The Building Summer

A  Tomato Garden - they're in there somewhere!

 It’s fully summer now. If the humidity and heat didn’t clue you in, you could know because I just threw out the dusty, dried-up remains of last year’s garlic harvest. 

This summer’s garlic is starting to be ready to pick, and some variety I planted last fall is making bulbules part-way up the stalk, which I’ve never seen before. The internet tells me some varieties do that instead of scapes. It’s been too dry; I’ve had to cut off a couple of carrot flowers, and that’s not normal, carrots are biennials and don’t flower until the 2nd year, unless they’re stressed and fear they won’t be able to live ‘til year 2 to reproduce. The chipmunks have started to chomp them away, as they’re doing to my beets, also, so other stressors besides the dry ground. 

We need rain. My pepper plants are about a foot high and have peppers on them that are almost as big as the plants themselves; the plants are usually several feet tall by now. And I have dill plants that are 6 feet tall, so huge their branches are breaking. 

Work starts on the tent roof replacement

 This has been the summer of everything upside down. The Husband had to have emergency surgery for retina detachment at the beginning of the month, which means he’s out of responsibility for all the summer chores until the gas bubble that holds the re-attached retina in place absorbs into the body. This can take up to 3 months, and in that meanwhile, he can’t drive, can’t lift more than 20lbs, and is restricted to “light exercise” because if he were to fall, or get stuff in his eye, or do anything that strains or jiggles and causes the gas bubble to move, it can take the retina with it, and it can’t be reattached a 2nd time = blind in that eye. Not a good look for a photographer. 

And the garden needs constant watering, which he can’t help with because hauling the hoses, which are too heavy, takes a lot of yanking. And stuff needs picking, which he can do when it doesn’t mean bending over – so, basically, blueberries. And while “light exercise” does include washing dishes, I don’t see a whole lot of that going on. 

In the meantime, my garden shed and the Boys shed (which spans the whole back of the garage) are finished, and now I’m doing battle to keep the Boys from putting stuff in my shed I don’t want there, and moving stuff in my shed around. And the Tall Guy, our excellent friend and shed-builder, has taken on the project of building a permanent roof over the wart, where the ripped-up tent roof used to be. 

Years and years ago, we bought a “gazebo tent” from the Evil Store, and it just happened to fit perfectly on one end of the wart (10’ x 10’). Over the years, between sun and winds, the roof material started to rot and got ripped up. Duct tape and other repairs can only go so far when the fabric is literally rotted out. So we contacted the manufacturer to see if we could buy a new roof, and they said “they’d contact us when one became available.” That was in May. 

The roof with tarps...

 So when the sheds were finished, the Tall Guy got that look in his eyes, and before I knew it he was measuring and thinking and announced that a permanent roof - a shed roof, in fact – could be erected on the wart. It would be longer than the tent roof, covering most of the wart – so less shoveling of snow in the winter (good). And it wouldn’t have to be put up and taken down fall and spring (good). And while it would cost 3x what a new tent cover would cost, assuming one became available, it would last forever (good). And there will still be room for my sun-loving plants on the south end (good). And the cats would have more space to lie out in the shade, as will the Boys when they’re having their elevenses (good and good). And we could put up a hammock if desired (good). And the hummingbirds think it’s a great place to go zooming through like a play tunnel (good). So it’s in progress! 

A place for elevenses

In fact, it’s almost all done except we’re waiting for the metal pieces for the roof to arrive, which should happen next week. In the meantime, Tall Guy tacked up some tarps over the rafters so I could see what it’s going to look like, and so the Boys have a place for elevenses out of the beating sun. The cats discovered, however, that the tarps are not rain-proof – I had some very wet and pissed-off puddies on Monday. Alas. 

They eventually dried out. 

AND – I will finally be able to have a laundry line, from one of the new posts on the wart to the garage wall – high enough so a truck can drive under it when necessary! Hurrah! Air -and sun-dried skivvies at last! 

Unknown flower - can anyone identify this?

So in my corner of the universe, things aren’t too bad at the moment. Daisies are going by, Black-eyed Sues and lilies and golden rod are blooming, as are nasturtiums, bachelor’s buttons, Speedwell Veronica, foxglove, and all the bean plants. The “lawn,” which to a large extent is thyme, is abloom and purple, except where there’s white clover; and the heather is also starting to bloom, both pink and white. Yarrow’s in bloom, tansy will be soon. Carnations and pinks and calendula and California poppies and dill and the wild flowers I let do their thing in my gardens are blooming, and the bees are having a riotous time. Yellow beans need picking and freezing, as do peas and zucchinis. Fava beans are starting to produce. Onions are going to be little this year, as is the garlic, because of the lack of rain, but the savory and the thyme love it like this. 

But it’s way too hot for me. So I’m going to go take a nap. 

For the blog, 21 July 2022: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com 

All photos Deb Marshall or Charley Freiberg 

 

Dancing for Joy, Weeping in Horror

 

The new shed door

The shed is done! The shed is done and the workbench and shelves are in place, and I’ve moved what’s left of the garden stuff I’m not leaving in the under-stairs shed into the new shed, and the hose holders and pegs for the potato bags and weed bags are hung, and I’ve started to re-store the bamboo posts that mark vegetable rows when I’m planting seeds in the spring. And the plastic cloches are stored, up high, where nothing will fall on them and smash them, and I tossed out the ones that had been fallen on and smashed when they were in the old shed. And I haven’t hit my head once!

Yes, I’ve done several dances of joy.

Unknown visitor

A toad seems to have moved in, and chipmunks go in and out at will – the shed isn’t that tight, which is fine because it’s not a place to start (or store) seeds in.  But it is a place to store out of season garden tools and tomato cages and weed bags and potato bags and other summer garden things, and where I can fill plant pots and get any leftover big bags of MooDoo and Mainely Mulch and potting soil out of the garden in the fall, and entertain Rasta who’s supervising where I put stuff. I LOOOVE having a real garden shed and I’ll love it even more next spring when I’ll be able to get out what I need without having to remove everything to get the one thing that’s way in the back, and then put it all back again, ‘til I need the next thing.

Supervising the shed

 The garden is in some ways already out of control. I’ve had to walk down the paths and remove huge masses of daisies and California poppies and strawberries, as well as Indian paintbrushes, cinquefoil and some massive mulleins, wood sorrel, dandelions, violets and dill , and a whole lot of I’don’t-know-what-they-are other wild flowers that have taken up residence in every crack between the garden pavers and are gorgeous and blocking my ability to move around the garden. I leave the milkweed when I can – not only is it edible and quite tasty at different stages of growth, but the flowers smell incredibly sweet, and they’re food for Monarch butterflies.

The asparagus went to fern and is now 6 feet tall and humming with bees, which love the flowers. And also blocking my progress; I have to admit I trim it a bit. Carefully. There’s tickweed and bladder campion that have pretty flowers, so I let them do their thing and try to cut them down or pull them out before they send seeds everywhere. Every year there’s new wild flowers that show up from somewhere – all the mass of daisies planted themselves, for example – and sometimes I let them stay, and other times I don’t. After all, some people pay lots of money to buy daisies and goldenrod and Black-Eyed Sues to plant in their perennial gardens – I don’t have to. But the wildings do tend to get out of control easily and don’t ask me, first, where it’s ok to plant themselves. And some are incredibly beautiful and I have no idea what they are.

Early zucchini

This summer is going to be a bit of a pisser, because the Husband has just had surgery for a detached retina, so he can’t do anything – literally – for awhile, and none of the things all summer that he usually does around the house, and won’t be able to do for months. So while he’s lying face down for weeks on end and has only limited activity allowed (“Be a sloth,” his doc told him), I’m trying to find time to do the stuff he usually does, plus my own stuff. The “lawn” isn’t going to get mowed: it’s mostly thyme, anyway, and it is a field, and I’m not going to be able to get to that; good thing he’d just mowed it before his eye fell apart. With luck, friends will help cut up the winter firewood and stack it. Friends are driving him to Boston for his surgery and eye appointments; and he’s not going to be able to do most of the actual money-earning work he usually does, ‘til fall. He can’t help in the garden, and even his around-the-house stuff has to be restricted. I’ve been making a lot of bread to go into the freezer, a job he usually does weekly; and the weekly dump run is now mine, as is the milk run, and for the stuff he can’t do (like crack open jars and bottles that my arthritic hands can no longer do, move heavy things I can’t lift, etc) I have to make sad puppy-eyes at manly male friends and ask them to do. It’s a pain – for the Husband, literally – but at least it’s not winter with wood to haul and snow to shovel.

What hangs outside the shed

And speaking of pissers -  Good God, what’s happening in our country? Guns out of control, women’s rights  and lives destroyed, racist shootings and beatings, climate change still being denied, a Supreme Court that’s demeaned itself beyond belief and a Congress that’s effectually ineffectual --- it goes on. Infuriating stuff, stuff to mourn every week, if not every day. I can’t say how furious it all makes me; when I try, I find myself spitting and incomprehensible.  If I was younger I’d be out of here. Not sure what country I’d move to, but this one is embarrassing and rapidly sliding down a slope to nastiness and evil intent being too often the norm, and unremarkable it’s so commonplace. Scary and horrible. And hurrah for the Jewish congregation that’s suing the Court for illegally refusing them their Constitutional right to practice their religion!

And Covid? Lots of people are still getting it, and they’re always surprised when they do. Wear your masks, people, the pandemic isn’t over, and sanitize your hands when you touch things other people are spreading virus upon. Or don’t, and let’s see how sick you get, and how many other people you can infect, and of those, how many get very sick or die, or get long Covid, or any of the other bad things that can happen to people who catch Covid, or happen because people who catch Covid can’t work, or do their volunteer work, and so on. The numbers of people infected with Covid are higher than they were at this time last year, and they’re higher than they appear to be, because the home tests don’t get reported – the numbers we’re given are just the hospital and PCR test numbers. All the maskless people out there have proven we can’t be trusted to do the right thing by our neighbors – so protect yourself until consciousness shifts and we all become kind.

HA! Don’t hold your breath while we’re waiting…

Places for everything

 

 

For the blog, July 4, 2022: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

All photos Deb Marshall

The garden mid-June