Skip to main content

Western PA is giving me anxiety.

        Pennsylvania never changes; and this has given me anxiety.  I have a variety of wild flower and grass seed that I want to plant along the front of the porch.   I've containers ready for the few tomato's, peppers, zucchini herbs and strawberries that I am planning on growing.  

    I have two dogwood trees and a few flowers that I planted this past weekend.   I've never planted a tree in my life.   They are in the ground now and all I could think was "Well, it's in God's hands now."



    Part of this stress and the anxiety that I feel is because of a typical Pennsylvania spring can consist of highs of 80 only to be followed by snow on the ground, often in the same day.   So if I plant to early, I risk killing the very things that I want to grow.   If I plant to late, then I worry that I won't have much of a harvest at all.   

    Where I live is pretty much the center of hardiness zone 5B.  According to sources that means that the first frost free date is May 30th!    This weekend was lovely, we are expecting snow Wednesday.  

    This state gives me anxiety.

   I didn't plant a garden last year, largely because my wife and I could not agree on what we wanted or how and then before we knew it, it was fall.   This year we agreed to keep things small and simple, planting only a few things and keeping them in containers.

    After letting a part of my yard go wild last year, and after learning a little bit about foraging and foodscaping I've decided that for us, it's better to think in the long term.  Not only would it be better for the environment but for our health as well.   That's one of the reasons I purchased two Kousa Dogwood's from Tree Pittsburgh, because they produce flowers and edible fruit although that might take 5 - 7 years.

    We don't plant trees for ourselves right? 

     I've got a lot of work to do, and I want not only the trees to be successful, but the native wildflowers and small garden.   If we are successful, Sue and I are talking about adding blueberries, grapes and additional strawberries in the next year.  Maybe even some fruit trees, again not so much for us as for the future.  


       Overall I consider this a pretty successful day, although we will have to wait and see if the tree's take and if I find time over the next few days to do some other gardening.

    I actually like yard work, in that it shuts down the brain for a bit but this worrying about when I should plant is new to me.  Yes, you can refer to guides and what not and God only knows how many guides are out there...at the end of day you have to trust yourself, and I'm to new for all this.

    The good news is that even in failure, you learn something.  

   

Labels:
Location: Stoneboro, PA 16153, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

What all the cool kids are reading.

Unplanned and Unprepared. Life Happened.

 It's been a bit.   When I started this blog I was in a stable place and a stable condition.   I thought that I was done with moves and surprises.   I would have been perfectly happy to just work for another five or ten years till I retired.    If I'm being completely honest with you but since moving back to Western PA just about six years ago, things have been odd at best and difficult at worst.   I've questioned why we moved but for better or for worse, this is home. Then I lost Facebook and that was one of the drivers, if not the main driver that drove people to this site.   Then my job situation changed drastically.   At first it was fine but it was clear that the company really didn't have a spot for me, and as they transitioned from "work from home" to "return to the office" it became hard for me to justify a commute of over 100 miles each way.   The jobs that I worked after that were temporary in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Acting in our best interest.

** The majority of this column was written nearly two years ago, however for a lot of reasons, has been updated and ready for publication now.** Recently a friend of mine and I were talking about some changes in our area.  We have had three solar farms built recently and there is talk about a wind farm. She brought up how wind turbines are responsible for killing birds.  That's a known fact that everyone can agree to, however exactly how many birds and what to do about the bird strikes is up for debate.   This conversation tells us a bit about the type of people we want to be.  We are going to have to make trade offs in the future and we need to determine what those tradeoffs will be.   Wind turbine's are constructed in a location that meets certain criteria to meet it's full effectiveness.   What happens if location X is also the breeding ground of a nearly extinct bird?  Can they still breed if the tower, or solar panel or geothermal ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Honoring the past - Thinking more about "invasive" plant species.

 Recently I've been giving some thought to invasive species.  I had received both positive and negative feedback on the blog post concerning kudzu and recently I came across a very well hidden, and very small, wild cherry tree while doing some yard work.  Since it's against the house it would have to be removed since the root systems could damage my foundation.   A buddy of mine at work was asking if I was going to transfer it, his logic being that it was a fruiting tree that would not only attract a variety of pollinator's but that the deer would eat the bark and cherries, keeping them away from the garden (which Sue and I swore we were not going to do this year).  It occurred to me that I was going to have to do a slightly better job of identification, since black cherries are native to America , where as other types of cherries are not.  Being able to make a precise identification would be helpful.   I used to be able to identify all these tre...
Post a Comment
Read more