Progress

This, you recall, is what one of the potagers looked like on Monday:


This is what it looks like now:



I also cleaned up the herb bed:


One more potager to go. I think I'll get it done tomorrow.

(I suspect, upon looking closely at the middle photo that The Neighbor wouldn't mind if I mentioned that when she puts the 2nd story on her house this summer she's also getting new siding. In case you were wondering).

The Bloomin' Month of May

Sometimes, in the middle of all the cleanup, you have to ignore the weeds and celebrate the fact that so much is beginning to flower.

The climbing rose has been smiling blooms for a few days now. But sweet as they are, the roses I wait for are the ones that were given as house warming gifts when we first moved in. Each year I look forward to seeing who will bloom first, "Heritage", "Just Joey" or "Gertrude Jekyll".




This year, by a bud, it was Gertrude:

Snails

Slugs thrive in the wet of the Pacific Northwest. There are treatments, of course, but most gardeners I know are resigned to the fact of these little pests and pay their annual tithe of bitten lettuce and hollowed out strawberries.

When I was in Nantes, France I was captivated by the fact that our hosts had snails in their garden. Snails are just as much a pest as slugs but they seem so much more civilized, perhaps because they have the decency to wear a shell. I collected two empty shells from that French garden, which I brought home as souvenirs. They looked exactly like the shells from which I had once or twice extricated escargot in very fine restaurants and so seemed to me a decidedly French symbol.

I kept my French snail shells on my kitchen window sill for about a year, then I put them in a small jar. I like the look of them. Now, I don't know if it was just the existence of those shells or the fact that I began (because I'm extremely affected and like all things French) to refer to my kitchen garden as "potagers" but I no longer have slugs in my garden. I can't remember the last time I saw one. I do, however, have snails. I don't know if this is some sort of region-wide ecological advancement or just some sort of magie francaise but it certainly is an improvement.

I am confirmed in my view that snails are far more attractive and civilized than slugs. You can nip one off a pot or rock, toss it in a bowl of salt and never once say, "Eeewww". I have brown garden snails, like the lad above, who I met this morning. (I suppose I should say "him/her", as they are hermaphrodites). Turns out these are the culinary variety so if I were so inclined I could cook them up with some garlic, parsley and butter and snack away. I picked 4 this morning. Not quite enough for an appetizer. Actually, I don't know if I could bring myself to cook them. Escargot is the sort of thing I think I'd rather order out. But the ones I found are frothing in salt and when they've gone to their reward I will clean out the shells and add them to my collection.

Capricious? That's a Polite Word for What I Am.

It occurs that perhaps I should retitle this blog. I'm tossing around a few ideas. "The Lazy Beyond Belief Gardener"? "The Clearly Doesn't Give a Rat's Behind Gardener"? How about "What? I Have a Garden"?

It is the 6th of May and I haven't planted anything in the kitchen garden. I haven't even turned the kitchen garden. And we have had glorious weather this week. It is clouding over today and may even rain tomorrow. Can you imagine? What if I had busted a move and planted my lettuce and zucchini and whatever else is hiding in seed packets? (I bought them in freaking February...it's not like I wasn't thinking about this at one point). What if I had remembered to water them each of these last warm days, then getting a reprieve from Mother Nature herself? And what if the sun and warmth returns next week? Bet there'd be little sprout babies everywhere. Real sprouts. Not vetch and crabgrass and whatever other weedy things currently holding court out there but all sorts of little veggie babies with the promise of summertime feasts hiding in their little green cells.

Thanks to global warming we have a fairly long growing season anymore. I can plant next week and no one will be any the wiser. But seriously, I have got to get a gardening schedule figured out.