2024 Life Logs, Day 181: Gardening
Date: Saturday, June 29, 2024
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High Temp 71, Low 68 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
June has come and is almost gone, and this morning the reality set in that I still hadn’t planted my garden. It is probably too late, but today I gave it my best try anyway. I just can’t handle not having a garden! I am in the process of replanting my elevated raised garden as the arugula and lettuce I planted earlier in the spring have gone to seed. Planting in that garden is easy. But it is the raised gardens on the ground that are a challenge for me. Gardening rightly has the reputation of being back breaking work, and I sure don’t want to do anything to ‘upset’ my back. Having back surgery in mid-January and a knee replacement in mid-May have taken a toll on my old body. I can bend now, but only if I squat down and then bend. Well, squatting and my knee is still a little problematic. Thus, the reason I have procrastinated. I made progress today. I ripped out the old kale and Swiss chard from last year as it had also gone to seed and cleared the leaves out of the raised beds. I got a few seeds planted and all of the plants I have bought in the past couple of weeks are now in the ground. I have more I want to do, but at least I got a good start.
I also spent my rest periods today admiring the June flowers in the yard. The hydrangea that last year had only one or two flower clusters late in August due to the late freeze has made a comeback this year.
And the perennial garden I planted last year by the back deck is doing great.
The feverfew and lemon balm that I have been encouraging are also flourishing. These are both plants that just came up naturally in parts of the yard last year. I transplanted some of the fever few to various areas and now its beautiful little daisy-like flowers are everywhere.
And because the lemon balm now gets more light due to the two trees that were cut down last fall, instead of four or five plants, there is a huge patch that gives off that wonderful lemony aroma. All with no work on my part. They are just Mother Nature’s gift.
Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy so I probably won’t get much gardening done, but I am happy with today’s progress and will finish planting over the next few days.
