How many gardening harpists out there?

[naomi-m]

Hello all,

Just curious – how many of you are avid gardeners as well as harpists?

Thought this might make for an interesting discussion.

[Laura Wilson]

I love flowers and plants. I planted some lilies last year, and I’m excited about how they’ll look this year. I don’t have that much room to garden, but I enjoy looking through the magazines at beautiful blooming trees and vibrant flowers that I’d love to have—just like I love looking at harps online that are too expensive!

Does anybody know of any citrus trees that can survive outdoors

[Denise Lockamy]

I’m also an avid gardener, though with the drought we’ve had this year, there’s not much evidence of it in my yard.

[louise-vickerman]

Being a Brit, I think gardening is in my blood! I have a huge yard with probably over 3 dozen different rose bushes – pruning season is hazardous, sometimes I look like I have been attacked by a pack of rabid cats! Come June the walk up the front path is a glorious sight and scent and my students all appreciate it. I love working in the garden and find it to be kind of a meditative experience and really grounding working over the earth.

Last year my husband’s Mom bought the house next door to us and is currently renting it out but we now have almost 1/2 an acre of land in downtown Salt Lake to take care of since her back yard was not landscaped and is a huge expanse of bare earth. We took the opportunity last summer to plant vegetables (LOTS! I got especially carried away with squash plants) and won four ribbons in the Utah State Fair agriculture division in September! We were still eating our tomatoes in December (at the end of the growing season before the first frost, pick as many green tomatoes as you want, wrap them in newspaper and store in a cool dark place, they will continue to ripen. Although they won’t be as sweet as ones picked off the vine, they still beat the store bought variety).

[Leigh Griffith]

-What part of the country (world?) are you in?

Northern Maine

-What’s coming up in your yard?

Snow

My husband and I used to have a 2000 sq. ft. organic vegetable garden.
Deer weren’t much of a problem, but raccoons, woodchucks and moose were
brutal! (The moose don’t eat anything, just step
on it!) We have since moved onto a large in-town lot (almost an acre)
and have hopes of having some raised beds this next summer. Arthritis
has put a crimp in our lifestyle (which means I have time for harp!),
but we both miss home grown food. I have had some half-barrel flower
planters by my front porch, but that has been the extent of my
“gardening” lately.

Leigh

[louise-vickerman]

It’s nice to think about gardening and imagine what will be fun to grow this season since the only shovel I am using right now is a snow shovel and we are expecting another 2-3 inches this evening. We don’t get moose or deer in our neighborhood luckily (some of my colleagues who live farther up the hill do) but the raccoons can be a real pain.

[Allison Stewart]

I love plants, but I’m a haphazard gardener.

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

I have a rock garden and a garden all around my patio, and another around my deck. Then I have one under the bedroom window, one along the front of the house, one along the garage and a small garden out in front where my maple tree is with a fountain. It’s too much work as time goes on. I hate the intense heat we have gotten in the past few years. The gardens need work. I will try to get out there in the early spring and drop a bunch of Preen down when I see that the good stuff has come up already. Guaranteed I will have to plant some new things in the patio garden. It was too dry last year and I lost some good stuff. We’ll see. The thing I like is watching it all come up. The thing I hate is weeding. YUCK.

Briggsie

[patricia-jaeger]

I love food gardening, so each year I have a small harvest of peas, beans, tomatoes, chard. In the ground are blueberries, raspberries, strawberries. In large container pots are cherries and 1 fig. It’s a fun hobby and it gets me outside in the fresh air, in our short warm season of the Pacific Northwest

[Susan Abken]

I garden, and have had great outcomes with bulbs at the four houses in three states we’ve owned since 1989. My peonies have poked their heads out of the ground out at our mailbox; the daffodils in the front and back have already bloomed. It’s time to braid the green tops.

On my deck I have mint, parsley, Italian oregano and thyme in containers, a few steps away from the kitchen, and in the backyard I’ve put in three dwarf, self-pollinating apple trees and three Kadota figs, just to see what happens!

On our front stoop is rosemary.

In an egg carton in our living room, my pet butternut squash has poked its cute little head above the ground. It will go outside in a few weeks, and we hope to eat its offspring! (Why only one seed out of twelve has germinated is beyond me, perhaps I purchased old seed stock, don’t know.) Next to the egg carton is a pet miniature lemon tree with blossoms.

Pretty soon I’ll be putting in tomatoes in large wooden barrels, a good way to water them in an area with watering restrictions.

Best wishes to all other gardeners out there!

-Susan Abken, Charlotte, NC

[Denise Lockamy]

The daffodils were beautiful this year, despite the drought.

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

I love gardening, but I don’t have anywhere near enough time to do a decent job of it! So our garden is full of perennials and bulbs that have to look after themselves. We have lots of rhododendrons which were planted by my husband’s parents in the ’50’s, so they are huge trees now. April and May are spectacular here! We have wild blackberries and cultivated raspberries and blueberries. The tulips are just opening up now, and the hyacinths and daffodils are still putting on a show. Wildlife: lots of birds, such as hummingbirds, flickers, finches, kinglets, etc., a bear once or twice, skunks, raccoons, and neighbours’ cats. We once had a pair of eagles swooping around, and a kestrel went whipping by one day.

[Leigh Griffith]

(sigh)
The snowbanks are shrinking. The one behind our house reached about 18 feet this winter and is down to about half that now. Most of the snow in areas that get sun is gone, but where there is shade, there is still snow. We got quite a lot of snow this year (almost 200 inches total snowfall) and I can’t wait to see it go! I did see just the barest tip of the daffodil leaves emerging in my front lawn today!

Leigh

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