Gardening, northern Maine style.

A hearty, healthy and happy afternoon to you all from the alluvial plains of northern Maine, where it is a hot and windy 73 degrees today. Almost any other year up to this one would have been a far more impressive year to show you my 1/4 acre garden. But, we are in the process of downsizing the bulk of our summer living to our lake house, which is an hour and half away, and so we couldn't maintain our big garden as in other years.

Normally, we grow peas, summer squash, winter squash, string beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, spinach, lettuces, pumpkins and sometimes corn or potatoes. This year it is just going to be tomatoes, summer & winter squashes, pumpkins, spinach and lettuce. This year's garden is the smallest we've had in more than 10 years, and is app. 60' x 30'...which is less than 1/100th of an acre.

Here is what our normal gardens of the past have looked like:

This is the full quarter acre garden above, from 2009...with farm stand...(below):

This is the size of the garden this year...just a small cut-out of its former self, and definitely no farm stand this year:

Still, Lord willing, and if all goes well...We should have plenty of winter squash to bleach and have all winter without spoilage. We are planting six butternut hills and six butter cup hills this year (not in the ground yet). What we already have in (and I just did the summer squash today--any sooner and there was still a risk of frost getting to them) are the spinach, lettuce, tomatoes (5 large beef steaks, and 4 cherry tomatoes) and the Ukrainian summer squash (7 hills.) For those of you who have never seen Ukrainian summer squash, it is somewhat like the normal yellow summer squashes, but a bit meatier, and a pale green. It also lasts a couple-weeks-to-a-month longer after picking:

Here is the size of the current garden up close. The mowed patch to the side is where the runners for winter squash will have room to run. I will keep the garden mowed there as I have every year so that the flowers are clearly visible to our diminished bee population:

View of the garden from the house, and v.v., ....plus the paths I keep mowed through the long grass to access the garden and other spots...there are several paths, and they make nice walking trails all over our six acres:

Our little spinach (3 rows) and salad patches:

My little Ukrainian summer squash plants:

Tomato alley:

Butter nuts and butter cups transplanted from the tiny sprouting pots and awaiting their turn to hit the deep soil (probably tomorrow or the next day.):

AND...because I know my good friend @Janton will want to know....Our growing season is from around June 11-12 to the end of September. A September frost is possible, but much of our harvesting is already done by then, and/or we cover the plants for that night or two when we know a frost is threatening . By the middle of October, everything must be done, because a hard frost is regular by late October. We've had snow as early as October 5th here, but it usually isn't on the ground to stay until mid-to-late November, and begins to leave any time during the Month of April. We did have an 80-degree day in March back in 2010, but that was a FREAK thing. Yes, we hearty Mainers do know how to scratch an existence out of our rocky, sandy soil.

Enjoy the rest of your day, and do stop in to my blog again soon, hear?