Toughest challenge for gardeners in the NE?

Good morning, and
Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!
: )

Thanks!! Same to you Dena! Anything special planned for you and your husband?

I bought him a monkey that says I go bananas over you, a huge box of candy, and a card that promises I will be NICE to him today!

lol - I love it! How long have you been married? How did the two of you meet?

Met Scott (my husband now) along time ago, he was friends with my neighbor. I was married at the time, so we spoke and I always thought he would make a good husband and father, and that someone was going to be very lucky. A few years later the man I was with commit suicide, and I was left alone to raise my daughter. I went back to school, took full corses for two years and took care of my child. One day, I bumped into Scott and we got back to being friends. He would say I wasn't taking any breaks and would certainly have a breakdown if I didn't relax once in a while. He took it apon himself to drag me to a movie or hiking every other week or so. Without him I would never have finished school, he was rite i would have burned out. he stayed by me for the next year and a half, never pushing for more than being a friend. The entire time I was falling in love with him, and one day I showed him how much I loved him. We have been together for ten years and have plans to be together forever. I will grow old with him, and use my cane to beat him when I think he needs it! HA!lol

LOL - what a wonderful story, I love hearing them - thank you for sharing. Anyone else like to share?

I would, but I don't have one - part of the enjoyment of hearing yours.

I find that hard to believe Anita, I think you are smart and funny, and have seen your picture...someone out there has you on their mind.

not a big deal - I have great friends and family and I love my own company- just haven't found my lid. But since I am a true romantic - I love hearing everyone's 'How I met stories'.

There are a lot of rocks here but I like using them. I will say that it is hard to use a roto tiller unless I've already worked the area, because I'm afraid of the rocks zinging out of the blades at me. When I dig up big ones, I add them to my evergrowing stone wall. Smaller ones I tend to group together in small piles in my garden beds. It looks pretty and the added bonus is that I can put my bulbs in next to these rocks and I never have to worry about accidentally digging them up when I'm putting in new plants.

Megan

Anita, start a new thread - "How I met" and maybe, just maybe, I'll tell you my story :)

That's actually a good idea - sorry Dave!! We stole your thread. Here's the new one .. How I met .. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/576275/

Megan, that's a good idea. It probably also creates a mini microclimate, with the stone absorbing the solar warmth.

Anita, I was thinking the same thing about the Micro climate. It may encourage earlier growth.
A neighbor has some Crocus up against big stones and they bloom weeks ahead of mine.
Andy P

I bet that looks lovely Andy - the color against the grey stone....

that is a great idea for the rocks; i've been using mine as edging for beds, but that's because i just got started and so my collection remains fairly small...how do you get the stones to stay stacked? I need to put some kind of edging on the beds to prevent run-off when I water, and hey, if i can use "native plants" to do the trick, great!

Well, how I stack them tends to be in circles placing the bigger ones in the center, with the smaller ones surrounding it. Depending on the size of the garden bed is how I decide how big to make each pile of rocks and some beds have several of the piles. I stand back and stare at my beds for a long time changing places with rocks and plants until I like what I see there. I wonder if my neighbors think I'm crazy staring at the beds from different angles. Some of the larger rocks that I can't move easily, I just sort of push/roll to a spot in the bed I dug it from and place it where it "needs a little something-something" and build around it from there. I have some big-big-big sized rocks in the woods that I want to roll next to each other near the stream out back. They are too big to push, but I saw on one of the gardening shows where you can move them with a long metal stick-thingy. I have no clue what it is, it's about 5' tall, but I know what section to find it at Home Depot. There's so many rocks here, I'd be a ga-zillionaire if it was all gold. I've just had to force myself to learn to love them here, lol. Even the mammoth ones they dug up when they built the house, I made them leave out front and I had the excavators position them where I liked them. I found stencils and black exterior paint and I painted our house number on a giant one out front so it looks (to me anyway) like it is engraved in stone. I guess I can honestly say I've been having fun with free decorations, lol. One other thing me and my 3 year old did last year with rocks. We pulled all the tiny ones from the veggie garden my hubby made us and we put them under the vent dryer leading from out of the house. Also underneath the house under the deck area against the house to keep the weeds from growing there. Well, that's about all the ideas I came up for using extra rocks here.

Megan

my biggest problem is keeping deer away from the garden (this is why i"m going with containers from now on. i had to build a fence 7 ft high to keep the deer out and two feet into the ground to keep the other critters out.

Meg, when I made my rock walls - I kept building from three different piles of rocks. Obviously the larger rocks would lay the framework on the edge of the bed. The medium size rocks would be placed amongst the larger ones to keep them in place or tucked in to hide the bare spots. The smaller rocks that I pulled from the vegetable garden and every place else I was digging - I'd keep in buckets and then dump a full bucket in behind the larger rocks. For the most part, these would help with the frost heaving the wall over the winter - of course there were some years I'd have to replace or wedge some of the rocks back in :) I'd always try to save the flatter rocks to place on top and then fill in around them with soil for planting. Not exactly a "stone mason method", but it worked for me!

This is one spot where I had a bad slope for walking out into the back yard. I decided to save some of the rocks and used them to make 'steps'. After laying out the pattern, I used some 'crappy' soil for back fill and then topped it off with fine stone that I bought for this path along the house. Scanned picture, so the quality isn't great but you get the idea.

I like that alot rcn. I think stone work just adds something to the landscape. Of course, I'm not referring to the stone giants that lie sleeping just beneath the surface!

lafko & rcn,
I come from a family of stone masons and what you are doing is just great! You are building little "dry walls". Most importatant thing in stone masonry is to get the right stone in the right place, so that walking around & looking from different angles is an important part of the creative process. You can tell your neighbors!
Dave

rcn, I think your stone work in the garden is quite charming. I printed out the picture to try to inspire myself to actually do something about my poor garden, which has no structure.

I get quite a kick out of the fake rocks being sold at the box stores for a ridiculous price. Trouble is, out here by the Cape there honestly, unbelievably aren't many rocks at all - just sand which will eventually be underwater :( Occasionally we stop and pick up a rock here and there along the highways. I guess I ought to be keeping my eyes peeled in the Want Ad for people selling rocks or preferably giving them away. The Want Ad - is this sort of unique to New England?? That to me seems like part of the New England experience - re-using stuff instead of buying new. Seems like everybody is out yard-saling in the summer. But maybe I just don't hang out in other areas of the country enough to judge.

oh, May, you haven't hung out with me...
I think I drive my family crazy, I pull over to the side of the road so often, I need one of those bumper stickers that say "this vehicle makes fequent stops" I pull over and or rubber neck every pile of junk I go past and never pass up a yard sale! What if someone is getting rid of a plant or a pot, or an old table that is just waiting for its chance to be covered in potting soil and seedlings!!!!!

Dena

Mayflwr, the yard sale, garage sale, roadside sale, is not just a N England phenomonem... I drove rte 36 across the western half of Indiana and most of Illinois. It was Saturday and there was a yard sale every tenth to a quarter mile the entire 500 mile length. And half the towns were having what appeared to be town-wide yard sales.

I love that highway - it goes right thru small town mid-america and was a pleasant excursion road - I say was because they are in the process of turning this wonderful blue highway into another interstate raceway.

I will have to search out a new 'quiet' way to drive twixt upstate NY and Utah for my trips to visit my Sister. ever lurking, ~Blooms

Hey BloomsWV, My stepson lives in Ogden. Its a very nice drive.

Now, are you lurking, or skulking, wich is the same thing if you ask me...
: )
Dena

well, it's good other areas are re-using stuff too. We've come across interesting things driving to upperstate NY and to Penn. etc. altho I am usually sleeping while my SO is driving. I like the Adirondacks, so many free rocks!! But it will take years to collect enuf to do projects. Other parts of Mass. that I've lived in have had so many rocks it was almost impossible to dig a hole anywhere.

It's amazing how many people probably lurk sometimes. Sometimes I am following an interesting thread for a while and then chime in - and realize later I seem to have interrupted a lively discussion that doesn't really continue after that. Must be my stupid comments LOL!!

My poor plants. 54 degrees F Friday now in the teens again, I think. I hope I don't lose a bunch of my daylilies. :( Freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw: that's my toughest N.E. challenge especially this year!

Don't worry about interjecting...sometimes I amaze myself with what comes out of my mouth...then I start to think..hmmm how did everyone else take that?? There is always the issue of the written word versus the spoken one....Then of course there's the bunch on this forum...how they make my sides hurt! Be wary of what you say here...they love to turn it around. Keeps me on my toes....or on the floor laughing!

I agree with you about the wacky weather!

You chime in anytime you like, I'll never leave you hangin! LOL

Dena

Mayflower.
I agree. The freeze / thaw cycles are the worst.

Anita, am I one of THOSE people?

Dena, Are you wondering if you are one of the silly folks on this forum who makes us laugh????

yup

YES!!

And I'm glad you are!

Dave (not DAVE)

Feeew!
I was afraid you were gonna say I was annoying and should shut up please!

I'm glad you all know I love you all and that I'm TOTALLY KIDDING!

I'm happy to have gotten the chance to talk to all of you. I don't often share so much of myself with others but you guyz make it easy, like with FAMILY!

Did you think there was a chance that I would be bothered by jokes and wisecracks???
I never want to spend any extended periods of time without laughing. Life is too short and the world is just too funny for that.

If I were to loose my arms and leggs, I would pull myself to my desk with my teeth and plunk at the keyboard with my nose just to talk to all of you.
(and my typing would probably be so much better)

well ..Dena...uh ..yeah.....nothin' gets past you. And for Dave - who's the one who had me topless in the wintersowing forum!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL which by the way - I still am - and no more blanket of snow to cover up!

That was truely funny and I laughed and rolled on the floor for sure after I saw that comment posted. Anita, you fell in that one head first, you can't leave yourself open like that round here, its almost to easy.
That was so funny it deserved a reread!
Who knew gardening was such a sport!
Dena

Your both reading things into my posts! As I said before: its projection. I have a very innocent mind!

Seems like the nicest people are on this forum. Tinks folks are mostly really nice too. Wish I didn't have to go work on this supposed holiday. Ya'll have fun!

yeah - innocent my ---. Dena...what do you think, he in the same gutter as we are? And, yes, I left myself WIDE OPEN for that one. I'm usually better than that.