Friday Favorite: Color in the Garden
The grass is just starting to turn green, but brown is still the dominant color in the garden. I’m always happy to see the Johnny Jump Ups blooming, they’re such a cheery sight even when things are still brown.
They’re edible as well, so when the salad greens are ready to harvest I’ll be harvesting these little beauties to add color to our meals.
What’s the first thing to bloom in your garden?
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Ornamentals for the Garden
It’s finally time to start adding a few ornamentals to the garden. I’ve finally lived through an entire gardening year here, watching where the water runs and pools, watching where the sun rises and falls and taking note of where the wind comes from. I’m finally starting to add ornamental plants.
I purchased two ‘Anabelle’ hydrangeas, this variety is my all time favorite flowering shrub. I also purchased a ‘Limelight’ hydrangea which is another one of my favorites. Both of these varieties of hydrangeas produce food for pollinators. Back in Ohio I had one type of beetle that loved my ‘Annabelle’ blossoms. I never saw it on any other plant.
I also purchased a climbing hydrangea, which I have wanted to add to my garden for many years. Right now I’m trying to decide which part of the house I want to have it climb, I’m thinking perhaps on one of the walls of the back porch. A lovely clematis ‘Alpina’ also made it into my basket, along with a false indigo. Most of these will go in a few flowerbed I’m adding up by the garage.
Yesterday I headed out to one of the local greenhouses and purchased a few of my favorite plants that I had to leave behind in Ohio. Plants aren’t cheap, thankfully I have a lot of starts from plants from my previous garden and I can get a lot from my mom as well. I did have to purchase a few replacements. I usually don’t mind spending money on plants, I know they’ll last in the garden and give me years of joy.
What’s your favorite ornamental shrub?
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Here We Grow Again
I’ve spent a lot of time this past week expanding the little potager behind the house.
Last fall I laid down cardboard around the permitter and topped it with compost. I’m working on smothering ridding the garden of it’s couch grass infestation. One of the ways to do that is to keep the grass mown short around the garden. The problem is, two sides of the garden are difficult to mow because they are so steep.
I’m planning on digging the soil back a bit and building a rock wall to level the garden and keep the soil in place. It’s a BIG task, but I’m up for the challenge. Before all this can be completed I’m trying to keep the majority of the couch grass that’s in this location. In the are that the grass was smothered, I’m digging up buckets and buckets of rhizomes. In the area that is still in sod, I’m turning it over and the chickens are scratching it up exposing the roots.
As a result I’m adding roughly 400 more square feet of gardening space. Most of this will be take up with rock walls and hedges. One of the reasons for expansion is to plant a few low windbreak hedges to protect the plants within the garden.
In the next few weeks I’m hoping to get Mr Chiots in there with his tractor to dig down for the base of the rock walls. I may have a strong back, but that’s not something I want to do with my shovel.
Any garden expansion happening outside your window?
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Tomatoes
Last weekend I started my tomato seeds. I’m doing this a few weeks later than I usually do, but spring has been long in coming.
I’m growing a few new varieties this year, the ‘Beaverlodge’ types from Territorial. They are supposed to start producing at 55 days – we shall see if I’m harvesting fruit in late June. The best part about this variety is that if it does well it should be producing fruit for canning before late blight arrives.
This year I’m going to try grafting a few. I purchased the grafting seeds and am hoping to get enough rootstock to graft one of each of the heirloom varieties that I’m growing. I’ll plant them side by side with their non-grafted counterpart and look for any differences is disease resistance, growth rates and fruit production.
I’m most excited about my favorite tomato ‘Principe Borghese’. This beauty is the perfect tomato, small, delicious and a prolific producer. I love that it can easy be dried and tastes just like sun dried tomatoes. It also roasts up perfectly for my roasted tomato passata.
What’s your favorite tomato?
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Happiness
True happiness is when Dexter discovers an emerging catmint plant for the first time in the spring. He found this yesterday when we were working in the back potager and spent about a half hour rolling on it and eating it.
I can completely understand how he feels, it’s a been a long winter here in Maine and Dexter is happy to once again be able to play in the garden and roll in his favorite plant. Back in Ohio I was always most excited to see my peonies, here in Maine I’m not sure if I have a favorite plant yet, I haven’t added any perennials to my gardens. Perhaps it will be asparagus this year, it won’t be long until it starts coming up.
What’s your favorite plant to see after a long winter?
