June Evenings are for Planting with Dragons

There's magic in June evenings.

I can't fully place my finger on it. There isn't a solid pulse confirming its warm, live presence beneath my reaching press to understand, but it's there. In gentle warming wispers through the white pines, and in puffs of mist rolling over the wild edges of our field, something eretherial hovers, speaking wonder and bestowing vast contentment in just BEING on a June night.

  Tonight, fireflies dance through tall grasses and scrub brush. They emerge by the hundreds from my garden beds every spring, larvae often found glowing under piles of mulch as I work in the cooler evening hours to escape the heat that so often threatens to send me spiraling during daylight hours. I'm always careful not to hurt those beautiful little specks of earthbound starlight, tucking them safely away in a hügelkultur that's almost always in a 3 year process of being built. It's worth the extra time because their wonder-inducing presence simply can not be overstated when watching them dance once airborne.

You have no idea how long it took to catch one lit up in a photo.

  Working at dusk also brings mosquitoes, but it's a grateful break from the biting black flies that I keep accidentally inhaling and having to dig out of my ears. With mosquitoes come hoardes of dragonflies, flitting around my head, sometimes hovering in front of my eyes, performing a tedious analysis of the redheaded giant their DNA memory told them to go find once they emerged from the big pond. "Look for the person who's hair glows fire as the sun sinks below the forest line." Their memory must wisper, "That's​​ where the easy food is." Sometimes, instead of flitting around my head, they land on my shoulders and eat from there, occassionally buzzing their wings to remind me of their presence. Whatever they choose to do, I love them for it. What would a June night, thick with fog and thrill be, without the company of dragons?

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✨️The Gardens✨️ 

This year has been extremely different for the gardens. Usually, I'm harvesting my first annuals by now, but this year I am still planting in hopes there will be a fall harvest. I made myself a promise last winter that not a single veggie seed or seedling would make its way into soil if I didn't have flower beds fully planted and weeded and the orchard finished. I stuck to that promise at the cost of a mid-summer harvest.

  Do I regret it? Not at all. The orchard is nearly done. I only have 1 raspberry bed to finish planting and 2 gooseberry bushes to plant. But they've been potted in nice big pots and are currently thriving. (Well... Ok. Not the gooseberry bushes. Something ate the leaves!) My flower beds are all fully planted, and I even added a new one, strictly for growing mammoth sunflowers and mammoth dill. It is being heavily fertilized for maximum growth.

It has grown a lot more since this picture, but you get the idea. I planted it for the pollinators but also to make a privacy screen of sorts for the butcher station behind it. It's not that great to look at all the time even though it's not used during the summer.

Bee balm, queen of the prairie, phlox, peony roots, delphinium, saliva, zinnia, petunia, geranium, balloon flower, cosmos, zebrina malva, marigold and moss roses are tucked into every spare space I could find. There are others of course that I can't remember the names of. I have to make a conscious effort to inject beauty into the landscaping around my house and barn, or it simply just exists in a utilitarian fashion. "Junk piles" become the main draw of the eye and it's really just not that nice.

SO much better than lumber scraps!

 

Seriously?! How!!! Just so gorgeous!

I am nearly done planting the main garden. It's stuffed full already with 5 varieties of potatoes. French Fingerling, Red Viking, Purple Majesty, Irish Cobbler and Red Norland.

Purple Majesty potatoes are so striking to look at! Even their little sprouts!

I have Slenderette Green beans and of course Dragon Tongue beans planted, Danvers carrots, Bulls Blood beets, Lincoln and Bolero shelling peas, Purple eggplant, Red cabbage, Gray Zucchini, Long White Palermo zucchini, Romanesco zucchini, Straight Eight cucumbers, Mammoth dill, Blue Borage, and of course sunflowers! Always sunflowers. i refuse to even have a garden without them.

I'll be tucking grow bags with all the late extras I've collected around rows and bunches of sunflowers and borage. This includes 4 varieties of eggplant I started from seed. I also have an experimental row of tomato plants that are hilled up high, heavily covered in compost, then topped with sheeps wool. So far, they seem pretty darn happy!

  The hügelkultur is almost half finished with planting. I grew squash and pumpkins mixed with hundreds of sunflowers and a 50 lb bag of seed oats thrown over it all for 3 years. This year I'm switching it up and filling it with potatoes, cabbage and tomatoes. 50 tomato plants will have plenty of room to grow as big as they want on this 100’ bed. I've had my tomato plants potted this whole time and they have exceeded 2' tall at the tallest. I plant these very deep with only 6" above soil and mulch. It's a guarantee I won't have to water as they can reach their roots into the wooden core that is now a giant sponge, and drink from that supply all season. Quite a few of these plants have huge blossoms already, so they'll be making tomatoes soon enough!

The potatoes I planted in that bed are Yukon Gold and my Pantry Dump Extraordinaire mix. It's literally just several shopping bags of all the teeny tiny potatoes we never got around to eating so they sprouted 6" long sprouts and began begging for soil.

This half is not yet planted. But look at the lack of weeds!!!! Makes me so happy. It's a joy to use these beds for growing.

  I have harvested a few perennial foods already which I am very grateful for!  A couple gallons of asparagus, rhubarb, chives, and just this week, the first handful of strawberries. A good start, and many good things to follow!

Nothing tastes better than this first handful.

I'll leave you with a photo of this quirky rock I found while weeding. I believe it is just a chunk of banded chert, which I have many of! This one had eyes though. So of course it's in my house. He needs a mustache and a little hat.