing practice.  He wouldn’t have done that, I don’t think.”  Last week the farmer told me he hurt his leg last fall and had this other guy from a shoddy-looking farm up the road do it in his place.  That guy did it all wrong, mowing too late in the season, leaving the cut hay to get rained on, mowing the whole thing all at one time, and then abandoning the bales because by then the ground was too wet to pick them up.  I think this is the same person the previous owners told us hit the well head besides.  Bales mowed the way these were, and left out all year, aren’t good for feed any longer, just for bedding.

 My plantings are settling in and sending up new shoots.  They were planted in clay, clay being the basic soil of Addison County, leavened somewhat by compost, but 99% clay nevertheless.  I keep on being amazed that delicate roots can find their way through this stuff, but apparently they do, quite happily too.  They had a rough start. First it was so wet they were nearly flooded (and with clay the water just sits there for days), then they got blasted by heat, then beaten by wind, followed on by cold.  Maybe it makes them tougher. 

There wasn’t anything much here in the way of perennials other than the black-eye susans that  re-announced themselves recently, only the stubborn remains of about fifteen giant sunflowers.  In the location I figured an herb garden should be, or maybe once was, I planted the usual assortment of herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, mint, coriander, tarragon, basil, chives, little onions), and further on some perennials (lavender, euphorbia, reed grass, coneflowers, monarda, an aster variety, alium , yarrow,  peonies, Joe Pye weed, daisies, false sunflower, salvia, day lilies), sowed some giant sunflowers, and started a couple of vegetables (tomatoes of various kinds, cucumbers, jalapenos, ancho chilis, eggplant, squash), all of this in one fell swoop.  The season was marching on.  I had to get stuff in the ground

Last Sunday I realized everything I’d done in the garden so far was merely a beginning.  It was raw, unformed, definitely minor league.  Lesley and I went on a Middlebury area garden tour that set a standard few could reach.  Granted, having several hundred acres, a couple of huge ponds and lots of money wouldn’t hurt.  So much to be done.  But it was inspirational.

On the garden tour: this house is only the potting shed.

Another garden, and Lesley.   Yes, it was raining yet again.