Garden progress only an illusion

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Sometimes you can get ahead of yourself.

The pansies are in, the raised beds are weeded and fertilized, and the rain barrels are operational.

The roses are trimmed, the beautybush is pruned, and the onions are planted.

I’ve rounded up the lupine escapees and sent them to another town. May they live long and prosper.

I even hauled out the trimmer and whisked it around the yard last weekend, a task I generally shun until I’m wading through the grass because I can claim I am “too busy” with more important things such as digging holes or watering an array of flats I’ve carted home from greenhouses near and far.

I have yet to plant the vegetable garden.

It is, frankly, too early for my blood. Last year’s garden proved that later was better for almost everything I grow. I had a stunning amount of produce, from potatoes to beans to tomatoes to cucumbers to carrots to summer squash.

OK, so summer squash is the rabbit of produce. I always have enough to feed an army. And then the other nation’s army the next day.

All of this boils down to me not having enough to do.

How long have I lived for this day?

I scarcely could believe it myself. There I was, slathered in sunscreen and bug dope, my apron pockets full of gardening implements, and I really didn’t have anything to do.

So I decided to do something that I never do before I have the plants to do it with.

I prepared the soil in the whiskey barrels.

A more shocking development I hardly could have imagined.

Yet there I was, mixing and stirring and tossing to my heart’s content.

Usually, you see, I am going in circles trying to get all of the tasks done that need doing in the short time I have to do them. I never get to the whiskey barrels until the moment I am ready to fill them with plants. But this year’s faux winter meant I could be puttering about weeks ago, finishing my planned projects early.

That led me to the whiskey barrels last Saturday.

I adore these planters. With a few healthy specimens, you can create an instant garden in a spot that just wouldn’t work for a regular bed.

But it took me a few years to figure out the best way to

prepare the soil for the plants to thrive through summer and fall.

Every year I remove at least the top 3 inches of soil. I sprinkle the surface with my favorite organic fertilizer, Cockadoodle Doo (found at the Ellsworth Agway), then fill the barrel with a 50-50 combination of potting soil and composted manure.

Too heavy? Not at all. The barrels need good drainage from the start, but soil that won’t hold water for long means you will be watering nonstop when the barrel is full of thirsty plants baking in the July sun.

A couple of years ago, I started adding the organic Vermont Compost Plus, a booster mix for containers. The premise was intriguing: Why throw out depleted soil in containers if you could recharge it? The ingredient list cinched it: plant and manure compost along with nitrate, phosphate and a slew of trace elements.

It seems to work. The whiskey barrels have been lush and overflowing every year since I started using it.

Of course, the other factor in this is keeping the barrels irrigated, a task that can be daunting day after scorching day.

For a few years, I have been adding polymer crystals to any drought-prone bed or planter to give the plants a fighting chance.

The crystals come under several names, but the best ones I have used are Terra Sorb, Soil Moist and Moisture Mizer. The polymers act like sponges, absorbing enough water to expand to 200 times their weight in water and then slowly releasing the water as needed by the plants.

The first time I used the crystals, I didn’t mix them deeply enough into the soil. When it rained, I was shocked to see a gelatinous mass oozing out of the raised bed. It looked like a massive jellyfish had beached itself in my herb garden.

Properly buried, however, the crystals do the trick. Plus, they last for several seasons. I uncovered a few clumps of them in the whiskey barrels and let them be, although I likely will add a few sprinkles when I plant the plants.

That would be my next task, getting the plants.

By the time you read this, I should have managed a visit to a couple of my favorite greenhouses and maybe I’ll even have the whiskey barrels done (I’ve got seven that need plants). And I should have placed the order on the manure and pine bark and so forth. Then I must sit down and plot out how to rotate the crops this year. The seed packets need to be organized. I have to figure out which perennial seeds I want to start in the raised bed. I need to haul out the row covers and find the wire hoops and round up the bamboo stakes and the trellis netting. And I should start writing the names on the plant markers for the vegetable garden.

I think I am falling behind.

Buying tips

Vermont Compost is available through Gardener’s Supply, www.gardeners.com; Johnny’s Selected Seeds, www.johnnyseeds.com; and Fedco, www.fedcoseeds.com. It runs from $7.65 to $10 for a 20-quart bag depending on quantity purchased.

Terra Sorb is available from Gardener’s Supply, www.gardeners.com.

Moisture Mizer can be ordered from Pinetree Garden Seeds, www.superseeds.com.

Soil Moist is available locally. I found it this spring at Blue Seal in Bangor.

Janine Pineo’s e-mail address is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.