…and it is still too early to start seeds. This is the Testing Time, when gardeners are short on patience and long on yearning. When the seed catalogs are dog-eared, the seed packets are in-hand, and the garden is still under the snow and ice.
This has been an especially icy winter here in Maine. We have had a series of snows, thaws, and refreezes, so that the driveway, the yard, and most importantly the path to the greenhouse is covered in a thick unyielding layer of ice.
I try not to despair.
Instead, I am thinking about a few new techniques I am going to try this season, and I hope to document them and share them with you here. First, I hope to have 5 varieties of climbing vines that will appear at the end of our driveway: the first thing visitors to our home and Husband’s gallery will see when they arrive.
Grandpa Ott’s morning glories for early in the day, and Moonflowers for late. Cypress’s white blossoms, Cardinal’s red blossoms, and the Black-eyed Susan vine with its yellow blooms should be a colorful display. I plan to under plant with enough basil to stock my freezer with pesto this winter, something I neglected to do last winter and regret at least once a week.
These vines will take all of the saplings and poles I currently have for vining plants. But I also hope to have 4 varieties of pole beans, and so I will need an additional 16 saplings – I’m going to need 36 in total. The beans will include Ideal Market green beans, and Calypso, Charlevoix kidney, and Good Mother Stallard’s dry shelling beans. I’m hoping the beans will discourage the deer that have been walking through my garden this winter.
This is the first year I’ve seen hoof prints in the snow, most annoyingly on paths I shoveled for myself and my dog Gordon. I did NOT shovel for the deer! I try not to be offended.
I’m going to position the bean poles right where the deer are entering the garden from the woods – hoping to disrupt their path so that they make other plans.
The other new technique I am going to try is planting potatoes in trashcans. The cans are layered with soil and the potato eyes. When the plant is 6” tall, I will add more soil, and so on, so that the plant grows up and up, and fills the can with potatoes as it grows. Harvest will consist of tipping the content of the can out and putting the potatoes up for storage. (Note to self: research how to store potatoes)
I selected a russet and a red variety from Johnny’s Selected Seeds here in Maine – and I am trying to be patient until they ship in early April.
While I dream of this:
My garden currently looks like this:
Hopefully my next post will have photos of seeds being started, and photos of my seed packets – the only color in my wintery life right now — and I am clinging to those packets as if my life depended on them. Because sometimes it feels like it does.
Amy in the Garden 
You have waaaaay too much time on your hands. Those deer are going to eat the tender shoots on your vines. They will thank you for planting such deliciousness for them!
Have faith — remember, I once gardened in Westchester County, NY, aka Deer Central. I have a plan that includes multiple tactics. I am Special Forces. I am Def-Deer 1. I am the Cervine Terminator: Fear my netting.
This is the time for grand plans! But if I know you you’ll have a 125% success rate and get the last laugh for sure. The trash cans and flower vines have my definite vote. Why can’t I ever get big gorgous blue morning glories or moonflowers going? And will the deer avoid the beans themselves or just the bean poles? Keep the blogging coming although I know if you don’t it means you’re happily gardening…
I am trying a suggested technique with the stubborn Moonflower seeds this year: scarification followed by an overnight soak. Who knew I’d finally find an interesting use for an emery board?!
I wish we could send you some of the CUT giant bamboo trying too take over our back for your bean poles! But I think the mailman would bulk at a 20 foot package.