A Bust
On Tuesday, we tried to visit a few gardens in the capital city of Augusta with my parents. The list that inspired us, was found in Down East Magazine, clearly it must have been an older article (the date didn’t appear on the web article).
Our first stop, was Viles Arboretum. Which was actually nice, small, but nice. My dad was particularly interested in seeing the American Chestnut Collection.
The hosta garden was very impressive. I didn’t count but there were hundreds of different varieties. The setting was perfect, all along a shady walkway lined with birch trees, it was really beautiful. If you want to add hostas to the garden, this is the place to check them out.
Our next stop was the garden at the Blaine House, the governor’s mansion. It was supposed to be open for self-guided tours on Tues-Thurs. I tried calling ahead, but couldn’t reach them. When we arrived, the gardens were less then impressive from outside the fence (my gardens in Malvern were much nicer). The gardener on duty told us we’d have to get a reservation at a museum down the street, but he wasn’t exactly sure where it was or if they gave out reservations, he really didn’t know much. I guess people aren’t clamoring to tour these gardens and their website was way out of date.
We then stopped at the Blaine Memorial Park, which was described as follows: Adjacent to the historic Forest Grove Cemetery, the site affords sweeping views that overlook the city and Kennebec River for several miles.
Clearly the article was written a LONG time ago, or the author of the article just copied things from the website and didn’t actually visit the site. This was the “sweeping view of the Kennebec”. It’s behind all those tall trees.
Our last garden to see in Augusta was the Kennebec Valley Garden Club Park. It was described in the article as: Two acres of perennials, birdhouses, trees, and a children’s butterfly and hummingbird garden. This is what we found, a small fenced in garden filled with weeds.
I guess Augusta isn’t the gardening community it used to be. We laughed and drowned our sorrows in ice cream from the Augusta farmers market.
Since we hadn’t seen much of anything that day, we decided to swing by the Johnny’s Selected Seeds Research Farm to see something that resembled a garden, we were not disappointed.
Sometimes things don’t go as planned, in fact, around here it’s rare that something actually goes as planned. This kind of day is actually quite typical for us. The whole point of the day was to spend time with family and that was accomplished. No doubt we’ll laugh about our Augusta Maine Garden Tour Bust for years to come.
Have you ever gone somewhere to see something that was no longer there?
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Quote of the Day: Manny Howard
The Farm will remove me from the consumer loop. The locavore’s dilemma is that, for all this thoughtful action, he’s still a consumer. The Farm will put me one step deeper, make me the producer. Once food is tied to work and not money, even -worst case- its scarcity will teach the family something.
Manny Howard from My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm
Yesterday was the day for a few of our broiler chickens to become food. It could certainly be easier and cheaper to buy chickens from a local farmer already processed and ready for the oven, but we choose to do this for ourselves. We also slaughter them ourselves, right here. It would only cost me a few dollars to have a local processor do this task for me, but then I’d have to drive the birds to their location. I also wouldn’t be able to retain the feathers, blood and some of the offal. It also gives me the ability to know exactly how the animal lives and dies, if I’m going to eat meat, I want to make sure it’s raised responsibly.
We also like to raise and slaughter them ourselves because we can use the entire animal. While they’re growing they mow our grass and provide valuable manure for our soil. When slaughtered, the feathers get composted as do some of the entrails. The blood also makes a great addition to the compost pile, or you can dilute it and water plants with it as it’s full of nitrogen.
Our neighbor brought up his old rooster for us to process as well, he wanted someone to get some use out him. He will sustain the resident Chiots for a few days.
Another reason we do things like this for ourselves is because it teaches us what’s involved in making our food. It’s very true that the more you have to work for your food, the less of it you will waste and the more you appreciate your food. Not a feather from these birds will go to waste.
Has growing your own food made you appreciate more and waste less?
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Quote of the Day: Cottage Gardens
The genuine cottager began to be joined, towards the end of the eighteenth century, by members of the gentry seeking “the good life” – a simpler life nearer the soil but with money and independence to back them up. Our idea of cottage gardening today owes much to this trend and when we emulate the cottage-garden style, it is not because of the necessity to grow food, but because we are keen to adopt a free-and-easy style and to grow our vegetables on soil laced with dung and garden compost rather than with man-made fertilizers. Also it is because we want to foster some of our own wild flowers.
-Christoper Lloyd & Richard Bird (The Cottage Garden)
It’s interesting that growing your own food has always been a way for people to connect with nature and a more simple life. I enjoy it for so many reasons, mostly for the beauty that it brings. It certainly make me happy to see more and more people digging in the soil and planting a few edibles.
Do you notice more people growing edible gardens than in previous years?
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Quote of the Day: Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd
Vegetables gardens, rightly viewed, are much more than food factories. They are magic places, little worlds set apart from other domestic or horticultural concerns, realms of peace and order.
Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd in Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill
I really love this book and this quote, because vegetables are truly different than other gardens. For me, vegetables are of top priority. If I had to choose, I’d choose vegetables over hydrangeas any day, though I’m glad I don’t have to.
Would you choose vegetables over ornamentals if you had to make a choice?
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Quote of the Day: Monty Don
“The herbs are essential to the kitchen and we aim to provide ourselves with a limitless supply of the principal herbs so that we can cook generously with them rather than treating them as a precious garnish.”
Monty Don from Fork to Fork
In my garden grow many herbs, they’re one of my favorite things to have around. There are culinary herbs, medicinal herbs and tea herbs. It would be very hard to me to sit down and list all of the herbs in my garden, there are far too many. Consider thyme, there are 15 different varieties of thyme growing at Chiot’s Run.
I use mass quantities of herbs every day, at every meal. Of all of the herbs I grow, lemon thyme is probably my most favorite. If I had to choose only it would win. A close second would be cilantro.
Do you grow lots of herbs in your garden? Which is your favorite?
