Right about now, I always think: I should write out a gardening calendar for next year. April 1: divide such-and-such. June 15: fertilize this and that. October 1: plant some whatsis. All that information is easy to obtain. If I were organized, I would be able to check the calendar for what to do now. Assuming I remember to check it, and know what month I’m currently in.
So far, the only thing on my calendar for the last ten years has been September 15: Write out a calendar for next year. That’s come and gone, but by 2026, I might have everything under control. There’s always next year, I always say, which will be true until it isn’t.
I will know What To Stake and How High. Because here, in September, I am wondering what was so dang important in my life that I couldn’t sink three stakes in the ground around my burgeoning asters in May and have a lot of proud asters right now instead of Prostrate Splat-Asters. Sure, I belatedly jammed some kind of stake in the ground and threw string around them, so now I have my perennials roped up like a chain gang on the way to the gallows, with all their sad flower faces pointing down.
The fact is, getting that calendar filled in always seems like something I could do tomorrow. After all, if I want to know when I should harvest this, or fertilize that, or whatever, I can find out in two clicks. And the answer will be “Four weeks ago.”
Hence, the fantasy calendar that I never make.
You think you’re going to keep up, but in the spring, all you’re doing is hauling out weeds like mad and throwing down mulch, and after all that you think you’ve earned a few weeks of not thinking about it. But in that short time, novel viruses have popped up. Glaciers have slid into the sea. Entire European countries that don’t use vowels have risen and fallen and gotten new names.
And apparently my garden is filled with little princesses that have very specific personal requests regarding
supplements and snackage. This one wants regular power shot drinks like a twenty-year-old boy. That one wants a light dressing of lime on the side. The one over there flops over without a little blue fertilizer.
And whatever that thing is in the middle of the bed, it sulks unless it has a mulch of crushed rabbit skulls. I’d dig it out altogether but it frightens me.
It’s all very precise. I still haven’t figured out when to harvest my leeks. They looked tremendous this year but I clearly missed my window, because I couldn’t slice them without a band saw.
And every time it occurs to me I need to prune something back, it’s because it’s actively looming over people and raining dewdrops and caterpillar poop on them. But when I look it up, it’s something I should have done last February.
Or, theoretically, this coming February. If I had a calendar.
Your remark about Prostrate Splat Asters reminded me of an obituary in the last Sunday’s Oregonian. Some poor guy passed “after a four and a half year courageous battle with prostrate cancer”
Oh dear! Although a LOT of cancers are like that.
Yes, although I can’t remember much else anymore, I remember the clueless engineering colleague from 30 years ago telling me about his new vulva. And the young woman who proudly told me her grandma said she had albatross skin (pretty sure grandma said alabaster). Couldn’t keep a straight face at the time and still can’t. And thats my one precious life in a nutshell.
As for the NE asters (which I adore) you can always can cut them back pretty severely in the spring to make them shorter and bushier and avoid staking. But thats another calendar item. With that shade of blue/purple in the fall, they can do whatever they want
You’re right, that’s another calendar item! Will I remember? Will you remind me? And how many mpgs did he get on that vulva?
I planted some asters last fall, in hopes of glorious prostrate splat-asters this year, but the deer ate them. I think there are still plants, but nary a bloom or even a stalk over two inches high.
Actually, I blame the deer – but it could have been the enormously well fed groundhog.
I’ve been waiting for my strawberries to produce. Finally this year they were loaded with green fruit. Waited eagerly for the proper ripeness.
Come the day and I found that a bird had pecked big holes in the expected candidate. But not time yet to give up hope as there were still some greenies on there.
Until there weren’t and there weren’t even plants! Somebody chomped the strawberries right down to their roots.
I guess if I had deer I could cross pruning right off the calendar.
“There’s always next year, I always say, which will be true until it isn’t.”
I think about this a lot lately.
Buddy of mine was hoping for Christmas. Didn’t even make it to ex-Columbus Day. I was hoping he’d pull another one of his death defying come backs and thumb his nose at the Great Beyond for another year.
So yeah, if there’s something you want to do, get out and do it.
Do it! Or prune it! Or stake it!
I had to have a Pendleton style rodeo roping contest to contain my asters this year—— I treated them to a new fancy drip water line and they pushed their way across the sidewalk until I had to carve a path for the pedestrians- and yank em back every few days. but those same pedestrians stopped in wonder at the hundreds of blooms and either wonder or horror at the hundreds of bees. It was glorious!
I pass by a spectacular royal purple aster that is dense and compact, about18″ high, no stakes, and I have wanted to know which one it is–but it occurs to me that maybe those people did the cutting-back in spring. Hmm.
The deer ate my geraniums.
This morning I saw a whole flock of wild turkeys browsing the front yard. Grabbed my binocs and counted over a dozen hens and one big tom.
But did you see the story in the news about the woman who had over a hundred raccoons in her yard? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/09/washington-woman-raccoons
I’ll get to that–meanwhile, this guy has a whole youtube channel devoted to feeding his raccoons hot dogs. https://youtu.be/Ofp26_oc4CA?si=KKiGziMntbar3Jll
LOL! Puts me in mind of that scene in Seinfeld, where Elaine was at a party and someone next to her said she can’t find her fiance, poor baby. Elaine, in an Aussie voice: “Maybe the dingo ate your baby.” God, I loved Seinfeld. So non-topical, but relatable.
I remember going to Paul’s Aunt Marie’s home in NJ for Thanksgiving one year, and a whole flock of wild turkeys were surrounding my car, the tom doing battle with his reflection in the hubcaps. So funny!
I’d have my work cut out for me with THAT many raccoons! We have a fish pond in our yard, and have had to use a Havahart trap to relocate a few of them this week. I don’t mind if they are legitimately hungry and EAT the fish. I DO mind when they splash around, HUNTING the fish just for yuks, and kill them and leave their bodies on the walkway around the pond. So I take the raccoons out by the landfill — a forlorn looking place — and drop them off there. They think hunting is fun? Let’s make it a challenge for you guys, then! Survivor! Raccoon Week!
Well that didn’t light up worth a darn, but you can copy and paste.