Friday, June 5, 2009

Coping with New England weather and busy schedules

I've been waiting nearly a month for that perfect combination of clear weather without a frost warning and an afternoon where DH is home and not working on other 'priority' projects. I think we may finally have reached that magic date though it's looking overcast I don't think it's going to rain.
One of the hard points to living in VT is not going stir crazy in May and planting too soon. I've talked to/ read posts from sooo many people who planted too soon this year and lost everything to a late frost. Gardening here is a precise dance of patience and perseverance.
The garden's been tilled for weeks and I've been working on weeding the perennials between wet spells. We've got all our new trees and bushes in the ground and the apple tree has had it's first treatment of Captan for the scab that has plagues it since we bought the house. It's always been an annoyance but we never bothered to try to harvest the fruit before so we just left it. This year we're hoping to get some fruit from it so we'll need to treat it weekly for a while to see how it does.
Michael got most of the yard mowed and weedwhacked last night while I weeded around the raspberries. Today we're hoping to get to the interior of the garden. I've spent alot of time these past few weeks pouring over gardening catalogs and "Carrots Love Tomatoes" to figure out the best planting plan. I was pleased with last years plan but, as I understand it, we're supposed to change the layout each year to keep pests from getting established. I'm thinking I may just flip the plan so everything that was in the first row is in the last and vice versa, which will work fine til I get to the middle of the garden.
I think the first of the rhubarb is about ready to be harvested and yesterday I noticed tiny berries forming on my strawberry plants. I've had fresh chives and oregano for weeks now.

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