organic gardening

We have germination

~ MaryG ~ 38 Comments

My husband’s new Retirement Garden (aka The Graveyard) will not sit idle until spring. With hopes for a warm October, he went ahead and put in a bunch of seeds and surprisingly, they all sprouted.

He planted spinach, radishes, Swiss chard and four kinds of lettuce seeds.

Also, he now has a spigot out there. 💦

For my friends facing knee replacement: his two new knees are really pretty darn good now. Walking is not a problem. Stairs are not a problem. I would say that this optimistic return to his lifelong love of plants and gardening has been made possible by those surgeries.

Graveyard installed

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

I am happy to report that the young fellow we hired to install some new garden beds and a deer fence for my husband was successful. Matt was our “plow guy” last winter, but we discovered he also does landscaping (as many plow guys do). Matt brought along two actual children with him as helpers and they worked all weekend long. When I asked if the boys were his nephews or younger brothers, he said that they were just two industrious boys who asked for work. It turns out they were 14 and 15 years old. I have never seen boys that young work so hard. I was a bit worried about them, but the weather was perfect and they seemed fine. I brought out snacks a few times and my husband gave them each a cash tip.

Matt in the new garden area on Saturday morning
Here’s how it looked Saturday night
And here’s how it looked last night after they left—my husband entering the raised bed enclosure for the first time.
Does it remind you of anything??
I’m sorry, but to me it looks like a bunch of freshly dug graves 🤣
If we got more trick-or-treaters, I’d attempt to create a graveyard scene for Halloween. I mean, it would be PERFECT.
A blank slate for my husband to pursue one of his great loves (plants) in his upcoming retirement. You can see two of our fruit trees behind the raised beds, and the big clump of cannabis plants on the right. (They’re going to get moved inside the fence next season.)
If this were an actual family graveyard, I think I’d want to be buried in one of the big containers inside the deer fence. This big grave seems too exposed. It is slated to become a butterfly garden 🦋

So, back to the prompt (sort of):

What’s the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?

I think it was pretty darn kind of me to help make one of his retirement dreams a reality. (I found Matt and had the bright idea to contact him for this job.) Last weekend was supposed to be my Bucket List trip to Acadia National Park, which I canceled mostly because my husband was not feeling well enough to travel. (Weather would’ve been perfect for it too.)

I trust my kindness will be repaid in organic vegetables, pretty flowers and cannabis galore in the coming years. And I’m sure I’ll make it up to Acadia – eventually.

Fruit trees

~ MaryG ~ 38 Comments

We hired the young man who plowed our driveway last winter to help install my husband’s new vegetable garden (aka The Retirement Garden), which will have four large raised beds, irrigation, and a deer fence. (Fingers crossed the kid is up to the job. The soil where the fence posts need to get sunk in is very hard.)

In the meantime, a few of the many fruit trees my husband planted about twenty years ago have survived deer and other blights and are producing fruit. And for some reason, this year, the squirrels are missing in action. Typically, they would’ve had these trees stripped by now.

I made my first ever pie from the apples in our yard yesterday.

According to Google,
“Winesap apples are a classic American heirloom variety prized for their deep, cherry-red skin, exceptionally crisp texture, and unique, tangy, wine-like flavor. Dating back to the colonial era, they are famous for an intense sweet-tart profile with spicy undertones, making them a premier choice for fresh eating, cider brewing, and baking.”
My Winesap apple pie was really good. I used the basic recipe that’s printed in the bottom of my pie plate, but these apples definitely have a complex, spicier taste than the usual store-bought varieties.
Thank you squirrels for taking a vacation this year.
Bosc pear tree
Asian pear tree
I have done some baking with our Asian pears in the past, but they’re very sweet. They’re best eaten fresh off the tree.
These beautiful pears are hanging just out of my reach, untouched by squirrels. We finally broke down and ordered a fruit picking tool so we can get these down, but it’s not being delivered until Tuesday. 😕 I really I hope we beat the squirrels to these.
And here’s a throwback photo (August 2002). Check out that harvest. My husband grew all that food! He actually remembers the exact moment he went Organic after reading the ingredients on a bag of grub killer at our first house in Canton, MA in 1995.

Growing some of our own food again has become increasingly appealing in Trump’s America. Between skyrocketing food prices, never ending news of American food supply contaminations, and now an absolutely ridiculous trade war with Canada, we want to put our sunny yard back to doing something useful.