The Blossom of Youth Ebbs Away

I took this picture of the blossoms on my dwarf peach tree about 10 days ago. Now, the blossoms are crumpled and sagging off the branches and the little fruit tree is setting up to deliver a half-dozen peaches or so.

The last few years, this guy has worked mightily, but was foiled in the end by the onslaught of the voracious tent caterpillars. Last Saturday, a cluster of the little bastards was breeding in the crock of the nearby crab apple tree. So I took aim at them with a 50-50 mixture of ammonia and water and then wiped the tree clean of the nest and the insects. This year, I plan to put little nylon socks around the fruits to protect them from any eaters, but I doubt I will win. The raccoons will likely think the nylon mere relish for their fruit meals.

I have now finished all major heavy lifting in the garden, which waits only for just a little warmer weather before I can set out the tender annuals and vegetable plants. There remains one corner where I might dig out some tough lilies to give more space for the squash to spread, but only if I feel mighty and strong will I do it.

Meanwhile, my poor body is aching more than it should. The feet have this awful deformity that the doctor calls bunion, which sounds likes the diseases that plagued the characters of an historical novel, like pleurisy, dyspepsia, or gout. It's an ailment that grandmother suffered. Her poor feet when pulled out of her ugly orthopedic shoes always frightened me. And even as I remain convinced that I am too young to be old, I can't ignore that when Grandma was my age, she actually was a grandmother. Bunion, what a disgusting word.

Just up from the feet, the knees are holding strong, but giving off  warning signs. Along the side if I press on the muscle, after a good workout or run,  I can solicit a solid, sharp ache or pain. Above the knees, the hips are really a mess. In the seated position,  hips are happy, but unfolding them to rise to standing, there appears a dry rubbing as if I needed to oil them like Dorothy's Tin Man. "MMoilcan!"

The lower back has weighed in also. Last week, after coming out of a shoulder pose in yoga, a spasm took hold and deep yoga breathes proved almost fruitless in seeking relief.

I remember my father being old before his time. He would complain of ailments and bemoan youth culture. What a surprise it was to figure out that he was the same age as the rock stars he disdained. I am not old. I am not old. I won't succumb. Come on body. Be strong.

This weekend, I'm going to dig out the rest of those lilies. Roar! The Putterer

Lettuce Plan Our Day in the Garden

At the bare perception of daylight this morning, my eyes popped opened. I tried to stay in bed and rest a bit more. But when the eyes open, a neuroreceptor triggers the brain and thoughts ping pong like Beatniks dropping acid.

Every bed in the garden is ready for planting. The lettuce in the new lasagna bed is growing neatly in rows and the arugula in the raised bed is showing in a crazed pattern from the scattering throw I made of the seeds some three weeks ago.

Yesterday, I planted yellow finn seed potatoes in cloth bag containers on the lower deck. I can't wait to see if my potato experiment will work. I come to potato farming genetically. My grandfather used to plant rows and rows of them up on the hill overlooking his farm.

Inside the tiny tadpoles are fattening up, growing broader in the chest and little nubs are forming where their arms and legs will emerge. Yesterday, two of them got tangled in the cardboard and cheesecloth construction that I'd made for the toads to crawl out on. The two had died. I scooped them out with a plastic spoon and felt great remorse for my stupidity. The paper bridge was replaced with a more suitable stick version. (Why I didn't think of that in a first place is probably the reason why I always got Bs instead of As in school.)

My friend, Molly, came over and we dug up irises, lilies, hostas, sedums and sage, which she carried off to her garden. And I acquired a new garden buddy, a little girl from across the street came over and helped me weed, pot plants and carry things from bed to bed. We visited and chatted. It was like having my own little girls back again.

Today, I'm reading of how others have planted their bedding plants and tomatoes and other tender annuals and I'm tsk, tsking at their gardening naivete, but secretly wishing to do the same. The temperatures are in the high 70s during the day, but they are dipping into the 30s at night. The week of high 80s was a fluke and we could well pitch down below freezing yet. The rule is not to plant until Mother's Day.

There is still yet some clean up that I could accomplish. The nasty honey suckle is emerging despite my best efforts to beat it back. We have Dr. George Hall to thank for this invasive. Hall brought the plant from Japan in 1862. He offered it royal passage and cared for it during its journey as if were a treasured artwork. Once unleashed however, the plants wicked tendrils have slowly woven itself into the landscape up and down the entire Eastern seaboard and choking out natives as it claimed its supremacy. I, who vowed never to use herbicides in my garden, made one exception this winter and squirted its base (where ever I found one) with Roundup.

But, as I plan to release my new toady friends into the garden, I'll have to retire the Roundup for fear that it will taint their environment. I heard a commercial this week from the Ortho company exuding the benefits of its herbicide products. Urging customers to apply the stuff into their grass to kill the clover. "Clover is over," the narrator declared, never of course mentioning the benefits of clover in your lawn. And then incredibly the narrative followed that once the grass was free of all broad-leafed plants, the lawn owner was going to build a pond in his yard. Good luck with that I thought, the chemicals will all drain into the pond and kill his plants and wildlife there.

The house is awakening now. Time to get my day underway. The Putterer

The Putterer Makes Every Day Earth Day

Today in my office an unusual exchange took place between editors. By tradition we pass copy from one to another, the writer, the editor, and the top editor each takes a turn at synthesizing and perfecting the sentences and paragraphs that will eventually be published in the magazine. But instead of words, my friend and fellow editor Laura Helmuth passed along a plastic yogurt container housing some 30 tadpoles and I was delighted to accept the gift.

The gift was precipitated because I had casually mentioned the other day while I was in Laura's office my ambition to invite toads into my garden. I had heard that they live happily near small pools of water in dark shady corners requiring only an overturned flower pot for shelter. In return, they will eat up all the bugs and pests that plague my plants. They are the necessary ingredient that every gardener desires, a living, breathing pesticide machine.

So my toads, should they survive their transition from tadpole to hopping garden johns, are yet another creature in my backyard ecosystem--birds, butterflies, bees, cats, kids, dogs, friends, (an occasional foe) and now toads. In my backyard garden, I practice love for mother Earth. I honor the plants and trees, I study the natural world. With compost, I return the nutrients to the soil. I grow food. I grow flowers. And I rest and I play there. This is my tiny corner of the Earth. And I am a conscientious steward.

And that brings me to another topic. Jan, a fellow garden blogger, who hosts a blog called Thanks For Today is requesting that garden bloggers share the ways that they are "actively practicing a greener lifestyle and contributing to protecting our environment." And so, Jan, here's my pledge to you. The first tadpole to grow legs and climb out of the primordial pond, or yogurt container, and take up residence in my garden will be named for you. Jan, the garden toad, we'll call him. The Putterer

Follow Your Own Path

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives." --Henry David Thoreau

There are a plethora of path quotes and metaphors to explore, but my guy Thoreau comes through for me yet again. As I write this, my back and shoulders ache and a certain throbbing in my feet are all indications of the path I took this past weekend. I built one between and around my vegetable beds. I'm quite proud of it. And except for the cost of my 14 stepping stones (about $8 each) and my six bags of gravel ($4) and the weed cloth ($15), it was rather a modest expenditure. To line the new beds, I used found materials--fallen branches and milky quartz stones.

Now, dressed for work this morning, I easily navigated the foot path to water my rows of lettuce growing in my lasagna garden (no, for the last time, I'm telling you, there's no sausage or pasta involved). The Putterer

A Tough Job Done

I'm an apple a day girl and I've got this fantasy that my garden might one day produce bountiful harvests each fall of apples and peaches and lemons and figs. So a few years ago, I bought a self-pollinating golden delicious and I planted it on a sloping bank in place of a crab apple tree that had been destroyed when a part of my neighbor's tulip tree blew down in a storm. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, the crab apple recovered and in a few years it outdistanced the rate of growth of the apple tree and last summer, the poor apple tree, so stressed, started to fall over. I tied it to the crab tree and vowed to transplant it.

Well, the job needed strength and I should have surely hired someone to do it, but yesterday afternoon, I did it myself. The tree will one day thank me--if it survived the fairly harsh circumstances in which I yanked it and tugged it and dragged it. But once I wrestled it up the hill and into its new home, right next to the forsythia bush and on level ground, I imagined it was already giving me high approval ratings. The Putterer

Ten Things I'll Do This Year in My Garden

1. To enhance the flavor of both, grow basil parallel to the tomato plants.

2. To guard against red spiders, plant garlic with the tomatoes.

3. Marjoram and oregano are beneficial to all nearby plants for growth and flavor. Plant both in many places.

4. Rue does not get along well with basil. But roses like it.

5. Plant rue with the fig tree because as Pliny observed: "Rue and the fig tree are in great league and amitie together."

6. But remember that when rue is in flower, it can cause severe dermatitis.

7. Sow two or three radish seeds in the cucumber hills to protect them against cucumber beetles.

8. Plant squash in mid-summer to avoid insect damage.

9. Keep garlic far away from beans and peas.

10. Plant nasturtiums under the apple tree to protect it from woolly aphids. The Putterer

Source: Carrots Love Tomatoes & Roses Love Garlic by Louise Riotte

Putter Perfect Day

Yesterday, I played hookie from work and made a perfect day. Patsy had a job this week doing community service at Brookside Gardens. She was working in the childrens' program each morning and I stayed home to drive her there and back and then went to work in the afternoons. By Friday, the transition from calm home to tense office was making me crazy and so I took the whole day off.

I met Patsy at Brookside with a picnic after her shift was over. Then, back at home we spruced up some old flower stands with some yellow and blue paint. And then Patsy made another garden rock. This is a trick I've used for years to amuse the kids and to brighten a dark corner. We take smooth, rounded river stones, wash them and dry them clean. And then we use airplane model paint to cover them with flowers and other designs. I have them all over the garden now dating to back to when the girls were quite young. Yesterday's new addition is a sophisticated rendering copied from some botanical prints in an old wild flower guidebook.

I also completed my path around the raised beds. I'd found branches and stones all over the neighborhood to line out the beds and then laid down a covering of weed fabric. Next, I put down a whole series of whimsical stepping stones that I'd found for cheap at Tuesday morning and then poured in gravel all around them. Admittedly, it looks a bit trailer park. But if it hadn't been for Jim, that might have been destiny, so I'm embracing my inner trashiness.

Blooms today: the peach tree, the viburnum, the daffodils of course, the forsythia, the wood poppy, and the Lenten rose.

Budding: the flowering crab apple and the dogwoods.

Today, it's a little overcast, but there's more puttering to pursue, so I'm off. The Putterer