Sunday, May 28, 2006

Corn and Tomatoes

5-28-06 VERMONT: Two more days of slaving in Judy’s gardens. The day before yesterday I did the veggie garden. I planted almost 80 corn stalks each of which will be 6 feet and will produce two ears 8.5 inches long with 16 rows of kernels in 75 days, according to the catalog. I put in 18 tomatoes, 6 early-‘early girl’, 6 middle-‘Better Boy’ and 6 late maturity-‘Red Beefsteak’, two hills of jack-o-lantern pumpkins and spices-thyme, basil, dill, rosemary and oregano. I planted sun flower seeds on the south side of the small barn-Helianthus annuus ‘Moulin Rouge’. I put up the tomato cages yesterday. After the veggies, I did a lot of pruning of the roses on the north wall and some hydrangeas and honeysuckle.

Yesterday, after the dump run, I went to Brown’s Nursery and got, and planted, a yellow columbine-Aquilegia canadensis ‘Corbett’, a Bergenia cordifolia ‘Winterglut’, a meadow sweet-Filipendula rubra ‘Venusta’, and a cranesbill ‘New Dimension’. Then I used the string trimmer in the front of the house and around the fence roses. Add a bit of weeding, sweating and swatting the bugs and its a pair of full days. Today we go to the auction previews.

New blooms: indian cucumber, first azalea, hawthorne, cranesbill, false solomon seal, lily-of-the-valley, quince.

Wildlife: the hummingbirds appeared within hours of putting out their feeder. Two nights ago something was in the garden and ate a lot of the catmint. Raccoon? The crawfish are up and the frog opera continues to play to rave reviews.

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