Hello dear readers,

I write to you from my office, where a surprisingly strong pineapple-scented candle burns. The candle was bought at a thrift store just yesterday, and had never been burned before, which surprised me to no end. I had just used up the rest of a lemon-scented candle, and needed something fruity for the summer months, so this candle was a welcome surprise.

But enough about candles! Today’s blog post is about the garden, which has been changing by the hour, flowers that were not there when I checked in the morning opening later on. Unfortunately I don’t know the names of most of them, as they came in a large bag of wildflower seeds, and I don’t have it on hand. But they are beautiful!

It’s also the time of year when spring-blooming flowers have begun to die, and so today was a lot of trimming and yanking and spreading seeds which I definitely don’t want to spread. This includes feverfew and chamomile, which are tiny and beautiful but spread like weeds. But the seed spreading is a problem for future Catherine.

The garlic is nearly ready to harvest, too, which is confusing to me because I keep thinking it’s May. All we’ve seen these past few weeks are clouds, rain, and wind, and while I’m not complaining (this is my favourite weather, after all), I and the garden are both quite confused as to what time of year it is.

While not yet ready, the tomatoes and peppers and beets at the farm are working their way up to being edible. You may recall that we planted far too many of all of the above, so expect photos of the canning process in late summer.

I need to trim the wisteria. I do not want to, but it keeps reaching its tendrils toward my bean poles, and I don’t want to deal with cutting them off of those, so I’d better do it soon.

Due to a collection of unfortunate circumstances, the weeds in the back field on the farm turned monstrous this year—worse than anyone’s ever seen, and my grandparents have been there since the ‘70s. More unfortunate is that this is the year we planted pumpkins, squash, and gourds back there, so autumn will be a somewhat frustrating treasure hunt.

Except, maybe not, because I used a scythe today! And didn’t hurt myself in the process! I don’t know what I was so afraid of—really, it was the weeds that should be afraid of me. Either way, I scythed around the pumpkins so that grandpa could get in between with the tractor. As of writing this, I don’t know the fate of the gourds (which I did not scythe around), but I’m hoping they’ve made it out unscathed.

I believe that’s all for in the garden today. I hope you’re well, and that your own gardens are bursting with life.

Until next time,

—Catherine

Like this post and want to see more? Type your email into the space above to receive updates when new blog posts are added, head over to the blog’s main page, or click the “next” or “previous” buttons below.

---

Home | About | My Books | Publications | Newsletter | Contact