• Tag Archives Garden
  • Country Gentleman with Corn Rows

    61 bar steady 29.69 0mph WSW dewpoint 47 Beltane cloudy, cool

                  First Quarter of the Hare Moon

    “When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.” – George Bernard Shaw

    Love it, or leave it the bumper stickers used to say.  I bleed red, white and blue.  These colors don’t run.  WWJD?  George Bush and Dick Cheney keeping the world safe for democracy.  Shaw is a genuine prophet, witty and ascerbic.  We don’t have his equal today, at least none that I know.

    The Country Gentleman corn fit neatly into three rows, three feet apart, running east and west.  All the little onions are now in a bed by themselves, tucked in for the growing season.  The garlic looks great.  It’s a strange crop.  Sow it in the fall, reap in mid-summer.  We have peppers, tomatoes, onions, corn and beans planted.  A perfect garden for mexican cuisine.  We also have some beets and  carrots. 

    I like these day where we work in the garden in the morning, then it rains in the afternoon.  Perfect.


  • The Gardening Curve

    64  bar steep fall  29.75  2mph W dewpoint 37 Beltane Sunny

                   First Quarter of the Hare Moon

    Painted brush-b-gone on the stump of a honeysuckle.  I foolishly planted it where it blocked two beds from the sun.  It will not return now, as it has in the past, a Lazarus plant that would not stay dead.  Planted Guatemalan Blue and Table Queen squash along the fenceline. 

    Tomorrow onions go in and I’ll get started on moving daylilies yet again, though I believe this time their movement is final.  I’m taking them out of the garden environment and putting them along fences and at places where I need a friendly plant barrier to invasive wild species. I’ve discovered, at last, the proper place in our landscape for these hardy specimens.

    I’m a Celt and a Teuton.  I inherited the Teutonic love of scholarship and the Celtic imagination.  I also inherited a Celtic skin.  Being outside for very long leaves me a little woozy.  I also take a couple of medications that create photosensitivity.  Another reason to work in the garden in the early morning, a couple of hours at a whack. 

    We are ahead of the gardening curve for the most part.  A little late on some vegetables, a little early on others.  May is a busy month with clean up and  planting, bed preparation.  I’m lucky Kate’s got a week off now and can help.  She’s a sturdy, stay at it gal.

    The dogs love gardening.  They come out where we’re working, flop down on the grass and watch.  When that gets too tough, they go to sleep.


  • Hidden Gardens

    60  bar falls 29.93 3mph S dewpoint 33  Beltane sunny and windy

                      First Quarter of the Hare Moon

    The new bed for corn has a bag of composted manure mixed into the soil.  Debarked elm trunks went around three sides to bolster rotting logs from the creation of this bed 10 or so years ago.  The only plants remaining are a few stray Siberian Iris.  I like them and I don’t think the corn will mind having them there. 

    Kate and I went into the woods and settled on a place to put the playhouse for the grandkids.  It will face the firepit, midden heap park that I’m currently constructing.  I’ll have to clear buckthorn.  A few smaller oaks need to come out anyhow for thinning.  After that we’ll level the site and begin putting the structure together.  We plan to add a small deck and a fence.   I’ll plant a shade garden and native understory shrubs around it to blend it into the woods.  Kate also wants to string lights in the trees, a magical spot.

    Black landscape cloth now covers a large arc of ground underneath the three oaks that stand beside the near garden shed.  The idea is to kill off the nettles underneath, which will prepare the way for a hosta, fern, and other shade lovers garden there.  It’s not too visible, but I like the idea of hidden, pocket gardens around the landscape.

    All this outdoor work wears me out.  Off to a nap, then perhaps some more work outside.


  • Garden Illustrated

    59  bar falls 29.80 1mph NNE dewpoint 27 Beltane

               Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

    A few illustrations from today in the garden, showing various beds.

        prajaparmita400.jpg

                   A Cambodian statue from Artisans D’Angkor

        digging400.jpg

                                 The blue and the green

        spading-fork.jpg 

                My favorite spading fork (favorite spade above)


  • A Lot of Growing Around Here

    52  bar rises 29.78 0mph W dewpoint 34  Beltane

    A very beautiful Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

    More garden work tomorrow.  It feels so good to be back out there.  Kate planted Ireland Creek Annie and Cherokee Trail of Tears and Dragon Tounge beans today.  Also some mixed gourds. 

    A cool evening, a warm day.  Perfect.

    Tomorrow I’ll dig in three tomato plants.  These are plants I’ve grown from seed.  They’re now about a foot high.  It will be nice to see my babies go into the soil.  I’m keeping one back for my kitchen garden which will have tomatoes, lettuce, basil, cilantro, peppers and egg plant.  The latter three I’ll start from seed sometime soon.  Kate’s gonna pick up some seeds at the Green Barn tomorrow.

    Got a nice note from Jon saying they’ve turned Gabe’s lights off and taken him upstairs to his room.  I passed on the e-mails and comment from Tristan’s mom, too.  We’ll gradually weave a web of support around them and the little guy so he can grow up to move on and do what he needs to do in this life.

    A lot of growing be done around here right now.


  • SuperMemo

    62  bar falls 29.71 0mph SW dewpoint 57 Beltane

                      New Moon (Hare)

    It rained and the temperature dropped 13 degrees.  Mother nature at work.  In the cool moist air after the rain I planted onions, beets, lettuce and carrots.  I also transplanted 3 daylily clumps out of the flower bed I’m converting to vegetables.  Cool cloudy, preferable moist days are perfect transplanting weather.

    The earth smells rich, a loamy scent that arises only after a rain.  My Dad’s Aunt Rella, an early cancer patient, took an atomic cocktail and said it tasted like “the air after a June rain.”  An image that has remained with me all these years.

    I just started using a new program called SuperMemo.  It showed up in an interesting article in Wired.  This Polish memory researcher has developed this program that times repetitions of material you want to learn.  This fits some neurological model of the brain.  He guarantees 95% retention if  you use the program faithfully.

    I plan to use it learn art history, Chinese characters, horticultural information, folk tale and world history.  And probably, over time, other stuff, too.  This kind of thing excites me.


  • A Burning Tree

     65  bar falls 29.94 0mph S dewpoint 30 Beltane

                  New Moon (Hare Moon) 

    The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all beings. (Buddhist  Sutra)

    Though this comes from a Buddhist sutra (thread) it resonates with Taoist thought.  These two ancient traditions crossed paths over and over again in China.  At least one of those occasions created Chan Buddhism, which, in Japan became Zen Buddhism.  

    The Buddhist element I see here is the notion of unlimited kindness and benevolence, an attribution to the forest that I do not believe my brother Taoists would make.  They would agree that the forest is a peculiar organism (among many) and would further concur that it makes no demands for sustenance (on humans) and does extend its product of life and activity (generously–well, maybe to a Buddha, but probably not to a tree) and would also acknowledge its protection to all beings (except those plants killed by competitive toxins and the small prey animals killed by predators).   

    Taoism is a fascinating (to me) blend of reason and organismic thinking which produces a vibrant metaphysic understandable at the tinest particle of matter and at stages of complex organization from thence upwards to the Heavens themselves, the 10,000 things.

    Mostly clean up outside today.  Getting ready for the more ambitious projects that will soon occupy my time.

    From the deck last evening I looked at our Magnolia.  It stood against the seven oaks like the flame atop a Thai Buddha.  Its white glinted, mirrored back by white daffodils.  This evening, for this moment, the Magnolia had a nimbus, a sacred aura, as if it had transcended its treeness and become another living entity all together a vegetative, blooming fire.  A burning tree.


  • Morning Glories in the Lead with Cucumber Right Behind

    52  bar rises 30.13 0mph S dewpoint 39  Spring

                 Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

    The moon of growing has fulfilled its role.  Daylilies have popped up everywhere.  A few magnolia buds have popped open.  I found a couple of daffodil’s with flowers still furled around the stalk, but visible now, where they were still hidden a day ago.  No tulip flowers visible yet but the plants themselves are in full leaf.  A few aconites bloom in the front, hidden by the asters of last fall.  I have to cut them down so we can see the blooms.  Leaves to rake.  Last year’s perennials to cut down.  The growing season outside is slowly getting underway.

    Kate’s getting ready for her Gabe trip.  She’ll probably head straight to the hospital to see the little guy.  I’ll feel better when she’s there.  She’s got a lot of experience with infants.  A lot.

    I’ll take her to the airport, then return here and probably work in the garden for a bit.

    The morning glories have begun to rocket up.  I only planted them four days ago and they’re already an inch and a half above the plug.  The cucumbers race right along behind them with, for now, the cylindria beets.  I can see evidence of seedling’s emerging from most of the other plugs, too.  The vegetable garden has begun to grow, right here in our house.  Meanwhile, the lettuce and tomato up top with the halide bulb and the hydroponics continue upwards as well. 


  • The Hawthorne Giant Shakes His Shaggy Head

    64  bar steady 29.81 2mph S dewpoint 50 Spring

                 Full Moon of Growing

    It’s that time of year again.  The time, that is, when I have to pull the shades of my east facing computer room windows.  Otherwise, it heats up in here.  Pretty fast.

    If we’d get some rain to get with this warmth, we’d have plenty of blooms.  I have daffodils and tulips getting close.  Went out yesterday and wandered through our woods and garden.  While looking at one of the large beds shifted from flowers to vegetables, a lily question came up.  Namely, where did I plant all the lilies I had in that bed?  I’ll be damned if I can recall.  They’ll come up as a surprise. 

    The Hawthorne giant must have shaken his shaggy head and stomped off to the Arctic circle.  Hope he finds cool weather when he gets there.

    The rock wool cubes in which I planted the lettuce dried out last night, at least in the smaller of the hydroponic setups.  I don’t know why.  The plants themselves don’t seem affected, so I conjecture that their root system now reaches down into the nutrient solution.  Learning while we go. 

    The truck needs an oil change and I need to read Stefan’s poems and finish the book on Mastery that Tom Crane sent.  So, I’m off.


  • Compounding Pharmacies

    44  bar rises 30.06  2mph N dewpoint 31 Spring

                  Waxing Gibbous Moon of Growing

    A gray, cool start after a shirt sleeve day yesterday.  We’re still in the hurry up and wait phase of gardening.  It’s a bit too early for clean up, certainly too early for planting anything but cold weather crops.  We don’t tend to do those, at least not so far, so the hydroponics are our primary entry in this years vegetable garden.  The lettuce seedlings and tomato plant I put under the light first have grown rapidly.  Not ready for harvest anytime soon, but on the way.

    Kate made me aware of compounding pharmacies, a vestigial remnant of that which all pharmacies used to be, independent pharmaceutical manufactories.  There are six in Minnesota including one in St. Paul, St. Peter and Wayzata.  The Wayzata pharmacy has a glitzy name, RxArtisans.  I knew a few of those when I was in college.  The growth and reach of pharmaceutical companies has reduced the average pharmacy to nothing more than a retail distributor of already compounded drugs.  This results, of course, in a matching of patients to available drugs and their available dosages, whereas the compounding pharmacy matched drugs to patients both in dosage and delivery vehicle. 

    The Delta buyout of Northwest, not a merger, will not be certain for some time to come.  The pilots association of Northwest and the other unions flight attendants, ground crews and mechanics are about to become part of a larger, non-unionized pool.  This creates probable labor and culture conflicts from day one.  Also, congress and the regulators still have to approve, as does Wall Street.  Both companies share price dropped the day after the announcement, an unusual event.  Also, both airlines have an aging fleet of planes and debt hangover from their respective bankruptcies.  The State of Minnesota wants its incentives back since Northwest, with the merger, violates the remain in Minnesota provision.  All this reflects the turbulent nature of an industry who excels in nothing quite so much as an uncomfortable experience delivered for hundreds of dollars.