A Wee Garden Tour

The early morning sun shines on the vegetable garden.

We have a small vegetable garden close to the house that I often refer to as a kitchen garden. There are a number of great reasons to have a garden close to the house: ease of picking is one and the second being that we don’t need a fence to keep the deer from having a feast every night. The tall onion-like plants you see growing are the garlic that we planted last fall. They will be harvested when they start to yellow at the end of July. The tunnel is covering kale and broccoli plants.  They are hardy and don’t need the covering for warmth, but we are trying to keep the flea beetles from devastating them. Whatever we can’t grow in this garden we buy from organic growers in the area.

This garden is small by our standards because in the 1980’s we grew a few acres of vegetables in the sunlit field you see in the background of this photo. But that is a story for another time.

And, yes, we have flowers. Lots and lots of flowers.

Our  flower gardens grew and expanded as we landscaped and tweaked the front of the house. We now have perennial flower gardens bordering the walkway leading to the house and beyond to a cliffside deck.

All of the shade loving plants had to go somewhere so we created another border on the shadier side of the lawn. The hostas loved the cold, rainy spring we had this year.

We also have a pool so adding more flowers there just seemed a natural landscaping solution at the time.  Add to that pots and planters and the walled garden by the driveway and you have a whole summer’s worth of beauty…and work!

Most days in the garden start and end at the brook: perfect for washing off muddy hands and feet. And for giving thanks.