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Babies

June 25th, 2020

This is the season of babies, baby birds in particular. You can hear them in almost every tree. This year we had a nest of woodpeckers in the big ash tree out front. We heard the babies for a few days before finally being able to locate the nest.

We watched and watched to see the babies, after a week or two of them being super loud, we were able to spot them.

A week later, they fledged and it’s been quiet in the ash tree again.

The New Pollinator Bed

June 12th, 2020

Three years ago I started developing a garden on a slope by the driveway that was difficult to mow. The soil is very sandy and dry, with no organic matter to speak of. It was also infested with quack grass. I laid down cardboard and covered it with mulch, then I let it sit over winter.


This garden bed is filled with things just for the pollinators, I’ve working hard to plan for blooms throughout the season.

Currently, there are sages, spiderwort, persicaria, spurge, cushion plants, scabiosa, iris, veronica, and geranium,

I recently added a few shrubs as well, ‘Miss Kim’ lilac, a ‘Coppertina’ ninebark, and a ‘Quick Fire’ panicle hydrangea that came with us from Ohio and has been living in the potager. I also added a Kousa Dogwood that I scored at the home improvement store last fall for $7. It overwintered in the basement and was planted in this bed in the spring.

A friend made me this lovely sculpture from old tools, it was a birthday gift last summer. I’ve been looking for just the right spot for it in the garden. After finding two large black rocks that were nicely square, it is gracing the pollinator bed.

There’ still more to add to this bed, I have plants in the nursery area that need moved. I also have plans to add a few more clematis to grow up the shrubs and fill in with even more blooms. Stay tuned for photos of this new garden as the year progresses. If you have any great pollinator plants to recommend let me know in the comments.

What’s your favorite pollinator plant?

Summer…

June 1st, 2020

The frost is thawing from the vegetable garden as I sit and write this post, on the morning of June 1. It was a bit of a surprise, but not really. The predicted low was 37 degrees, at 2 am it was 32.

This will be a welcome change in other ways. I’ve long since starting using my phone to take photos instead of my good camera. I take way more photos on my phone and that’s where they stay. The result is that the photographic account of my garden last year is less than stellar, well, it’s on my phone, but I don’t look through those like I do my photo catalog.

So, here we are again, I look forward to hearing from you here.

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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