Continue reading »]]> This past year was a pretty routine year – nothing terribly exciting happened, but nothing terribly, well, terrible happened either (unless you count the elections). We did close a few doors behind us that had needed shutting for a while so it was good in that respect, but so many more things are waiting to be done.

Here are some visual aids to show you how this past year toddled along for me and mine.

January and February

Waiting for Spring

January and February were pretty much the same as every January and February. We stayed inside and hoped for an early Spring.

March

Early Spring Shadows

And we actually got it. It was a bit of a tease – it would be warm and then cold and then warm again – but Spring did come early in 2010. All the plants and flowers were about 1-2 weeks ahead of schedule.

Early Buds

April

Spring Cleanup

As soon as the weather was warm for a few days in a row, the first thing I did was clean up the yard. All the outside winter insulation (ugly bags of leaves) were removed, all the sticks were raked and composted and any trash in the yard was gathered and thrown out. Ah, a clean slate.

But, like I said, Spring was a tease is 2010…

Emo flower is sad

May

Tidy Garden

In May the garden work began. This year I ‘cleaned up’ the existing garage-side garden by adding a border, some mulch and a rock path. This was my favorite project of the year.

In addition to my own gardens, I made a point to enjoy the wild ‘gardens’ all around me. Seen below is a field Buttercup, worshiping the sun.

Reaching for the Sun

In 2009 I created raised beds for my vegetable garden, but they looked horrible. In 2010, I took the time to make sure they were straight and level. I was quite proud of this garden.

Straight Lines

June

WHAT DOES IT...oh, it's only one. Meh.

We didn’t have nearly as much rain in the summer of 2010 as we did in 2009, but we had a LOT of rainbows – and even double rainbows (all the way).

I made a few new flower discoveries last summer including Dianthus and Lobelia (seen below).

New Discoveries

And, as mentioned above, I kept my eye out for the flowers that nature had to offer – all for free.

Black-Eyed Susans

July

How the Garden Grew

The raised beds did make quite a difference and the included birth bath helped attract birds that ate the bad bugs from my vegetable leaves. 2010′s vegetable garden was my most successful so far.

Perfect Summer Day

The summer was rather hot in 2010, especially compared to 2009, but as you can see in the above picture, we had several ‘perfect’ days even in the middle of July and through August.

We made sure to take advantage of these days and spent a lot of time outdoors.

Summer Cuisine

August

Flower Buttons

August was pretty much a repeat of July, although we got a couple of weeks of really nasty heat.

The upside to that heat was that the tomatoes finally started to ripen…and there were no signs of tomato bugs (hookworms).

Almost ready...

September

Perfection

In 2009 what tomatoes that did ripen (there wasn’t enough sun and the excessive rain caused a lot of them to split) were wiped out overnight by tomato bugs. I only got about a dozen. In 2010 I didn’t have that problem at all. I actually gave dozens away. Woo hoo!

And before I knew it, my favorite season was already upon us. The heat lingered longer than we liked, but it eventually did give way to the cool, crisp air of Autumn.

Oncoming Autumn

October

Ghastly Trio

While not the most colorful Fall we’ve seen since moving here, 2010′s Fall season was still beautiful.

November

Skies of Gold

November was, as always, a time of packing up the house for winter. Out came the black bags of leaves, away went the garden decorations. The starkness of winter had begun. Election day made it even starker.

Snowy Bales

December

Bath, Maine on Christmas Eve

December was a little different for us this year. My mother and step-father visited for Christmas and we got out a bit more and saw some of the state. Even in winter Maine towns are very picturesque.

We didn’t have a lot of snow until the very end of the month, a few days after Christmas. It gave us a beautiful end to the decade.

Winter Wonderland

Continue reading »]]> Today’s Forecast: Sunny with a high temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit (Major WIN!)

In Maine, you don’t start any serious dirt digging until mid-to-late April. When I first started gardening I was told not to plant anything until after Memorial Day. While this rule of thumb is prudent, I just can’t wait that long.

It’s going to be harder to wait this year. Spring seems to have arrived about two weeks early. Considering that last year we had excessive rain and it never really felt ‘warm’ up here, I welcome the over-eagerness of the season.

But I will not be planting anything into the ground for at least another month. That doesn’t mean I haven’t started getting ready, though.

Last Saturday was yard clean-up day. Our home is on a large piece of land and the front of the property is lined with beautiful Maple trees. We clean up the leaves in late Fall, but over the Winter branches and twigs break off. So, I spent several hours raking up all the loose branches that I could find – three large wheelbarrows worth.

We also live on the major highway that goes through Belgrade and you know what that means – trash. I was raised never to litter and to always be considerate of others’ property so it never fails to infuriate me when I find cups, fast food chain bags, discarded lottery tickets (all losers, dammit – but that’s fitting, since their former owners were obviously losers), and other other types of debris scattered about our lawn.

To be fair, compared to other places I’ve lived (Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Florida) Mainers keep their state tidy. But there are always those that find consideration way too taxing and therefore use my yard as their personal trash can.

We also have a crumbling driveway so loose asphalt is always an issue in the Spring. This is the worst part because finding those little black rocks is rather important so that the lawn mower’s blades don’t hit them and send them flying.

So, the yard is clean now and my father-in-law (who actually owns the property) is happy. He’s even more picky about the yard’s appearance than I am.

This weekend or next weekend will be flower bed cleaning day, but that depends on whether or not this relatively warm weather is forecast to continue. Our house is old and we line the bottom of the house with bags of leaves in the Fall to add more insulation. These cover my flower beds, of course, and have to be removed before any real maintenance can be performed.

But I think it is time. The tulips are already sprouting and I’m sure my Iris and Hosta are doing the same under all the black bags.

Also, I absolutely hate the way my house looks in the Spring. No matter how neatly they’re lined up, black garbage backs just make the place look, well…trashy.

Continue reading »]]> I haven’t been posting much lately. I don’t have any real reason why not. I haven’t been overly busy but I just haven’t felt much like writing at all.

It’s been a pretty standard summer. Garden did okay – bad pumpkin crop, but at least I got some. We tried to camp again and did get one good night but it started raining the next morning and we went home. Damn those hurricanes. Even in Maine they won’t leave us alone.

Continue reading »]]> This is what happens when you’re impatient.

I read several ways to tell if a watermelon is ripe. One said that if there’s a yellow spot underneath, it may be ready. This one had a yellow spot so I cut it open.

It was on it’s way, but nowhere near ready. Tasted like a raw potato.

Continue reading »]]> This is a picture of some very pretty flowers that grow on the side of our garage. They bloom every July. The magenta colored ones are always first (far left in the picture) and then the pale pink ones.

They were planted there years before we moved here so I have no idea what they are. I really like them and think they would look good on the north side of our house where we get a lot of sun but there is nothing there but a blah blank wall.

So, all of you garden gurus, do you know what these are? Please leave a comment if you do, thanks! If you need a closer look, click on the picture. It will take you to the gallery where you can blow it up to a very big size.

Continue reading »]]> In the middle strip of my garden this year, I started getting a new weed that I had never seen before. At first, I let them grow, thinking they might be the carrot seeds I planted weeks before. I finally pulled one when the plant got about a foot tall. Definitely not a carrot.

I’ve been pulling a lot of them, probably about 30 so far. I found out today what they are.

They’re freakin’ tomato plants! I’ve been pulling perfectly good tomato plants because I didn’t recognize something I spent several hours pouring over at the plant store earlier this Spring. I just happened to be reading a gardening blog and he posted a picture of his tomato seedling and it suddenly clicked.

I know how they got there, too. Last year, my tomatoes became infested with moles who ate a lot of my tomatoes. I didn’t throw them out – I just mixed them in the dirt as compost. Since I’m still pretty new to all this gardening stuff, I didn’t stop to think that all those seeds were going to do something.

I’ll probably still pull any seedlings because it’s too late for them to really do anything before it gets cold but my goodness, I feel rather stupid and very unobservant.

Continue reading »]]> This summer has been pretty good, weather-wise. We haven’t had any really hot days, and only a few sticky days. This past week we had quite a bit of rain which made my garden explode. I once again did not plan the pumpkins very well and they have already overtaken the cucumbers and are halfway through the strawberries. I just hope they don’t make it to the watermelons because the melons are doing so much better this year.

On with the pictures.

After the rain last week, we had some beautiful puffy clouds roll through.

One of my favorite new plants is my Astilbe. It flowered in the past few weeks and butterflies love it.

That’s all for tonight, kiddies. My computer is moving way too slow and it’s time for bed. Hope you enjoyed the pics!

Continue reading »]]> Things in the vegetable garden haven’t been going well. The tomato plants seem to be doing okay – the flowers have started blooming so that’s a good sign – and the pumpkins are doing well, but not much else is.

The lettuce and squash never even sprouted. I think I have three pea plants, but they stopped growing at about 1 inch. I have three watermelon sprouts, but they’re still tiny. The strawberries are growing and getting ripe, but they’re really small.

The things that are growing the best are the vegetables I planted for someone else – radishes. They were the first thing to sprout and I’ll be picking them this weekend. They did great! I’m not a huge fan of radishes, but I ate one the other day and they are so much tastier straight from the ground. I’m not surprised by that – I was just surprised that it made me want to eat the whole thing.

The flowers are doing much better than the vegetables this year. The plant I’ve really been wanting to flower finally did this week and wow, is it beautiful. The yellow roses opened up and they’re huge and have a pink fringe around each petal. Here, check it out.

Edited Saturday, June 23rd because I called my radishes both turnips and radishes in the same sentence.  

Continue reading »]]> Spring is here – but it’s been a rather wet and cold one. I’ve gotten the gardens widened and plowed, etc. but I still haven’t been able to plant anything. I wanted to get it done a couple of weeks earlier than I did last year but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m just hoping that it’s sunny over the Memorial Day weekend so I can get caught up.

The two Hosta plants and Iris have done great this year. I looked back at a picture of the first year those Hosta came up and the ones this year are already twice as big. The Iris really needs to be split -  it’s huge as well – but I don’t really know how to do that. Until I do, I’m just going to let it get big. Maybe next year I’ll two or three of them.

The vegetable garden has also been extended. Maybe this year I can keep those pumpkins from taking over the entire patch.  I’m planning on planting more items so I’ll just have to keep them under control.

Here’s to hoping that this year’s harvest is better, faster and healthier than it was last year.