I haven’t talked much about the farm lately primarily because without better funds in hand, I’m hesitant to make any big moves. Still, there is always room for little steps and I spent today planting for the future after being reminded that Mother Nature waits for no one. In fact she’s usually tapping her foot impatiently lest she unleash the green masses to retake untended ground.
As I’ve told you before our spring comes late. Luckily so does our winter but this week has been the first consistently above freezing at night this year. Sure the days have been downright balmy but without a greenhouse I have to watch out for the night time thermometer demons. Wind sheer across that expanse of land can be pretty bad too so only the strong survive.
A few years ago I bought a bunch of discount plants as the big box stores were closing their seasonal departments. Most are only open for a couple of spring months before they sort out it’s not worth keeping staff and stock on hand for the remainder of the year. My goal with thirty bucks worth of plants was to stress test what could survive the absolute worst conditions. Open to the wind, stuck in pots, and without any real care. Watered only by rainfall and otherwise ignored, their plight was not in vain. It was a worthwhile test which taught me plenty about the local micro climate and some of the usual planting suspects. For example, boxwood and privet have no chance here. Neither can take the cold and blight sets in during the damp months. Roses need extra protection from the cool wind. And berries need a clear span to thrive because the native bullies I have on the farm will choke them out if not kept in check.
But one batch of plants really did well. I literally didn’t touch them in their tiny pots for two years. Left out in the coldest winters, the driest (for us) summers, they still managed to put out new growth this spring. They’re complete winners in my little stress test. They are the lilacs – beautiful to behold with both sight and smell.
I’ve been searching for a good hedge plant and while lilacs will run a bit too wild for formal borders, they will make for some excellent screening from the road. When I had the driveway cut in I made sure they heaped up the rich sod into mounds so it would compost down and sure enough, I have a drive now perfectly lined with rich soil just waiting to be worked into borders if only I can hack away the natural growth that has colonized in just the year since. To screen the future house from the road view I’ve got five lilacs in place that will grow to about ten feet wide and fifteen feet high. Perfect for the sight lines and of course they’ll smell divine when in flower. With any luck that breeze across the field will blow their scent right into my front door.
The moral of the garden story is simple. Find the right plant for the right place and gardening is easy. Speaking of the right plants, apples are still doing great up here and all my dozens of trees are showing the first blossoms of the year. It’s timing with them because now that they’ve poked their heads out, we can’t get a strong wind storm or cold night over the next few weeks if we want any fruit come fall. Fortunately, apple trees are pretty darn good weathermen and time their annual eruptions of flowers pretty well. I noticed the bees are out in force pollinating like mad so they’re doing their part at least to further my cider experiments.
The only other side note is the comical view of an hour’s labour cultivating a new rosemary patch relative to the rest of the land. Cutting in new beds from all that field growth really needs machinery but since all I’ve got is my trusty Italian hoe and digging fork, I made what progress I could. Fifteen square feet down, 870,000 to go.
