Ruth,
What I have grown and done with my land has varied greatly from place
to place.
As a kid I seemed to start a garden each year, but I think I was more
interested in planning and planting and harvesting. I was overly
ambitious with the number and kinds of plants and had little interest
in maintaining them. Harvests were unremarkable.
I grew a bean plant in a pot in my dorm room one year in college. It
was part of a photographic essay. I needed a series of slides of
something growing. I must have grown fond of the plant and vaguely
remember bringing it home to the future Mrs. C. to care fore, since I
tended to neglect it once the project was complete.
When we lived in Maine I ordered seeds from a Canadian outfit. I
planted sunflowers all along the driveway. It was kind of pretty. My
garden was on a rock ledge where I was able to get a small patch of
sunlight through the trees...after taking down a couple of mature White
Pine. Carrots, radishes, beans and a few other hardy plants did well.
It was important that they did well, school teachers were not paid well
at that time, at least in Maine...I could have gotten a raise by moving
to Mississippi. It was then that I became a reasonably successful
fisherman too. We had a couple of acres and I took half the firewood
we burned each winter out of our own land. Smaller oak and maple, sort
of like weeding. I learned that a chain saw can screw up your back, a
splitting mall helps straighten it out, and X-C streteches muscles
nicely...if you can stay away from the snowmobiles. But I do remember
winter evenings by the wood-stove studying the seed catalogs as being
very pleasant.
In Milwaukee we lived in a Condo. I had a couple of those funky wooden
barrel halves filled with topsoil and I grew pumpkins and cherry
tomatoes. I took the left over pumpkin seeds and secretly plantedt
them in my neighbors planters. I remember my kids friends in the
neighborhood screaming, "OOOOOH! You ATE that! Its been in the dirt!"
But that was nothing compared to their reaction when I had some live
lobsters shipped in from Maine!
In Pennsylvania I got serious about the garden. But, the trees on the
land were Walnut, Cherry and Mulberry. It was either too good for
firewood, or not good enough. I did a sort of raised bed gardening
there. I had such lousy soil that as I improved it, I didn't want it
to get mixed with the stuff that hadn't been improved. There I grew a
wide variety of stuff.
Here I'm back to containers, mostly. Time seems to be a problem now.
I'd like to do more. I generally have just left the sunflowers to fend
for themselves until they are turning brown. Then I cut them off and
hang them up someplace dry. If I forget about them the mice get them.
The mice entertain the cats. Somehow it all fits into the circle of
life.
I've run into some nasty critters here that are new to me. Some squash
beetle kills off my pumpkins as soon as they start to flower. This
bothers me. I always though a pumpkin was something you could plant
and forget about.
I was more agressive with my gardening last year. Maybe I will be
again this year. I've been thinking about moving my compost pile to
the other side of the creek while its frozen. But I only think about
it on nice days, and then I don't think about it for very long.
-jc
On Feb 4, 2005, at 11:08 AM, Ruth Barton wrote:
> John, When do you cut your sunflowers and how do you dry them? I
> tried it
> once but I think I cut them too soon or didn't dry them correctly as
> they
> got moldy and I gave them to the birds, which is OK too as I buy lots
> of
> bird seed during the winter.
>
> I have a vegetable garden but also have a flower garden which has been
> here
> as long as I can remember. It is quite overgrown with weeds and
> brambles
> now and I am working as time and season permits to get it into shape.
> There are a lot of those "Chinese Lantern" plants there that were there
> when I was a kid.
>
> We also have acres of plants that can be burned and the menfolks are
> busy
> cutting them during the warmer months so we can burn them in the
> furnace
> during the winter. Dad always said that the trees were growing and
> maturing on the farm at a faster rate than we could burn them. We
> still
> don't sell firewood though, too much work to cut it. Ruth
>
>
>
> At 9:42 PM -0600 2/3/05, John Callan wrote:
>> I like to grow sunflowers too Ruth. I guess I like them 'cause there
>> big and beautiful AND tasty. I grew artichokes once. But the flower
>> was so pretty all the plants went to flower instead of fruit. But
>> normally, I like plants I can eat...or burn.
>>
>> -jc
> --
> Ruth Barton
> [log in to unmask]
> Dummerston, VT
>
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