Like holidays, Halloween for instance, or Christmas, the garden hype starts earlier and earlier every year. Thanksgiving’s turkey carcass isn’t even picked clean when the first seed catalogs start to arrive. Burpee, Johnny’s, Gurney, Fedco ….they start to pile up before the first Christmas presents are wrapped.

Perennial catalogs, bulb catalogs, fruit catalogs. The photos are tantalizing – perfect vegetables, impossibly lush flowers, garden vistas of my dreams. Who wouldn’t want a basketful of flawless peppers, every size and color imaginable? Never mind that my own peppers always disappoint. I’m sucked in every year to try just one or two of those new and better varieties.

Though all promise with lush prose, only Fedco, out of all that land in my mailbox, relies just on the word and a few black and white drawings to convince me to order their seeds.

“Among the most beautiful of all beans, bright golden ochre with maroon swirls and a smattering that are maroon with golden speckles….” I’d want to grow Tiger’s Eye beans even if I hadn’t admired them at the Common Ground Fair. And I’m naturally tempted by Masai, with its “slender pods juicy and crisp with a pleasant beany flavor.” Elaine Carson (whoever she is) calls them “one of the wonders of the world – I cannot believe how long those crunchy green slivers stand on the little plants.”

There you have it. Fill your eyes with photos of impossibly perfect produce, then find yourself swayed hither and yon by the praise of fellow gardeners, none of whom you actually know, and you’re in deep. The seeds arrive in the middle of February, leaving plenty of time to draw up this year’s garden plan, even venturing out into the muck and ice of your actual garden to measure and visualize the garden that will finally be perfect.

But for the first time in 50 years, I’m gardening vicariously. Here we are at the end of May, a month I’ve seen pretty much from the inside looking out. This rainy Memorial Day morning the view out my windows is blindingly green, the much-promised rain (it’s going ruin everyone’s holiday, the weathermen said) seems to be more of a foggy drizzle than a good drenching downfall. Even I know from my perch at the kitchen table, watching the birds, seeing the tulips blossom and fade, that it’s been desperately dry out there.

I’ve made a few random grabs at weeds on my daily excursion outdoors, bending over to pull out a burdock or snap off a bamboo shoot without twisting my tender new knee, and have only in the past day or two hobbled down to the vegetable beds. But we do have a garden this year thanks to my doppelganger, my counterpart, my D-I-L. That would be Tracee, embarking on her fourth year of planting and tending our huge garden, only this year she’s on her own, from planting the seeds indoors, the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, onions, leeks, and shallots to turning over all the raised beds.

It’s not a job for one person, especially one with multiple other roles – mother, weaver, school board chair, church treasurer, Beach cleaner (filling in until the knee heals).

I get a report every day: “The peas are up!”  and “we’ve got baby chard and arugula!” and “you should see the spinach!”.  And the bunches of asparagus come in too. I have to admit that when I was in charge of the garden, I tended to hoard it for myself, especially during the first few weeks of spring.  Now that Tracee’s getting to it first, she’s amazed at how much there is. Turns out her family likes it as much as I do, which I probably knew, but pretended not to.

Last fall I spread horse manure over all our beds, thanks to Krystal Coombs’ prolific horses up the road and her generosity to share. Asparagus especially loves a rich soil. It shows this year.

Gardening has its highs, but it sure has its lows. “The hens got out and scratched up all the chard!” and “The wind blew over the pea fence.” And “the cats think the spinach bed’s their litter box.” The reports come every day, here inside, where I sit, relegated to a chair and a footstool much more than I’d like.

Our garden will never have that perfect, polished look of the catalogs and the gardening magazines. This is no Martha Stewart garden. But in spite of scratching hens and ball-chasing dogs, of parching drought and blights and fungus we’ll harvest plenty of carrots, strings of onions, bushels of tomatoes. Bags of beans and peas and corn will fill our freezer next fall.

And come Thanksgiving one of us will come in from the mailbox with an armful of catalogs to start the whole thing all over again.

For Pete’s Sake

Saturday’s all day fund raiser for Peter Thomas, hospitalized at Maine Med with serious complications from a December “routine” surgery lifted everyone’s spirits, most especially the patient himself. Pete appears to have turned a corner toward recovery, though he still faces up to a year of rehab and more surgery before he’ll be able to work again.

Dolce Vita Farm’s wood-fired oven, “Arabella”, turned out 152 pizzas that day, bringing in over $6200 and still counting, as donations continue to come in. A group of hearty wood cutters, splitters and stackers turned a huge pile of logs into neat piles of firewood for Pete’s stove next winter, and a Go Fund Me account has so far brought in over $11,0000. Still to be counted and redeemed are the bottles and cans collected throughout town over the week-end

What better reason to live in a small town than that?

Town

It’s annual Town Meeting time, with a different approach this year. David Kinney posted the following to the LBB:

“Just a reminder that voting on local matters including Elected Officials, the Five Town CSD budget, the Lincolnville Central School Budget, the Town budget and other town matters will be conducted via referendum ballots on Tuesday, June 8, 2021.  The polls will be open from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Lincolnville Central School (in the gymnasium).  As school is in session and many young people are not or cannot yet be vaccinated per the Governor’s executive order face coverings will be required.  

Absentee ballots can be requested in person during normal business hours at the Town Office or by calling the Town Office at 763-3555.  Email requests are not permissible.  Absentee ballots must be returned by 8:00 p.m. on voting day.  Much more information (warrants, budgets, sample ballots) is available on the Town web site under the “Announcements” section.

There are no State ballot questions being considered.  The next scheduled State election is Tuesday, November 2, 2021.  More information concerning upcoming State Elections can be found here: 

Lincolnville Women’s Club

The LWC is celebrating 50 years this spring at their annual luncheon at the Offshore Restaurant Tuesday, June 15 at 11:30 a.m. where new officers will be installed. New members are always welcome; contact Edna Pendleton, 763-3583, for more information. The club’s annual yard sale, which helps fund scholarships, will be held July 10 at Doreen Hadley’s, across from Dot’s on Atlantic Highway; rain date is July 17.

Condolences

Much sympathy to the family and loved ones of Leon Smith who passed away unexpectedly last week.