Our gardens have gone rogue!

Despite efforts to win the National Garden Club golden ring, neglect has set in. We had the best of intentions but summer in Vacationland has had the final say, forcing us to abandon the green thumb portion of activity. Additionally, believe it or not, I have not mowed our lawns in over a month, hoping to allow the longer grass to catch some overnight dew for refreshment.

Things are looking a bit ratty but still holding onto a pale green scraggliness. Pretty dry out there.

The garden hoe is collecting dust as we await some rain to support a fine crop of weeds and canceled ice cream socials. What’s a mother to do?

At this point, what grows and where has become like a high school biology study. Remember the days when we would try to see how many fruit flies would grow in a petri dish? In much the same way we are observing what happens to our gardens with little or no care. This is, by the way, by no means, a guide to creating productive and beautiful gardens. We are in survival mode and what is surviving in our gardens is interesting.

Years ago, our sons-in-law and I built several raised garden beds from rough sawn hemlock – 2X8s. It was a good plan. We had a nice variety of good soils collected over the years and picked up fresh. We filled the beds to overflowing and planted our brains out. Back then, we had some help managing the gardens, tending to weeding, watering and fertilizing (organic only of course). Things went along swimmingly with a modest but good harvest shared by all. But keeping things in order took a lot of work. Fortunately, there were many hands.

In recent years, our helping hands became preoccupied with many personal projects and the gardens were overtaken by what I like to call, “selective in attendance!” In other words, we didn’t pay as much attention to things as we should have. This year, we flat out neglected almost everything.

However, as mentioned above, it has been interesting to see what has grown in spite of us.

It is the first year since we started our gardens that I have found lettuce growing in the driveway. That was interesting. We have a bumper crop of milkweed, cultivated initially to attract monarch butterflies. Now, the milkweed is everywhere, even competing with lettuce in the driveway. But there have been few monarchs visiting and the milkweed is now making the pods that eventually swell and open to share their fluffy interiors. So, we do have that going for us.

As for other survivors, Queen Anne’s Lace wins the prize for the most prolific, it's doing very well, especially widely distributed throughout our non-mowed lawns. Black-eyed Susan plants hold a solid second place both inside and outside of the well-tended raised beds.

Some self-starting leftover tomato plants have managed to creep along a portion of less populated areas and the swiss chard clearly did not get the message to throw in the towel, but it has gone to seed in the heat.

I put down a mat to prevent weeds from growing on the walking paths in the garden. That was a real success! Seems the black material was just what the doctor ordered for unrestrained overgrowth of just about everything, including slugs, moles and earthworms. One of our few successes.

We hope many in “Registerland" and beyond are having a better run this year with gardening. If you need any advice about how to relax and enjoy summer in Maine … and manage a fine garden space … you might consider Google or AI. We are exhausted.