Happy Spring!
Hi Everyone! I am Gail Lindsay. I live on the upper part of Cape Cod (Massachusetts), near the Cape Cod canal. The “Cape” can be divided into sections: Upper Cape, Mid Cape, Lower Cape, and Outer Cape as well as the “Islands”. I live in the Upper Cape area and this is where I got the name for this blog – Gardening on the Upper Cape. This is my first blog post.
As I sit here this morning (March 1st, 2021); my Spring Fever has come back big time. When spring fever hits – it is impossible to keep me inside. It is raining with temps in the mid-forties and a heavy fog. Even with the rain I have been outside snapping pics of the early spring growth.
Yes, they are planted in a row – I planted them that way when I was a kid. There are more snowdrops under the remaining leaves. I pulled the leaves off this section a few weeks ago to see if the snowdrops were coming up yet.
I have lived in this house for most of my life. My mother moved with my uncle and grandmother into this house in late the 1920s after my grandfather’s passing. My grandmother moved the family from Rhode Island when she became the live in housekeeper for a man who I knew as Uncle Joe. The house sits right on the water off one of the inlets of Buzzards Bay. If you look at map of Massachusetts; Cape Cod looks like an arm sticking out off the mainland. The Cape Cod Canal runs from Buzzards Bay (the “armpit”) across to Massachusetts Bay.
I also have been out to feed the turkeys. I have a flock of wild turkeys here every winter. The ground is still frozen; and with today’s rain and it is quite soggy out there. I need to get my gardening boots out so I can go out and do a bit of yard clean up later.
Side note: Turkeys are wonderful buggers. Turkeys love to eat Ticks. When you see a flock of turkeys walking through the grass pecking at what seems to be nothing – they are eating ticks. Ticks carry disease and they have become a real problem on the Cape. There are 6 types of Lyme diseases cause by ticks. Since I started feeding the wild turkeys; my tick problem is almost non existent.
I have a patch of Early spring crocus planted on this side of my front door. There are 2 yellow flowers just popping up in this pic – but you cannot see them until you are right on top of them. The green extension cord is for the birdbath heater that is sitting on my front step.
I also have some chive plants starting to poke up in my herb garden. I have not been out to check yet, but the Vinca wines along the foundation bloom sometimes as early as January; so there should be a bloom or two in those plants as well. I also miss my willow tree. It used to be covered in yellow flowers in early spring. A nasty October storm too it down a few years ago.
What will my blog be about?
For now, it will be snips of my day-to-day life, my journey of going green, my life as a gardener, and posts about being in my 60s. Eventually my blog will migrate into a more a more specific niche. But what that niche is; I do not know as of yet. I have gardened in one form or another all of my life but I am by no means a garden expert.
It has been a warm winter so far here in New England. The ground did not freeze completely until February. The Cape did not see much snow until mid February; and since then what we did get was not enough to break out the snow blower for. I am trying to get outside as much as possible to get on top of my spring chores but that is difficult when the sea breeze kicks in. Ocean temperatures are still down in the low 40s; and even a slightest breeze off the water is bitterly cold.
New Hügelkultur garden bed.
This early in the Spring one of chores is to pick up all the branches that the trees drop over winter. Instead of piling them up in my brush piles as I have done in the past; I am using them as foundations materials in a new Hügelkultur garden bed.
Say What? Hügelkultur is a horticultural technique where a mound is constructed from decaying wood debris and other compostable biomass plant materials, these mounds are then then planted as a raised bed.
I am planning for one long Hügelkultur bed located on a slope in the back yard. I plan to start it will all the downed branches. The I will add the spent dirt from last years potted annuals, some wood chips, and finally I will add some good topsoil and more straw before planting.
That row of branches to the right of the flower bed and to the left of the fire pit is where I’m planning on building my new Hügelkultur garden bed. I will be fencing that area in to keep the deer from munching on my plants. The water beyond the fire pit is my saltwater marsh with Shell bay and Onset in the far background.
As you can see by all these pictures; it’s still mostly winter around here but there are spots of spring green are showing through.
