Beltane                                                          Beltane Moon

“Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly–and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.”
–  Omar Khayyám

When we began life here in Andover, we decided we would like cut flowers in our home as often as possible, especially during the growing season.  We’ve not always cut them, but we sure have grown them.  Kate brought me two vases just a moment ago, one with fragrant lilacs and the other early purple iris and late, yellow daffodils.

To do this over the course of the growing season, that is, cut flowers for inside, requires planning for perennials that bloom throughout. (I’m not much of an annual guy, though Kate buys some each year.) Not always an easy task.  I still have some lacunae, late June and late July.  Finding fall bloomers that would survive here was a task for a while but asters and monkshod and clematis fill in with the help of the occasional fall-blooming crocus.

Beltane                                                                            Beltane Moon

Just looked back over my last several posts and realized my not so happy face stares out of most of them.

Feeling a little fragmented, not focused.  Not that things aren’t getting done.

Yesterday I planted tomatoes and peppers.  A bit early, maybe.  But the predicted lows look pretty hopeful.  Up here in Andover we land in the southern reaching tongue of Minnesota that has a predicted last frost date of May 22-28.  At least according to Bruce Watson and son’s Minnesota weather calendar.  Today I planted chard, collard greens and carrots.  Tomorrow pac choy and some more collard greens.

To plant the carrots I had to replant several lilies in our longest raised bed.  Seven or eight years ago I went to a lily sale at the Mn. Landscape Arboretum and purchased a number of lily varieties grown by Minnesotans.  I planted them in this bed as  part of a cut flower garden, before we turned it over to vegetables.  The lilies love this bed.  They have multiplied like crazy and now get in the way of the section of the bed I want to use for leeks and carrots.

Planting carrots, as those of you who have done it know, requires patience.  The seeds are tiny and getting them to come out of the hand one at a time is not easy.  Still, they’re in the soil now.

We decided to plant crops that we store over the winter so this year we’re focusing on onions, carrots, chard, beets, collard greens, potatoes and tomatoes.  In September I’ll plant next year’s garlic crop, too.

We also have a number of fruits on the way: raspberries, strawberries, apples, cherries, currants, blueberries and wild grapes.

Now is the time of watching the weather, scanning for bugs and disease, nurturing the plants.  Attending to the crops.

Spring                                                        Bee Hiving Moon

AC cleaned out.  Limbs moved and put into brushpiles.  Weed prevention completed.

Muscles a little achy, but feelin’ good.  Bees this afternoon.  Then a Latin day tomorrow.

Working outdoors at this pace at 65, a blessing.  I’m ready to go longer.

With Kate’s sprucing up, the onions, leeks, shallots and garlic growing, asparagus popping up, rhubarb going strong, daffodils in bloom plus a few croci, bees buzzing about the cherry and apple and pear blossoms, the vitality of our home bursts out from every square inch.