A Time to Plant

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:

    a time to be born, and a time to die;
    a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

    a time to kill, and a time to heal;

    a time to break down, and a time to build up;

    a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

    a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

    a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

    a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

    a time to get, and a time to lose;

    a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

    a time to rend, and a time to sew;

    a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

    a time to love, and a time to hate;

    a time of war, and a time of peace.

If you're like me, as you read that, you inserted the words "turn, turn, turn" into those words from Ecclesiastes (Chapter 3:1-8) thanks to Pete Seeger, who wrote the song in 1959 and the Byrds who made it famous in 1965. We've come to the season when it is time to plant. Most of my garden time last week was spent planting. The season to pluck up that which is planted lies far ahead, but in between we go through the long and (usually) delightful season of flowers and fruiting and tending that which we've planted.

The week passed by quickly. Last Monday, Memorial Day, already seems like a long time ago. We had a good day. We went to the parade in Ulysses. We visited graves. We had a cookout in the afternoon. The food was excellent. We know how to make a feast. Then the Thayns went home and things quickly settled back into the same old routine. 

Russell waiting for the parade.

Waiting for the parade.

Emergency vehicles in the parade throwing candy.

Our nephew Lev (center, yellow shirt) in the parade with his T-ball team.

The grave of my 5th great-grandfather, Salmon Hawley, Revolutionary War Soldier.

Cookout food!

On the Shillig's back porch.

Russell with his hot dog and his hot dog shirt.

Although the day started out overcast and it even drizzled a bit, by noon it was sunny and by afternoon it was warm and beautiful. I decided to be bold and plant my tomatoes in one of the hoop houses in the vegetable garden. Memorial Day is my traditional Planting Out Day and I figured it was safe enough. Even if it got a little cold, I could always closed the door on the hoop house and they would be fine.

Planting tomatoes.

The weather on Tuesday was superb. It started out cold, 35° at sunrise, but as soon as the sun was up, it warmed quickly. I ran errands early in the morning – a trash run, a stop at Runnings to buy garden supplies. On the way home, I went by way of Mills and stopped at Ervin Coblentz's greenhouse. We have lots of Amish greenhouses in the area, and Ervin's is one of the best. It's getting late in the plant buying season now, and I wanted to see what was still there. I bought a flat of mixed brassicas – broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, and two geraniums. I like to have geraniums in pots on the back porch stairs. By the time I got home at 11:00, it was 80°. I hurried and mowed the lawn before it got hotter. By the time I was done mowing the thermometer was at 85°. I took a break for lunch and then went out to plant. Emboldened by the heat, I planted out more of my seedlings – peppers, celery, morning glories, sweet peas, and bunching onions. When Stacey got home from work, we went into Coudersport to buy more plants. I got flats of things that I do not start myself – impatiens, petunias, and portulaca. We got a beautiful fuchsia to hang on the front porch.

The new fuchsia and flats of impatiens.

We've arrived at that time of year, from mid May to mid August, when, in order to watch the sunrise, I have to get up earlier than my usual waking time. The sun comes up around 5:40 now and if I am to shower and dress before I go out, I have to be up before 5:30. I don't mind. The sky actually begins to lighten before 5:00 and I find it difficult to sleep when I can hear the birds already singing. I feel like I'm missing out on the waking of the world. I love mornings, especially the calm, dewy mornings that come now in late spring and early summer. I especially love the moment when the sun crests above the hill to the east of us and the light floods through the maples at the front of the yard. The sunlight shining through the leaves fills the yard with green light. It looks like heaven to me.

I was up and out early on Wednesday morning. I took a walk around the property, planning what I would do that day. The birds were in full chorus. There was fog hanging low over the local ponds. The grass was drenched with dew. I surprised a rabbit in the long border that scurried across the road into the brush. I hope it was eating weeds and not flowers. If I see it too often, or I find any damage, I might have to relocate it. I stopped to admire the rhubarb row. I usually pull the flower stalks off the rhubarb as soon as they appear (actually Stacey does as she is somewhat obsessed by them), but this year we let them bloom. They are spectacular. I'm going to let them bloom every year. However, I will remove them before they set seed. I don't need hundreds of rhubarb plants popping up everywhere.

The rhubarb in bloom.

That morning after spending a couple of hours weeding, I continued planting out. I planted some of my seedlings – snapdragons and helenium. I had to take a break at the peak of the heat of the day. It was 83° and I didn't want my seedlings to wilt. 

Newly planted bed of snapdragons.

Toward evening I went out again and planted some more. The evenings are lovely now. The best word I can find for them is "soft." The late sunlight slanting through the trees is soft. The cooling air is soft and full of soft smells rising up from the earth. I love to sit and watch the day fade away into softness as twilight comes on.

On an evening walk: through the garden.

On an evening walk: down to the beaver pond at moonrise.

On an evening walk: back through the big garden.

On an evening walk: though the meadow.

On an evening walk: towards home again.

Thursday was a little cooler, but very pleasant. I followed the same pattern as the day before – a few hours of weeding and then more planting. I planted a flat of brassicas in the vegetable garden, and some wallflower seedlings in the long border. I spent several hours weeding the asparagus patch. We're done eating asparagus for the year, sadly. The cold weather and frosts took a heavy toll on them. They need a long warm summer to recuperate. I hope we get one.

The forecast for our nighttime low temperatures shifted over the week. I always check four different weather sites – NOAA, WeatherBug, The Weather Channel, and AccuWeather. They never agree and I always hope the best forecast is the one we actually get, but alas, that usually isn't how it goes. At first, according to all three, it looked like I'd have to worry about frost on Friday and Saturday. Then midweek, things changed and it looked like we'd be okay. Then on Thursday afternoon, they changed the outlook again – NOAA and AccuWeather 's forecasts said it looked like there was a chance for frost. The WeatherBug and The Weather Channel forecasts were still good. I wanted the first two to be wrong, but just in case, I stopped planting and commenced worrying. I began to feel foolish for planting so much out so soon. I should know better. And I began to pray. I didn't pray for anything spectacular, no unexpected warm front arriving to save things. All I needed was for the temperature to stay above 32°. It could go to 33°, that would be fine, but not one degree lower.

Friday morning it was 35°. I checked carefully on my morning walk for signs of frost. It's often a few degrees colder out in the big garden and we'll get frost there when there is none near the house. I was glad to find no frost. The day quickly warmed into the 70s and I went to work. It's hard to believe while I'm sweating through the late morning and afternoon that it was almost freezing a few hours earlier. 

I write a lot about weeds. They are involved in most everything I do in the garden from the time the snow melts in the spring to when it returns in the fall. I think I give the impression that I hate them, but I don't really. They are part of the garden world I live in and, although they annoy me at times, I admire their persistence and tenacity and even their beauty sometimes (I see nothing beautiful about quack grass). I know their habits, and that persistence and tenacity puts them in places where I do not want them, so I pull them up. I suppose it makes me feel powerful in a way, that I can decide who lives and who dies in my garden beds. But I also know who will win in the end. There will be weeds in those beds long after I am gone, most likely shortly after I am gone.

The lupines have begun to bloom.

I sometimes wonder why I thrive on gardening so much. It began at an early age. I planted my first serious garden when I was thirteen. My passion for it has only increased over the years. I long for it all year long. When I'm not doing it, I'm thinking about doing it. I need to create and keep gardens. The labor involved, mental and physical, makes me feel alive. The things I grow feed me, sometimes physically, but even more so, spiritually. I feel the love and the genius of the Creator when I immerse myself in His creation, hands in the soil, face to the earth. The intricacy and majesty of it all is miraculous to me. I remember a poem my grandmother sent me in a letter a long time ago (by Dorothy Frances Gurney) that starts with the line "The Lord God planted a garden In the first white days of the world" and ends with the line "One is nearer God's heart in a garden Than anywhere else on earth." That's how I feel.

The azalea in the woodland garden is in bloom with its fragrant pink flowers.

On Saturday morning Enos Keim, our local Amish tree man, came by to look at the two maple trees by the front of the house that we need to remove. He gave us a good price and took a down payment. He will begin and finish taking them down during the month of June, but we don't know the exact dates yet. He's going to drop them, chip the smaller stuff, and cut the branches into firewood. The big trunks we will have to take care of ourselves. The front yard will be a disaster during and after the work, but the trees need to go and I'll have to deal with the aftermath. I feel sad about cutting them down, but I think the dreams and impressions that have been plaguing me need to be heeded. Last Monday, right after the Thayns left, a big branch fell out of the tree nearest the house. If it had hit the house, it would have done a lot of damage. If it had hit a person, it would have killed them. So the trees must go.

Last night was the most worrisome night of the week. All day yesterday I kept checking the forecast, watching the temperature, hoping and praying for the best. NOAA said the nighttime low would be 39°. WeatherBug and The Weather Channel predicted 41°. AccuWeather said 38°. All of those are in the safe range and that's good, but this is cold Gold and we have to drop every predicted temperature by five degrees, and that was bad. I spent the afternoon preparing for the worst. I closed up the hoop houses to hold in the heat. I hauled out the covers for the lily bed, but the lilies are too tall now to cover without damaging them. I set jugs of water by the morning glories. I brought all the potted plants onto the back porch and closed the door. I dragged the hose over the whole garden and gave everything a deep soaking. There was nothing else I could do but keep praying. 

On my last inspection of the orchard, I couldn't find any signs of fruit. It looks like we'll have a year without apples – again. I saw that the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared seventeen counties in Pennsylvania's fruit belt a disaster. We don't live in the fruit belt. Those 17 counties are all south of us and they lost most of their apple, peach, and pear crops in those late April freezes that we had. I'm glad I don't depend on my orchard for my living like they do. For me it's a sad year, but for them it really is a disaster.

When I got up this morning, it was 31°. It was early and not very light outside, but I could see frost on the lawn. I threw on some clothes and went out the back door. As I stepped off the back porch, the cold was like a slap in the face. I could see my breath. I stood on the porch steps and looked out at the last day of May. I couldn't bear to go any further. I went back inside and got ready for church. I would wait to go out until after the sun was up and the frost was gone to see how things had fared in the garden.

Before I finally went out at 8:00, I said a prayer that I would find minimal damage. Now that the sun was up, the temperature had quickly climbed to 65°. I walked along the flowerbeds first. I could see no sign of frostbite. I went into the raised bed garden where I had my lilies. They were untouched. The morning glories and sweet peas, so sensitive to cold, were fine. I opened the hoop houses and found the tomatoes and peppers were perfect. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and offered another prayer of thanks. We survived, on the last day of May, what I hope was the last frost of the season.

This bright poppy greeted me this chilly morning.

The drive to church was beautiful. The trees on the hills are fully leafed out and everything is green again. Along the roadsides, the Cow Parsley, Buttercups, and Dame's Rocket are blooming. We did have a close encounter with a deer that ran out in front of us. That got my heart racing. Church was good. We had a lot of visitors that boosted our attendance to fifty, almost twice what it usually is. This being a fifth Sunday, we had a special meeting during our second hour. Nationwide we'd been asked to watch a video prepared by the Church featuring President D. Todd Christofferson and Elder Quentin L. Cook discussing the importance of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, which we did. After the video I led a discussion on the things they talked about. There were more deer encounters on the drive home, but not in our car. Hannah had to dodge a deer and Sarah, unfortunately hit one. It jumped out right in front of her. She couldn't avoid it. She killed it and it did considerable damage to the front of her car.

Kurt and Julie's oldest daughter Shay and four of her children plus her friend and her five children arrived late last night to spend some time here. Over the next weeks there will be a lot of visitors between the two houses. The Shilligs are hosting a Sabbath Soiree this evening. There will be many over the next weeks. It looks like the summer season is underway already. I hope we get some real summer weather soon. The week ahead looks pleasant enough, mild and no mention of frost. I have so much to do, more planting, other projects, and I can't wait to get to it.

Good Sabbath.