It's May Day. May Day May Day May Day.....how could anyone use those words as a signal of disaster? Today the sun is presiding over brilliant green grass as though saying, "Worth the wait, eh? I've been building your character through Yankee denial--you have passed through the bleak April I gave you,, and now--you can graduate to May!" About a hundred daffodils dot the lawn and river bank. Tiny leaves are sprouting on the big wild cherry tree and the willows sport that lime-green mist that tells us to relax, spring has truly come. "You can stop yearning now."
We're eating wild plants: Jerusalem artichokes and cascades of ramps from the river bank. Ramps? They, in case you do not know, are also called wild leeks. They look like lily of the valley leaves, about seven inches long and a glowing, soft green. They taste of onion, maybe a hint of garlic, too. At this tender stage you can use them in salads or drop them chopped and raw on hot pasta. They're so abundant, we are eating them every day. (In the interest of honesty: it's now May 4th and cold rain has returned. At least the plants love it.)
We've begun to work in earnest. Mark rototilled the garden last week. I did a lot of research into companion planting and came up with a yearly rotation plan that bunches plant varieties together that encourage each other. Beets with brassicas, cucumbers with peas, etc. Flowers, too--nasturtiums, zinnias, marigolds I seeded into flats in April and will put out with the transplants. That won't take place for another month! We're not reliably frost-free here until the first week of June. BUT, Mark has begun construction of a tomato acceleration plot. He took river-ash (box elder) branches and bent them into hoops he will cover with white agricultural cloth to make a grow tunnel. And on the ground he pegged black ag. cloth to heat up the soil. He'll cut holes in it for the tomatoes. Those plants are now huge (3') in the overcrowded greenhouse and need to be staked: Brandywines, Mennonites. Also some Prudence Purple tomatoes growing in there, plus celeriac, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, parsley, lettuce, basil, eggplant, peppers, cilantro.....Seeds in the garden are peas, spinach and lettuces. Mark also rototilled the storage-crop field and I, while sick last week, bitterly planted long rows of onion sets. It had to be done. Onions turn out to be the best paying crop in terms of avoided cost. Organic onions are something like $2/lb and we use huge quantities in a year. We are just now about to finish off the ones we grew last year and we are so pleased with how they lasted! And not one rotted. The root cellar performed extremely well its first year.
We have two cellarholes near the house, surrounded by a grove of elm (I don't know how they survive but they are healthy) and crabapple. It might be the site of the first white settlement in this region, in the 1780's. One of the builders found a 1780's penny here, one minted when Vermont was its own republic. I have kept this treasure. One cellarhole is surrounded by ancient lilacs that seem to have been planted when the oldest house was built, and that were allowed to die by the previous owners-- what an outrage. Their trunks are twisted, spiralling brown sculptures about 8" thick and 9' tall. Luckily, their progeny live on and make a beautiful grove. Mark cut out trash trees and I cut interloper bushes and Mark pulled down a particle-board treehouse with the tractor and we hauled a huge amount of brush out of that grove. Now it fans out beyond its ancient trunks in the middle, each living bush pruned and restored and bearing healthy dark-purple flower buds. Our passion for this kind of work just grows and grows.
Love, Josie
p.s. Leonard cheerfully delivered the trailer right on time on April 23rd, with 3" of new snow in it. Mark hasn't tested it yet. Our yard looks more Vermonty. Not shabby, though, thank goodness.
