Cold Climate Gardening

The early part of summer is a time of great angst for gardeners. It is the foundation upon which the rest of the gardening season is built. Screw up then, and the garden is screwed up really good. If nothing is planted, nothing will grow. In middle and late summer if you don’t weed as much as you ought–well, things will survive.

Considering how poorly I did in the early part of this year, my gardening endeavors are going much, much, better than I deserve. The reason for this is the abundance of rain this summer. Rain covers over a multitude of gardening sins. On whole, this summer has been exceptionally wet and cool. This means that even though I didn’t get my cucumbers in until very late they probably will actually still produce. It also means that my corn is growing well (that corn I thought would never grow), my apples tree are bursting with life (even the one chomped by the evil deer) and my grape vines are growing with the vigor of a weed.

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Not this Saturday, but last Friday and Saturday (July 25 and 26)I cleaned up the debris of the fallen willow tree. I was not looking forward to this project because it would be both mind-numbing and labor intensive. Two or so years ago when I was cleaning up from the big maple tree that died in our front yard, it took me forever to clean it all up. The tree was massive, and every large hunk of wood had to be split into firewood before it could be hauled off. Some of the chunks of the trunk were so utterly massive I could not split them into firewood and was forced to roll/haul them to either the burn pile, or some location on the property where they could make seats or ornamental pieces (such as plant stands). It was all very much a gut busting, sweaty, and prolonged process. Though the willow tree was not nearly so big, I still did not feel like spending any portion of my summer hauling around chunks of wood.

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I grew this lily from seed. Really. All by myself. Several years ago, my grandma sent me a letter with some seeds wrapped in wax paper. She had carefully handwritten “Pink Trumpet Lilies” on the piece of tape sealing the little package. She told me another woman in her nature discussion group gave them to her for me.

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