“…. after summer evermore succeeds Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold.” Shakespeare Recently a visiting friend was surprised to see next year’s seed catalogues on my coffee table. They’ve been there for a couple of weeks now along with the highlighter pen. My friend asked if I was going… Continue reading
“The gardener’s year is circular; November and December are the months that close the circle.” Bob Thomson, The New Victory Garden Haven’t we had the most wonderful fall ever? The leaves were particularly colourful this year and they seemed to last for weeks. It has also been a particularly warm… Continue reading
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?” Robert Browning I’m guessing that we’re all tired of the word unprecedented. But this year’s growing season was unprecedented with its consistent (until recently) rainfall and lack of early frost. On the first day of October… Continue reading
“…spring is gone, and summer cannot last.” May Riley At the risk of sounding like something that should be embroidered on a pillow, it seems to me that all time spent in the late summer garden is a gift. I have been able to pick tomatoes every day and the… Continue reading
“The rain that makes things new…”. John Masefield We have been blessed with a lot of rain so far this summer. It seems that every time I empty the rain gauge in the garden there is at least an inch of rain in it. The last heavy rain that fell… Continue reading
“Do what we can, summer will have its flies. If we walk in the woods, we must feed the mosquitoes.” Emerson My friend the Wind Chime Hater is convinced that the mosquitoes are bigger this year. I’m not sure that they’re bigger but there are certainly a lot of them…. Continue reading
“Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.” Walt Whitman A passing walker asked me if I wasn’t depressed to be deadheading the last of spring’s daffodils. I replied that this has been the best daffodil year in decades so no sadness this year. It’s only sad… Continue reading
“May, with alle thy floures and thy grene, Welcome be thou, fair fresshe May.” – Chaucer Back in the depths of winter I was asked, probably rhetorically, why we live here. I will answer the question anyway. We live here because spring is so glorious. Dr Johnson said that a… Continue reading
“The drama of spring is not always very well staged…. too often it proceeds jerkily, with the halts and repetitions of a rehearsal instead of the sustained rhythm of a finished performance.” Jason Hill The vast expanse of ice and snow has started to retreat for the second time this… Continue reading
