SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE

This past week summer finally arrived although I’ve always considered the first day of June summer. I have to admit that although I’ve always enjoyed gardening, this year I’ve totally neglected my gardens largely because March and April were either cold or rainy much of the time, and in May my sister, Catherine, who lives in Washington State, and her husband came to town for two weeks. My sister Elaine had planned activities for all of her siblings to do on the days they were here in Ohio like visiting Zoar Village, hiking in Cuyahoga National Park not far from my home, and Moraine State Park in PA., the Akron Zoo and other places so there was no time for weeding or planting the plants I had bought at the beginning of May.

Part of my back yard.

After being hospitalized with pneumonia in June last year, I didn’t get much gardening done, either, and I decided then not to worry about it. Instead I decided to let nature take over in the several acres of the twelve acres my small farm has with half of it in woods and a nice sized pond out near the woods. My son mows the large open area behind my barn, but I do mow my lawn around the house and on the other side of my driveway where I have gardens, too. And I don’t have a riding mower so I consider that my exercise.

The gate leading into my sad Veggie Garden

Last year I hadn’t planted very many vegetables in the large vegetable garden my son had fenced in for me at least eight years ago. The little I did plant, the rabbits had managed to get under the fence and eat what came up. So this year the vegetable garden has no vegetables planted and the whole area including the raised beds with brick walkways around them is one huge mess of tall weeds. On my list of things to do sometime this summer is to pull up all those horrible weeds, and then put something down like layers of newspapers and cardboard or the black material I bought before to hold down with rocks to cover where I pulled them so next year I can again put in a garden of vegetables and flowers.

The hanger for pots my daughter gave me in front of the barn door.

My little farm has a large red barn and tall beautiful spruce trees in the area behind the house and a few in the front yard, too, with old maple trees, a few oak trees and a large weeping willow beside the house that when it died had to come down. It also has some apple trees, too. In the years that I’ve lived here, I’ve planted several Japanese maples, a dogwood tree, a redbud tree, a few crabapple trees, three magnolia trees, two pear trees, a sweet gum tree, a sycamore, a linden tree, another weeping willow, a blueberry patch and at least a dozen rhododendrons plus azaleas. I have many, many hostas of all kinds and hundreds of daylilies, too.

This is only part of my little goldfish pond.

Years ago I had my grandsons dig out a place to put in a small goldfish pond, and two parents of one of my students (the father was a supervisor of Ohio’s Sea World) who learned that I was going to put one in, came over with their kids, rocks (which I already had a lot of) and put in a lining and brought some water lilies as well as goldfish to finish the little pond close to my house and the patio with a gazebo over it.

My Saint Fiacre bed before I mowed the grass around it.

I had some retired teachers to lunch two weeks ago, and they looked at my backyard and side yard and thought it was so beautiful. You see many people don’t know the difference between weeds and perennials.

Just a few of the many, hostas I have in front of the old orchard.

Since I bought my small farm in 1989 after my divorce, and two years after the elderly man who lived in it since 1938 had died. I finally moved into it in the fall of 1990 after my son had gutted it, replaced the wiring and put up new walls and made the house a nice place to live. He put in a new kitchen. He and one of my cousins and her husband came over and sanded and varnished the hardwood floors throughout my downstairs and upstairs. I hired someone to turn one of the front rooms into a library with built in bookcases on two walls. 

Over the years my son added two rooms and a bathroom upstairs, and turned a sad back porch into a sun room. with

Hydrangeas against the north side of my house.with a hen

I love my small farm with two ponies, four hens, two barn cats, and of course, my beautiful collie, Maggie, my house cat Brat Cat, or Pixie, as my daughter wants to call her, my two old African Ring Neck Doves and Pavarotti, my canary who loves broccoli.  I love it even more since I’ve decided to let nature pretty much take over. Yes, I’m still doing some weeding around the edges of my gardens and pulling out weeds that are taking over here and there and mowing my yards although sometimes my son comes down the road on his riding mower to mow my front yard and the old orchard beside my house. Most of the time I mow the front yard before he comes.

Roses and Clematis on an arbor leading to the side yard.

Do you have gardens that you keep weeded?

Have you ever thought of letting nature have its way?