How’s It Growing: May 22, 2025

No, we did not get any snow this week, but it certainly felt like the weather was headed in that direction. This was going to be the week that we moved all of the dahlia plants out into the garden. Instead, I’m having to transport all of the pots back and forth to keep them ready for outdoor planting. Out on the porch during the day and inside for the night when the temps dip below 50°F. If this trend doesn’t reverse soon, I feel like the dahlias will be blooming indoors this year! I’m crossing my garden spades that next week will finally be the time when we can get these babies in the garden beds.

Meanwhile out in the gardens all of the Spring rains are keeping the plants, trees, and lawns well hydrated. The ferns have unfurled outside several of the guest rooms.

The carriage house border is filling in as the lamb’s ear, chives, iris, peonies, and other flowers grow bigger and bigger. I’m always amazed by how quickly this border goes from barely there to barely being contained.

The lilac blooms have peaked and already the show has transitioned on to the Act I: Peonies – of the tree variety.

Several of the rainstorms of the past weeks brought some gusting winds that brought down several of the dead trees in the forest, fortunately not hitting anything but the ground. This will be great material for a couple of deadfall fence sections that we have planned. A deadfall fence, if you haven’t heard of them, are natural fences made out of logs, sticks, and twigs. They use available resources, provide habitat for beneficial critters and insects, and interesting structure to your landscape.

It hasn’t been all chill and rain, so on one of the actually sunny and warm days all of the vegetable garden seedlings were planted out.

This year we are growing:

·      Artichoke: Imperial Star

·      Beans: Cranberry Bush Beans

·      Broccoli: Burgundy

·      Carrots: Candy, Coventry, Rodelika, Shin Kuroda

·      Corn: Hopi Blue

·      Cucumber: Gimlet

·      Eggplant: Calliope, Hansel

·      Kale: Red Russian

·      Melon: D’Artagnan

·      Pea: Sugar Ann

·      Pepper Hot: Flaming Flare

·      Pepper Sweet: Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry, Mad Hatter

·      Potato: Blackberry

·      Summer Squash: Pantheon

·      Tomatillo: De Milpa, Pancho

·      Tomato: Japanese Black Triffle, Pink Berkely Tie-Dye, Sun Gold Cherry

·      Winter Squash: Musquee De Provence, Turk’s Turban

This year I purchased our vegetable seeds from either Johnny’s Select Seeds or Territorial Seeds.

After all that planting came the big seed starting tray wash project. Not an exciting part of gardening but necessary.

Last year our kale plants were attacked by chewing bugs almost the second they were planted out in the garden. So, this year I rigged up a row cover with sticks and a light garden fabric. It’s not the most elegant of designs or one that will be easy to get into for harvesting, but it will do for now while I think of a better system that I can build with materials at hand.

We have one garden bed for strawberries. The bed was covered with leaves during the winter, and I think that gave the plants a head start for this year because they are already flowering and berries are starting to form.

The Blackberry Potatoes have shown amazingly quick growth. They went from some modest sprouts to filling up the grow bags. The bags are filled to the brim with soil that was layered in as the sprouts grew.

Our herb collection this year includes:

·      Basil: Limoncello, San Remo

·      Chives: Chinese Garlic

·      Thyme: German Winter

·      Dill: Fernleaf

·      Cilantro: Santo

Besides planting some herbs in the garden, I got some pots to put on the steps leading up to the backdoor of the main inn and the kitchen door. The idea being easy access to fresh herbs from the kitchen and a decorative and fragrant accent on the steps.

Fruit Report:

There are pears forming on the two trees on the front lawn of the main inn. The trees have been there for quite a while, but we have yet to get more than one or two mature fruits. This is probably because I’ve kept the trees at a reasonable height to make reaching for the pears easy, but unfortunately this also keeps them in reach of hungry deer.

We have better luck with the gooseberry bush in the vegetable garden because it is protected from deer. Still, we have to watch daily for ripeness to make sure that we get them before the squirrels and birds notice. Fortunately, the gooseberry is more prolific in fruit production, so we have a better chance of scoring some berries for ourselves.

I recently discover that the Quince bush that I planted about five years ago is finally producing fruit! I hope there will be enough of a harvest to make a nice Quince paste, which is so yummy with a slice of cheese.

That’s the garden news for the moment. I close with this image of maple tree seeds covering some steps at the back of our inn. It is no wonder I see little maple tree seedlings everywhere.