gardening «Acair Fearann » Page 17 Acair Fearann

Nothing like Saturday, Jun 28 2014

gardening gardening, vegetable gardening acairfearann 20:56

a nice normal, wet spring to deceive one about a hot, dry spell. Lulled into false security and all that. Hopefully, the peppers will perk back up over night. And the beans, and the tomatoes, and the…. Actually, it is finally looking like a vegetable garden. The peas are going along in good style, as is the lettuce, the beans are about to start setting flowers, the squash almost look like squash plants. The parsnips can be found (especially easy to find is last year’s missed parsnip: at six feet tall with flat chartreuse flower umbels, one ought to be able to find it!) After umpteen tries we have a row or two of chard and beets. I think I beat the Colorado potato beetles, so an eggplant might be a possibility. Oddly, the Japanese beetles have yet to show up. This makes me nervous, I am waiting for a sudden infestation.

An interesting, random tip, if you want a lovely, purple, long blooming flower in your garden? Don’t cut your common, ordinary garden sage back. Second or third year growth rewards one with elegant lavender purple flowers all through June. I still can’t figure out how to use it in cooking, but it certainly is a good garden plant on aesthetic principles!

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Rubus odoratus Thursday, Jun 26 2014

gardening gardening, native plants, rubus ordoratus acairfearann 08:36

Also known as (purple) flowering raspberry has got to be one of the most under-utilized native plants out there. I was first introduced to it growing as an under-story plant on Mont-Royal in Montreal. It likes well-drained edge/woodland openings and grows throughout the Appalachian mountain chain. A member of the raspberry family, but pretty far out there. It is thornless, grows to about six feet, spreading by runners, with large maple-like leaves, the bark on old canes (at least three years old) is tan, exfoliating, with darker cinnamon colored bark beneath. The flowers begin to appear in June and run well into July or later. They are about an inch and a half across, light purple with gold centers. The fruit is relatively dry, some people like the taste but it is not the selling point; the flowers are.

I got some a few years ago from a friend. It has happily spread where-ever there is sufficient soil moisture. It appears to be largely pest free. Here a stand has happily taken over an otherwise difficult area on a slope under an apple tree and blue spruce, at the edge of a parking lot.

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Summer is here Tuesday, Jun 24 2014

gardening gardening acairfearann 08:44

It always seems to arrive suddenly, and just about on time too: hot, humid, and sunny. I need to go water the vegetable garden….and see if the gamboling fox kits (really) ran through it again last night. They are very cute, the kits that is.

A few lightning bug about, always nice to see them. If sometimes a bit odd to see a little green light floating past a second story window.

The roses and foxgloves are blooming away, the peonies are almost over, as are the iris and the first, early clematis.

The house is mostly open for summer now, there probably are a few windows here and there that could be opened still. But the attic and the basement are the big two: letting the hot air out and the cool air in, and convection does the rest. Who needs an air conditioner on a rural hill top?

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Hay’s Done! Sunday, Jun 22 2014

gardening and Modern Photos connecticut agriculture, farming, hay acairfearann 22:27

I don’t need much off the field, but I do need some and it has to be good quality: picky, elderly thoroughbreds and pickier owners….I am sure I drive the farmer who cuts it (who runs Non-picky beef cattle) slightly bonkers, I try very hard not to. Especially since all I have to do is put it in the barn.

I’d give a great deal for his tractors and sundry equipment though….

As usual this one ran perfectly:

A good thing, since this big Oliver* (which was rebuilt since last year but not run hard till now) gave up on the second circuit of the field with the cutter. The grass was just too heavy and something in the cooling system went Bang! Thankfully, the man has another, earlier Oliver as well and that combined with the Farmall made due.

The real problem is finding people to do the work, these days it is almost cheaper to buy extra hay-wagons than to try to get people to buck hay. Still you end up with quite the hay wagon collection!

*big for post-war New England okay? I confess, I am not really a fan of the Olivers, any more than I am of Mack trucks, the bulldog effect doesn’t do it for me. As far as I am concerned, tractors ought to be red, tricycle Farmalls or stout little gray Fergusons.

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Clematis ‘Henryi’ Thursday, Jun 19 2014

gardening and Modern Photos clematis, clematis 'Henryi' acairfearann 20:59

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Peonies Wednesday, Jun 18 2014

gardening and Modern Photos gardening, peonies, photography acairfearann 20:29

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Phoebes Tuesday, Jun 17 2014

gardening gardening, phoebes, wildlife acairfearann 19:52

One of the most common flycatchers around here, a little charcoal suited (tuxedo) bird with the classic long flycatcher tail. For years they have nested on the porch pillars of Happy Thought or on top of the big window casement on that porch. This gives them direct access to the meadow fence line (posts are ideal perches) and the high grass west lawn (a stake for a young white oak makes another good perch). This year we are up to two pairs nesting in the area.

We had thought that, given the evidence, our resident gray fox (with cub, very fat) which is currently denning under said porch might have caught the Happy Thought phoebe yesterday.

However, it doesn’t appear to be the case. Or at least is unlikely, I just saw the phoebe sitting happily on the porch rail contemplating the setting sun or the bugs…more likely the bugs…. I, not being a fly catcher, am sitting on the Other side of the screen!

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White Rose Monday, Jun 16 2014

gardening and Modern Photos gardening, photography, roses acairfearann 21:35

I have to figure out how to take rose cuttings. This is one of our oldest roses, buried for years at the head of the drive; it must have been planted after the highway was shifted, so after 1935, but probably not too much later. It is tolerant of shade, incredibly winter hardy, more so than the other old roses which died nearly to the ground*. It is also free of pests (though that might be because there are no other roses near it), mildly fragrant, about five feet tall, and once blooming. In my opinion, it is pretty much what a white rose ought to look like. It has no suggestion of rugosa heritage, the best I can tell it is the true alba semi-plena: the white rose of York.

*Sadly, this means that they won’t flower this year since unlike the modern roses, they apparently bloom on last year’s growth.

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Gardening: an incomprehensible activity Monday, Jun 9 2014

gardening gardening acairfearann 16:02

I sometimes wonder what an alien would think of a gardener’s efforts. One always seems to spend a great deal of time cutting down the vigorous plants so that the other, not-so-vigorous plants can grow.

In this case, giving the bedstraw a good scare.* A pernicious invader of hayfields, pastures, and garden beds, bedstraw may smell nice when dry and may have pretty, frothy sprays of tiny white flowers; but it is simply not needed. It will choke even the most vigorous of plants (such as daylilies), because the long, sprawling stems catch and weigh down other plants. Furthermore, if there is enough in a bale of hay, horses won’t eat it. The 100 odd feet of daylily fence is very prone to invasion by bedstraw: as the field, if given half a chance, would become bedstraw city. It, however, is regularly mowed** so the bedstraw naturally tries to move under the fence and into the daylilies, which can’t be mowed.

I didn’t realize that the bedstraw would be such a problem at first, so it got a jump of a year or two on us. I should have, of course, it was there; but our mowing was such that it wasn’t quite So evident. With the change in how that section of lawn is mowed and the creation of an entirely unmowable section (the daylilies) it blossomed, quite literally. This year I intend to go to war with it.

*Smooth Bedstraw or gallium mollugo

**my horse will not eat long grass, go figure.