I made a garden!

My new shade garden, featuring hostas and impatiens, after two sweltering days of hard, hard work. I hope it survives!

Did you know that gardening can be a contact sport? No? Well, then you’ve never tried to create a garden north of 7, where fertile soil meets Canadian Shield and the latter generally wins.

A little over a week ago I plunged into a garden project I’d been wanting to tackle for a long time, to wit: turning the southwest corner of the Manse’s fairly expansive yard into a shade garden. (It has to be a shade garden because it’s under two very large evergreen trees that, I am embarrassed to admit, I have yet to identify. Tamaracks? I’ll figure it out one of these days.) This particular plot of land was, when Raymond and I bought the Manse, a repository of some years of compostable junk; the raking involved in my first yard cleanup turned up hundreds and hundreds of evergreen cones, along with assorted other things. Having cleaned out that stuff, I enjoyed seeing what subsequently happened in the shady patch, notably a rhubarb plant emerging.

But this past spring and summer, the shady corner plot turned up less (translation: zero) rhubarb and instead a ton of high-growing weeds. Which I was itching to get at and replace with shade plants, a project I finally got to once my rather demanding year of being a college instructor ended. Here is what that plot looked like just a couple of weeks ago:

My shade garden when it was not a shade garden but a large patch of weeds.

In theory, my gardening project was easy: transplant several of the more-than-enough hosta plants that populate the perennial gardens in front of the Manse; and add in some bargain-priced (because it was late in the plant-selling season) impatiens, everybody’s favourite colourful shade bloom.

In practice: not so much.

What I found when I started digging that corner of land was roots, roots, roots and more roots. That’s pretty much what I find whenever I start digging anywhere around the Manse: this land is old, and the trees on it are too – and thus rooty; and the soil is thin and rocky. It is good for roots. And weeds. And rocks. And maybe rhubarb. Or blueberries. And not much else.

Creating my small shade garden turned out to be a very intensive two-day project, on both days of which I got dirtier and sweatier (the temperature was above 30C throughout, and it was humid) than you can probably imagine. In retrospect, I really wish I’d taken a selfie when I finally came in on one or the other of those days to collapse into the shower; the combination of sweat and soil on my face (not to mention the rest of me) would have done an early settler of our corner of central Hastings County proud. Plus it would have shocked Raymond! (Who wasn’t there at the moment, and is fond of neatness, tidiness, and cleanliness. He would have been horrified.)

What I did manage to do, however, is get a photo that sort of captures the contact-sport thing I was mentioning at the start of this post. Raymond was back by the time I’d showered the second evening, but while the grime and sweat were gone, the marks from the roots and thorns kind of going after me were still quite evident. I am rather proud of my gardening scars, and here are a few of them:

You don’t spend two days wrestling with the old roots of Hastings County and come out unscarred. (Photo by Raymond Brassard)

After pulling all the weeds and pulling and/or cutting (with my trusty Fiskars) all the roots that I could find on the surface of my garden-to-be on Day 1, and feeling like I might have got the better of the rootiness, I proceeded on Day 2 to try to dig small holes in which to plant the hostas and impatiens. At which point I learned that there are more old roots in a small patch of north-of-7 land than you or I have ever dreamed of.

And you know, you can’t do everything. At least, not all at once. So as I tried to plant my wee plants and found little but roots as I dug, I made the executive decision to take my chances with planting the impatiens and the hostas among the roots. I mean, there is some soil there; and, given that the weeds had been absolutely flourishing a short time before, maybe the roots would also cut my new shade plants some slack and let them do their thing too.

We shall see. I have since decided that I may need to look into mulch, something I know nothing about but that I understand may help suppress weeds and encourage the plants I am trying to grow. (I hope veteran gardeners will not be laughing at me. Remember, I am new at this.)

Regardless, I am proud of my efforts. Proud enough to show them off to all of you. Here once again are some before-and-after shots.

Before: weediness!

After: a garden! (Rudimentary, but still – a garden.)

Time will tell whether the victor in this project will be the roots, or me and my shade garden. But I am a determined person, and I’ve already put a lot of sweat equity into this project. I’m betting on me. And the hostas.

The best-smelling tree around

The sweet-smelling basswood flowers that our friend and neighbour Ed brought over to the Manse the other day. Lovely!

It didn’t take very long after Raymond and I bought the Manse four years ago for us to figure out that we’d be learning a lot about the natural world around us here in Queensborough. What with raccoon families and porcupines and turtles on the roads, a deer visiting the village, an American bittern by the roadside and also in the marsh that’s right across the way from our house, busy wood-pecking woodpeckers, colourful blue jays, the whippoorwill that I delight to hear on summer evenings, the gorgeous leaves in autumn, and on and on and on – well, let’s just say that our Audubon guides to birds, trees, weeds and so on are getting a workout.

Thanks to eagle-eyed readers, I recently learned about Black Locust trees. I had taken a photo of their amazing blooms one early-June morning as I drove through the crossroads of Hazzards Corners, posted it here with a query about what this striking-looking tree was, and before you can say Jack Robinson I was enlightened. “Those are probably Black Locust trees in blossom. There have been some around Hazzards Church for many years. I remember looking at them through the window when I should have been listening to the sermon,” said reader Doris in a comment. Another reader, Lindi, added: “Yes, definitely, Katherine. Locust trees, with their intoxicating perfume. We had a clump of them in the dooryard of my childhood farm home. The smell of almost-the-end-of-school for the summer!” About all this I have just this to say (as I often have before): Meanwhile, at the Manse readers are the best.

Anyway: a couple of days ago, thanks to our Queensborough friend and neighbour Ed, I learned about another tree that has lovely blossoms and an even lovelier scent.

“Here,” Ed said as he handed me a small blossom he’d picked as he walked toward the Manse. “It comes from the ornamental basswood over there,” angling his head to indicate a tree that’s pretty much right across the street from the Manse. I took the little twiggy thing from him, and inhaled, and the smell was heavenly. Who knew?

The basswood tree that’s right across the road from us, bringing us a lovely scent – and lots of bees doing important pollination work.

As we continued to discuss this tree – immediately adjacent to the striking Tree of Life that Raymond and I admire every single day while (until now) ignoring its interesting neighbour – Ed also informed us that if you stand right under its branches while it’s in bloom you’ll be awed by the sounds of hundreds, if not thousands, of bees buzzing around gathering the nectar from those sweet blossoms. People, I tried that standing-under-the-basswood thing, and it is true: there is just a chorus of bees up there. All doing great work on behalf of Mother Nature.

I wish I could share with you the sound of the bees that I heard when I looked up into the basswood and took this photo. Pleas try to imagine that happy chorus combined with a lovely smell from the blossoms!

I turned to my friend the internet and looked up “Ornamental Basswood Ontario,” and here is the helpful site I found. And that bees thing was confirmed, because here is what it says: “Bees love basswood flowers because they bloom in midsummer, when few other trees are in bloom.”

Anyway, I want to say thanks not only to Ed for sharing his basswood knowledge, but to all those people – like Doris, and Lindi, and so many others – who have helped me learn about the plants and birds and trees and animals that we see around us every day out here North of 7. Where I am beginning to think Mother Nature is at her best.

A stylish and elegant birthday gift, from down on the (local) farm

Me with my beautiful new Enright Cattle Company leather bag. While I may look a little dusty and the worse for wear from a day spent weeding the garden under a hot sun, I think you’ll have to agree that the bag is gorgeous. (Photo by Raymond Brassard)

Happy birthday to me, people! Well, actually, it is not my birthday quite yet. But today, as we also mark Independence Day by flying the Stars and Stripes here at the Manse in honour of our neighbours south of the border…

… I received an absolutely wonderful early birthday gift from Raymond. And since Mondays are Meanwhile, at the Manse days, but more particularly because the gift is a gorgeous, high-quality product produced by a local operation that is not 15 miles from us here in Queensborough, I thought I would share it with you all. It’s a celebration both of a lovely gift and of a local business that is doing amazing things – and that I think you too might be interested in supporting.

But let’s start this tale with the birthday card. Raymond couldn’t have found a better one for a cat-lover like me. Singing cats, complete with bling!

Then came the gift. My eyes lit up as soon as I saw the attractive cotton bag it came in:

Why did they light up? Because I knew what would be inside. And no, it wasn’t several packages of great steaks (though the Enright Cattle Company of Hunt Road, Tweed, produces those too). It was a product from the Enright folks’ newest venture: gorgeous handcrafted leather bags.

Raymond and I met Kara Enright not long after we bought the Manse in 2012. Early that fall I was seeking out a fresh local farm turkey for Thanksgiving, and tracked her down by phone from Montreal through the website of the excellent local organization Harvest Hastings. Kara told me she no longer raised turkeys, but put me on to her neighbours, Tim, Dorothy and Gary Hunt, from whom we got a first-rate one. Not long after, we visited the beef farm Kara runs with her husband, Darold (and young son Corben and baby daughter Evelyn), to pick up tickets for a special dinner featuring local farm products. (I wrote about that delicious repast here.) It was interesting to see their Simmental cattle, a breed I had not known about until then, and to listen to Kara talk about their operation. I came away totally impressed by her dedication and her enthusiasm for, as the Enright Cattle Company website puts it “the preservation of rural life and the improvement of agriculture.”

Since those first encounters, I’ve watched with interest as the reputation of the Enright Cattle Company has grown. Their beef products are being served in a wide array of top-flight restaurants in Eastern Ontario and beyond, generally with the source of the meat proudly listed on the menu. That is very cool.

But then a few months ago I learned that Kara had embarked on a new venture: fashion! Here is the video that I found thanks to my Queensborough friend Lisa sharing it on Facebook – a news report from the launch in Kingston, Ont., of the company’s line of handbags and other leather products.

“Part of our philosophy has always been to utilize as much of the carcass as possible,” Kara explains in the video. “We work with the finest tannery in Ontario to produce this really amazing, very soft leather from our hides, and then we have a really awesome leather maker. He hand crafts each bag – so it’s all done on a bench, hand cut and stitched. And he makes these amazing handbags that now are branded with our farm brand and made right from our own hides.”

Isn’t that something? Good chefs and butchers these days are doing their best to show respect to the animals that give their lives so that we can have meat, through what’s known as “nose to tail” cooking and eating. But what Kara and Darold are doing takes the process another step: using the hides of the animals they raise – with so much care for their well-being, and for the environment – to make of them one final product that will be loved and treasured.

So back to my birthday gift!

Here is the bag Raymond picked up from Kara at the farm this very morning:

And here is Part 2 of the gift! It’s designed to be a case for glasses (i.e. the reading glasses that I lose about 75 times a day), but Kara says (and I agree) that it could also be a great change purse:

And here is the whole shebang displayed on one of our Solair chairs on the Manse’s front porch – great Canadian design meets great Canadian design!

As you can tell, I am absolutely thrilled about my birthday gift. It is something beautiful, and something local. Thank you to Raymond, to Kara and Darold (and Corben and Evelyn), and to a Simmental cow who, I know, lived a good life on the Enrights’ farm (where maybe I saw her on our visit four years ago), and who is the creature ultimately responsible for this lovely bag.

Local gifts are the best!