Thetford Marathon.

5-26-09 VERMONT: It’s been another marathon, every day working dawn to dusk, well 10 AM to dusk, I do have to read email.

The 24th-I finished the veggie garden by putting up the electric fence around the beds and setting up the tomato supports. The electric fence has three wires, the top two keep the horse visitors out of the corn and the bottom one keeps out the wascally varmints. Then I fertilized all the garden shrubs and flowers for the May application, the last one of the year. Fertilizing later in the summer promotes late season growth which doesn’t have time to harden before the frost. I pruned the honey suckle that had grown over the entry steps and a couple other trees that were similarly intruding on the walk ways, and, as the sun set, repaired the sliding door on the small barn.

The 25th-I purchased at Brown’s Nursery and planted lots of perennials. In the new patio bed under the apple tree—two hosta, ‘Sum & Substance’, two Digitalis hybrida, foxglove, ‘Camelot Rose’, and one Digitalis purpurea, 'Foxy’, and four hellebores—Helleborus x hybridus, mellow yellow mix and brushstrokes mix and Helleborus orientalis ‘Ivory Prince’. I planted two clematis at the north end of the deck—‘Ville de Lyon’ and ‘Galore’, in the bed below the deck four phlox—two Phlox paniculata, ‘Lizzy’, and two ‘Blue Paradise’. I planted a delphinium, ‘Magic Fountains’ in the bed at the base of the north terrace lower wall. I planted two Veronica chamaedrys, ‘Baby Blue Eyes’, in the rock garden, two Brunnera macrophylla, alkanets next to the Mohican viburnums and one Shasta daisy, Leucanthemum ‘Alaska’ in the upper wall bed. I transplanted another overgrown meadow rue to the front bed under the dining room where little has survived. After some weeding and trimming, setting up the row boat mooring and the electric fence charger, I cleared vegetation away from the fence wire until dark. If wet vegetation, from rain, touches the electric fence wire, it saps the energy and causes short circuits. It was a long day.

The 26th-I scattered the barley straw pellets on the pond, 30 pounds, which is supposed to decompose slowly releasing small amount of peroxide. The peroxide clears algae from the pond but doesn’t harm anything else. That’s the story line anyway.

The town road grader arrived to do our road, and I took the opportunity to dig out the culvert. It was partly filled with sand and gravel from run-off and snow plowing.

In the afternoon I did the veggies planting. I planted tomato seedlings: six Early Girl, 53 days, four Grape, 60 days, four Husky Red, 70 days, and four Sun Gold, 57 days. So, the feasting should start on July 18. To go with the tomatoes, I planted, three rosemary, four sweet basil, four dill. The thyme and oregano over wintered. The corn and pumpkins I started from seed. After the veggie planting, I cleaned up weeding and pruning debris and pronounced everything done that had to be done right now.

Short Hills tomorrow and Boulder, CO for the weekend wedding of Maggie and Matt.

New blooms: celandine, lily-of-the-valley, orange azalea, may apple.


Foam Flower and another shade tolerant flower-

Bane Berry, this one gets bright red stems and white berries with one black dot on the end. The berries look like doll's eyes and are said to be poisonous.