Raspberries

The rhythm in my garden is in motion. As the last strawberries wait to be picked, the first ripe raspberries make an appearance. And by the look of the snow peas flowers, they aren't too far behind. We've been eating leaf lettuce and baby beets for a while now. So the garden flows predicably to an extent. But I don't take it for granted; the raspberry cart or the snow pea bushel can be turned over by a whim of Nature.

The raspberries are good this year, very sweet and on the large size for my bushes. I think this year I'll have enough to freeze. Usually, we just eat 'em the same day they're picked; Nature's version of a drive-through resturant. But this year, it looks like we can have our raspberry and freeze it, too.

The great thing about raspberriy bushes is that they can be used in so many ways. First, naturally, there's the berries. Then after they are done, I add the leaves to my rabbits' food. In the fall, I cut the canes back and feed them to the rabbits who chew them up with gusto.

The raspberries are at the top of my main garden, next to the strawberries. And like strawberries, the raspberries' offshoots are springing up all over the place. I even have some poking merrily up through my lettuce and dill. So I'm thinking this fall, I might move the younger canes to the old wooden log fence that hems one side of the garden. The space by the fence always been overgrown since it is so hard to get in there to do anything. Plus I like the look of raspberries hanging over the fence. It looks so inviting and homey. So when the harvest is done and all I have left to do is look forward to a long winter, it will be nice to transplant the raspberries and know another spring is on her way.

The Butterfly Garden

The Butterfly Garden was started as a joint project between T, then pre-teen daughter, and myself. I thought it would be a fun project for the two of us. We both were interested in seeing what kind of butterflies would show up. It has come with benefits; we’ve had marvelous conversations while weeding. While T has moved on to other interests the garden remains and she still will come out every now and then, pick a few weeds and talk. The topics, like butterflies, are varied and most times, as butterflies would, the topics flutter and float away. Some topics occasionally settle, like a butterfly alighting on a rock to sun itself; and becoming a real discussion of importance.

The Butterfly Garden originally was full of little white stone paths and almost everything in it was an annual. It was very pretty and whimsical. I put an old wagon wheel I found in a long forgotten corner of our property in it and scattered garden stepping stones and ornaments wherever I found a spot for them. But as daughters grow and change, so has the butterfly garden.

It's funny how one's priorities change when practicality moves in. It took me one summer to figure out while stone paths were very pretty; they were a royal pain to weed. The stones themselves kept migrating to the garden or worse, to the lawn where driving over them with the lawn mower turned them into flying missiles. I couldn’t use a trowel to loosen the weeds because of the stones. Only took one stone to the forehead to figure that one out. Now, instead of many trailing stone path, I have one down the center. I still have to weed it but I have found that adding a bag of stones every year is finally discouraging the weeds to the point where I’m hoping they’ll give up. I have applied the same philosophy to T, I don’t sweat the clothes she wears or the make up she applies because the grades are good, she’s not rude and does the chores. Like I said, priorities change.

After two summers, I realized I simply didn't have the time to plan, arrange and sow seeds every spring considering the other gardens I had to work on. So I started planting perennials that I heard attracted butterflies. I’ve got lambs’ ear, lavender, asterbies, lovage, and bee balm. The seeds I do plant of plants that are self-seeding and will come back, calendula and cone flowers. The ornaments and stepping-stones are more strewn now than placed. Any flaw I want to cover, I plop a knick-knack on it. Some of the time saved is now spent with T, and while I don’t want to cover her flaws, an occasional weeding of her attitude works wonders.

The Butterfly Garden has changed over the years, but it is still a gentle place, full of quiet beauty and sweet dreams, as is my daughter. And like my daughter, it has grown, becoming more practical and mature but the original charm, likability, and uniqueness have been kept beautifully.


Every now and then, there is an unexpected joy. Like this cosmo growing amoung the Calendulas. A seed from last year that persevered through the winter and grew strong and beautiful. Or T offering to shingle the top part of the chicken coop, conquering her fear of heights because she knew with my vertigo, it would be difficult for me. And so I carefully tend, nurture and occasionally put on a pile of tried and true compost, also known as advice. The gifts and the accomplishment come with the years.

A Good Soaking

Generally speaking, it's been a long, dry summer so far. No gentle rains to wash the grit and grime away from the tired looking clover by the road. Without rain, everything outside tends to take on a brown sheen as the wind coats whatever it touches with a fine red dust found only on PEI. The humidity adds Nature's own cement and keeps the wind's painting job nicely stuck to objects. It looks like everything is sweating brown jewels. While the humidity is high, the ground is dry. The plants listlessly sit in the garden remembering damper days. Even my scarecrow looks thirsty.

Well that all changed yesterday. The remnants of some tropical storm edged by and generously dumped a load of liquid refreshment all over us. All afternoon the wind was restless. It alternated between obsessively chasing itself over the fields and through trees then disappearing completely letting the blazing sun broil the earth. I worked in the vegetable garden, pulling weeds, and progressively getting soggier as sweat tried to make up for the lack of rain. Where The Three Sisters are growing I carefully wove the sweet peas around the cornstalks hoping the gentle reminder would encourage them to latch on to the stalks and not each other. The clouds began to make a major appearance, throwing increasing grey patches of shadow to the ground; they ran through my garden and down the road. I scanned the sky for signs of rain. This has happened before; the sky would get all moody and touchy, have a fine old sulk, shed a couple fat drops,then get all sunny and happy again. Basically, a menopausal sky. I top dressed the three sisters with a combo of rabbit manure and compost. Hot and tired, I figured I'd wait till that night to water it in if it didn't rain.

Around five, the sky started grumbling. Rolling complaints and flashes of temper off to the west or southwest, may-be. I think. I am extremely directionally challenged and that's my best guess. If you are giving me driving directions, don't say "south" or "west", it's got to be "right" or "left" or I am going to get lost. Anyhow, the weather was off to my right when I was facing the house from the garden. As I watched the movement of the dark clouds, I sighed because it looked like it was going to pass us by. That's a funny thing about this island. You can watch the rain pour in the distance yet never get a drop yourself.

I had to go pick up my daughter from work. As I drove away, I left the dark brooding clouds behind and entered the sunny zone. Sigh. I so prefer rain to watering. Watering does the job and all, but it's a pain and call me crazy but the plants seem to prefer their water from the sky, not a hose. While waiting for my daughter, I called home and was told there were buckets of rain coming down. I drove right into the downpour going back home. Lightening flashed, thunder followed grumbling about the lightening showing off. Daughter ran inside squeaking only the way middle teens can - kind of a cross between a startled mouse and stepping on a cat's tail. I stood outside and enjoyed. It was cool, it was refreshing and I didn't have to fiddle with the hot/cold knobs to get the temperature just right. The garden shivered and trembled with joy. I swear if the corn could, they would have reached down with their long slender leaves, picked up their roots and danced. Welcome rain, soak in the ground and stay a while.

Tomatoes and Basil

My poor, neglected gardens! With all my efforts being put on the chicken coop, my gardens have pretty much been left to fend for themselves. Other than occasionally throwing the hose in there to water, I've done very little in them. Believe it or not, the picture above is my tomato and basil garden. You don't want to see what the main garden looks like. At this point, I might as well call it my weed patch with the odd plant in it.

So yesterday, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work trying to at least find the plants. As always, I made some lovely and somewhat startling discoveries. I thought the weeding would take forever since it was so overgrown but the weeds being so big, it was a piece of cake. They pulled out easily, roots and all. The bigger the weed, the easier it is to yank out of the ground.

After I planted the tomatoes and basil, I noticed something was just having a field day eating them. I kept intending to mix up some neem oil, water and castile soap to spray on them but never got around to it. At one point, I thought for sure I was going to lose at least half of my 12 tomato plants. But lo and behold, all the plants fought back and held their ground; not one died. So imagine that, the gardens don't need constant supervision; they can grow all by themselves with very little intervention from me. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. I take a lot of joy in my gardens and the fact they don't really need me is a hit to my self-importance. Ah well, pride before a fall and all that. Just a well deserved taking down a peg by Nature, not a bad thing. In fact, it really is a gift. It's always nice to learn more about where I belong in the great scheme of things.

I also discovered a whole bunch of tomato plants where I am absolutely sure I didn't plant any. In fact, I have about 20 tomato plants in there and I started with 12. I also noticed tomato plants in the main garden as well and I know I didn't plant any in there. They must have grown from seed in the compost. How curious! I tend to hot compost which supposedly kills any seeds. May-be some of the early compost I put on didn't have a chance really to heat up fully. I've put on my own compost in past years but this year it was almost solely mine (thank you, bunnies) so may-be that's why the tomato plants sprung up, just the overwhelming number made the survival of a few seeds a possibility. Another possibility is the type of tomato plant I had last year. I did have a variety, one being heritage tomatoes. I'm looking forward to see if that is what is springing up all over the place this year. I'm kind of thinking it might be the heritage tomatoes because they probably germinate better, not being hybrids and all twisted by the hand of man. I do have another theory, and I must admit, this is my favorite: Because I didn't weed for nearly a month, tiny tomato plants that would have been yanked up for being weeds actually had a chance to get a foothold in the garden. But if that was the case, you would think I'd have other plants popping on up, too. Radishes, beans, peas, corn... but no, just tomato plants.

After pulling the weeds, I had to do something about getting the sprawling plants off the ground a bit. Tomato cages don't work at all for me. Ultimately, the plants take exception to being confined and launch an all out grow assault all over the cages. The cages bend and buckle, bowing in defeat and my maters end up on the ground, rotting out. So this year I decided to use what was at hand, downed winter branches and baling twine from the hay bales. I made little teepees over each plant and loosely tied the dragging branches up. It sure looks jury rigged, but if it works, I'll probably do it again. So here's a picture of the garden after I was finished with it.

Look, you can actually see ground! The plants aren't spewing leaves and branches in all directions. But you know, I kind of like the first picture better, even if it wasn't as functional, the garden looked happier. I'll work on that for next year and use important lessons learned this year: Give the garden a chance to fight its own battles. Stop using the "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" approach to weeding, weed less and let them get bigger. Have more heritage plants. A garden should be happy, not just a happy place.

The Chickens Have left the Brooder

The Chicken Coop/Bunny Barn, or as my son calls it, CCU (Chicken Coop University) still needs it's finishing touches, a few inside wall coverings in the rabbit colonies, soffits and paint but the chicken area is functional and so we moved the chickens in yesterday.

There was some debate on how to move the chickens; I have 33 of the little suckers. We considered putting a bunch in a box at a time thus reducing the travel time. But I was worried they might get hurt and I have been warned over and over about what happens if a chicken bleeds - the others will kill it. So in the end, I picked up each one and transported it to its new digs. 33 trips up and down the stairs and across the yard in less than an hour. Why people willingly go on stairmasters, I'll never understand, my legs are sending about 100 watts of pain up to my brain with every heartbeat. Yet I'm glad I did it that way. First of all, I believe it was much safer for the chickens and secondly, it added a real personal touch. It was nice to hold each one and see it's individual reaction to the outside.

Catching the first few was pretty easy, small brooder, lots of chickens. Then the chickens started crowding into corners, out of reach. I tried putting some feed down to get them within arms reach. That worked a couple of times then the chickens figured it out and decided to go hungry instead of getting picked up. In the end, my son entered the brooder to hand them to me. The chickens made an awful fuss all the way up the stairs and through the kitchen. Some squawked, some squeaked, and I'm pretty sure a lot swore in chicken lingo. But as soon as we hit the outside, each one got quiet and started looking around interestedly. I couldn't resist the temptation to tell them, 'I told you so'. I always thought the buffs and chanteclers were pretty birds - well, as far as chickens go. But the chantecler's feathers just shone in the sunlight and they were stunning.

The CCU is 16 ft square; the two rabbit colonies in it are 5 x 8 ft each. They are in the northeast and southwest corners; the space between them is my storage area. So the chicken area is about 11 x 11, plenty of room for 33 chooks. We made a roosting area for them, simply a wide ladder-like contraption with three rungs on it to roost. A couple of the not so bright ones went to the end of the roost and used it as a slide. I hope they smarten up soon, dealing with splinters in chicken butts is something I'd like to pass on.

Anyhow, they're in and seem to be content. Tomorrow we're going to fence in a little area as a run for them and introduce them to the great outdoors; something I think every chicken should have a chance to explore.

Yummy Strawberries

The first year I put strawberries in, I bought a package containing strawberry roots from my local nursery. I followed the directions impeccably, not much to it really; soak the roots, stick 'em in the ground. Not so much as one plant appeared. I did something wrong but I have no idea what. Not wanting a repeat of the first year, the second year I bought little strawberry plants. The kind you find in the herb section of any gardening place. They grew and bore tiny little strawberries that were actually more effort than they were worth. You could actually hold twenty in your hand and still have room for more. Well no matter, they were hybrids and I was told they would not survive the winter anyhow. So live and learn and go without strawberries for another year.

Last year, those miserable little strawberry plants survived. They don't have runners like real strawberry plants so they kind of look like clumpy thwarted bushes and as such tend to be sullen. They grudgingly flower here and there and throw a berry out now and then just because they have to. In addition to those grumps, I bought twenty strawberry roots and made sure there was at least one or two green leaves attached to each root. The package said twenty but I separated close to thirty roots. Now these are strawberry plants! They flowered abundantly and we got large berries. Runners appeared, zooming in straight lines as far as they go, dropping the occasional new plantlet into the ground.

This year, those silly little herb strawberry plants survived yet another winter. Funny though, the berries seem to be getting bigger. May-be the plants are just maturing or may-be they figure they better adjust their attitude since their replacements are sitting in the next patch over. But I'm wondering if perhaps there is some cross pollination going on. The other real strawberry plants are just doing beautifully, setting large, tasty berries and surviving the winters without blinking a leaf.

The berries are just about done now, I'll probably go through the patch a couple more times just to catch any stragglers. I'd say the strawberry plant population has at least tripled and they are growing down into the garden. That's fine,it's always easy to make the garden a bit bigger to accommodate willing plants. And you know what they say - the more strawberries, the more shortcake!

Worms, the Project Continues

So far, unlike the chicken coop, the worm project has been an unqualified success. I can’t hammer a nail straight if my life depended on it, but man, can I grow worms. A conservative estimate would be about 800 worms now. Plus any that have been born (hatched?) in the bin itself. The worms sure eat a lot; I can see the bunny manure reduce in two or three days. Last week, I put in more dead leaf bedding. I noticed it was really wet on the bottom, so Don drilled some more holes in the bin bottom and lower sides for me.

I’m pretty sure I have Dendrodrilus Ribidus. I have no idea how to pronounce that, I just know how to spell it while looking at the word itself on the internet. D.R.s are small worms, 3 – 4 inches or so, ranging in colour from dark red to pink on the upper surface, being paler below and they have yellow tails. They are common in the decomposing leaves and in compost and manure heaps, which is where I am finding them.

I have discovered that I was right about being apprehensive about getting non-native red wrigglers. They should not be released into the wild because of their voracious appetites and reproductive rates. They have actually been known to upset the balance of the hardwood forests because they eat the leaf litter too quickly. When that happens, the hard shelled nuts can’t incubate as they should. Red wrigglers can also lead to erosion and affect the pH of the soil. I always like those instances where my gut feeling is justified.

I need to find out about are worm eggs or cocoons. When I am turning the leaf compost and harvesting worms, I will come across little yellow or orange color eggs. They don’t look to be more than 1/8th of an inch. I usually find a lot of worms around them. I’m wondering if they are worm cocoons. If they are, I could add them directly to my bin. A cocoon will hold anywhere from 2 – 20 worms. Hopefully, I can find either a picture or a very good description of a cocoon soon. In the meantime, I might just take one of those eggs and keep it separate in some leaves and see what happens.