Spring Gardens

Prairie garden after back breaking digging

For most of my life, I viewed birders and gardeners with contempt. However, since so many friends and family members love birds and flowers, I kept my mouth shut and only a few suspected that I perceived their hobbies as useless time wasters.

Of course, I've been one of them for some time now. I'm especially enjoying our wonderful spring, when chilly rainy days are followed by warm ones filled with sunshine. On this cold Mother's Day, the trees are in almost full leaf and the ground has just enough moisture to make planting easy. About ten days ago I turned the first shovelful of dirt in what I think of as my prairie garden.

Home Depot
spading fork

The mix for Prairie Garden 2015

It was hard going, rocky and full of mineral dust, made a little easier when my neighbor Gaylord lent me his 4-tine spading fork, a good purchase for me later in the summer before fall cleanup. I finally finished the job yesterday, leaving lots of rocks but ending up with a plot much better than the one I had last year. I worked in a little manure and peat moss and will plant this year's garden in the next day or so, as soon as I'm sure it won't get pelted with hail.

I saw a few green hints of green this weekend

Last week, I persuaded Bob to let me have the little strip of earth on the north side of the garage. The area gets no sun at all and plantings the last two summers have been disappointing, so I've been imagining a little garden populated by shade plants. I dug and turned the soil, and finally sprinkled the mix over the earth and watered it. Yesterday, we planted a border of red and white impatiens, and this morning I noticed the first tentative sprouts of green. Next I'll help Bob with the little strip between the front and back yards, that it's really his  project so I'm just a minor contributor for that one.

Pumpkins in the fall

In addition to the wildflower gardens, I'll plant some pumpkin seeds on the west side of the house where I've had only marginal success with spring flowers, thanks to the energetic squirrels that dug down through wood chips to eat most of the bulbs, especially the crocus and hyacinth that I planted last fall. I'd love to have a nice little pumpkin patch in the autumn, so if the seeds are planted on June 1, I should be taking picture of beautiful pumpkins on September 19, 110 days later.

After the first few days of digging, I ached all over in muscles I didn't know existed. I groaned rolling over in bed and limped downstairs in the morning. I had no idea my butt could hurt so badly just from using that garden fork! I was surprised to feel better by yesterday, ready to dig again and looking forward to modest but exhilarating summer success.