Rising temps, rising flowers

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Up to 45 degrees here on the hill, the light drizzle has stopped and a bit of sunlight is encouraging me to write faster and get outside. I really wanted breakfast to serve as a jump start today but Gail suggested a piece of freshly frosted carrot cake instead. She just finished making a beauty for the planting crew that will be here shortly.

Gail makes one of the best carrot cakes you'll ever eat--to me "the" best. If you want the recipe, let me know and I'll send you a copy. I like moist cakes with good flavor and this one fits the bill. But for this morning I was thinking about some eggs and toast and juice. I've been informed that I'm on my own, but that's not uncommon around here this time of year. Already Alex and I have found ourselves looking at each other at 9 PM asking "Did we have supper yet?"

Apologies from The Vermont Gardener for taking a leave of absence from this blog without having the courtesy to advise regular viewers we'd gone into hiding. It wasn't really like that, we were just plain busy. There's legislation in Montpelier related to autism and that's a subject that's dear to us. That meant a constant daily/nightly email campaign. Monday the House will get the bill out of the House Education Committee and we're hopeful on that. Two weeks ago we had Gail's mother's 90th b-day party and in between we have raked tons of leaves, planted a buckets of lily bulbs, put the cover on the greenhouse, and split two cords of wood for next winter. We've also compared aches and pains which prevail when out-of-shape +50 year olds come out of hibernation and find out how far it is to the ground all over again.


The forsythia is finally coming into bloom and the pulmonarias are already putting out flowers for the first hummingbirds to savor. If those tiny birds got a good travel agent this spring, they should be arriving here on time the end of next week, beginning of the following week. They are like clockwork in their arrival here unless there is a big storm someplace that delays them just like the big jets that can't get out for a few hours or a few days.

Gail's favorite, the hepaticas, began to bloom earlier this week and as always with her first look, shel begs me to plant her some more. This is one of those childhood loves that never fades. I agree they are a very nice wild flower and they help jump start our gardening enthusiasm for dirty hands and happy spirits.

I have raked off a third of the lower hosta garden pictured above. This is the garden built inside an old barn foundation. It's coming along nicely and with the rain this weekend, the first hostas will begin to grow. Montana aureomarginata is usually the first or second to break ground. It does this just in time to get nailed by a hard frost or two but it always comes back in all its glory. The lancifolias break through early and hold tight as they can handle temperature change better.

The hellebores are in bloom and for once the foliage looks great but the first flowers look a little weak. That will all change in a week or so. If you don't have any of these, stop by and take a look. We don't have any for sale this year but will next year when we move.

The first daffodils are in bloom over the bank here by my office. The tulips are up about 2 inches and growing fast. I raked off the hosta garden by the little frog pond and already the blue scilla are up two inches so bloom should be this week too. The list goes on and on.

If you're out and about, Peacham Pond Road is muddy in a couple places. Our place looks like a bomb hit as there are piles of tires stacked here and there and hundreds and hundreds of feet of rolled up plastic and folder insulating cloth. Place looks like a big recycling center but this is how it should look as we uncover the gardens and prepare for another season of growing good plants.

As I have said for many years, we grow hardy plants for hardy Vermonters and their friends. Be a gardening friend and keep us in mind for a visit this season. In the meantime, show compassion for my absence from this blog and give us a question or two to help your gardens grow better. We don't have all the answers but we know a lot of people who do.

From the mountain above Peacham Pond where a tom turkey is calling his female friends and looking for a fight with competing males, while two docile mourning doves coo happy thoughts and act out plans for a new family.

Gardening wishes,

George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://vermontgardens.blogspot.com

A 5th Vermont Season

Tuesday March 27, 2007

It's heading for 7 PM here and despite the weather I have to say how much I do enjoy the time change and the advent of spring. It still has Karl the wonder dog a little confused as to when he's supposed to go for a walk after dinner but the rest of us have adapted well. Tonight there is a heavy fog and the temperature of 43 this time of day is uncommon. We would like to see the temperature fall into the mid twenties and refirm the earth to something you can walk on without wondering how deep your shoes will sink. This is early spring in Vermont and this is the start of our fifth season--Mud Season.

Evenings like this one remind me of being 6 years old and wondering if we'd make it home for supper. The old early-forties Buick was a fine car with Bondo patched fenders and a good array of dents, scratches and rust. It mattered little what a car looked like back in 1954 as no one had a new car and during mud season no one would know if you did anyway as every car was covered with mud.

My Dad always figured if he could make it over the hill by Frenches, we'd probably be golden. He'd always make an initial run and just gun the motor for all it had in hopes that he'd make it and not have to put on the tire chains. That philosophy worked in early spring but it seemed as if it created more problems than it was worth.

One night we waited for one of the Reeds to finish milking and come down with the tractor to pull us over the top and on another night we blew a radiator hose and walked home. These memories repeated themselves over time with only the date changing.

Getting buried and then having to put on the chains was no guarantee that you'd get out but it was the last resort. My father would curse the chains being stuck together and I feared him too much to remind him that he was the only person who put them on and took them off. Often he'd have to jack up a tire at a time to get them on and sometimes he'd have to take them off and do on-site repairs with a giant ball peen hammer and a cold chisel. These were skills I did not want to learn but the repetitiveness buried them back in my mind. I can still see my father's arthritic knuckles covered with mud but powerfully draping the chains under a wheel well and over the tire before he layed on the ground and pulled the pieces together to lock them. Yes, mud season in the old days was something you expected but did not look forward to.

We've been here on Peacham Pond Road since 1989. Gail lost the entire exhaust system only once, and since '89 I have had enough discussions with the road foreman to get the road built up more each year. Tonight the pot holes are so deep that Karl barks each time a vehicle approaches as even at slow speeds there are loud rattles. Yes Vermont's 5th season, Mud Season, is memorable!

This is the season when Gail and I can take a brief walk every night after supper. That's a nice change. By tomorrow night I expect that enough snow will have melted off the potted plants that we'll have some discussion about when the insulating blankets will get torn off this year, who will fold the 500 feet of plastic, how much damage we'll find from the vole population and whether Hosta "Montana aureomarginata' will sprout first and get nailed by frost as usually happens. All the conversations will be interesting to us and have relevance to what we grow and sell. Farmers, even flower farmers, trust each other with their conversations and they look forward to them.

Gail just interrupted my writing by asking that I come into the kitchen and listen to VPR and a couple senators discussing education, funding, taxes and spending too much money on special education. One of these has been around for a long time. He hasn't been around long enough to have learned that he should answer constituents questions and at least fake an interest in thoughts. I wrote him on March 7th and I haven't even received an acknowledgement yet. Perhaps he doesn't answer email or maybe he doesn't read it. Apparently he doesn't know me yet, but he will.

Mud Season is not a planting season, it's a time for final preparation. It's a time to sharpen tools like hand pruners and then wade through the snow to cut some pussy willows or some forsythia for a vase on the side board. It's time to push a hand file or a power grinder on the edge of all the shovels to sharpen their points. It's time to sand all wooden handles and apply a fresh coat of oil or sealer. There's actually a long list of Mud Season chores that have to be completed quickly. As the snow melts and the grass greens, planting time will be here and there's no spare time. Here on the hill there's still over two feet of snow on the ground but that too will be gone soon.

Mud season is a time to reflect on last year's gardens. The picture above is from late last summer. The daylilies had just peaked but other flowers held strong and the color combinations attracted new customers. Garden memories are peaceful.

From the mountain above Peacham Pond, where summer visions are clear, just separated by three more months, more rain, more snow and more fog.

Spring gardening wishes,

George Africa
http://vermontgardens.blogspot.com
http://vermontflowerfarm.com