There’s nothing more fun than touring a beautiful garden that gets you to dreaming. The Incredible Edible Milbridge group sponsored a garden tour at Bear’s Den in Addison, Maine. Geri, our hostess, walked us through her two vast vegetable gardens. Definitely fodder for dreaming! I just have to remember that it took her 30 years to get to this point!
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- The first of Geri’s two gardens.
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- I love the climbing trellis made with branches.
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- Seedlings in a screen topped cold frame.
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- The second rambling garden with walkways of shaved wood.
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- Beds side-dressed with rockweed (seaweed).
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- She has multiple compost piles throughout the gardens.
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- A few dozen pepper and tomato plants.
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- The peppers are all wrapped in cut off plastic jugs to protect them from the wind.
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- This is kiwi growing. In Maine! Apparently they don’t grow very large. She cuts them in half and dries them. She said they taste like candy.
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- Bet still my heart – lots and lots of garlic mulched in leaves and hay.
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- Grapes at the far end of the garden. Everything is mulched in seaweek.
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- Geri said they use 14 pickup truck loads of seaweed each fall – that it’s the only they they really use to ammend the soil.
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- Rather than individual tomato cages these wood fences will support her tomatoes.
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- Here and there I found quirky pieces of art.
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- Every shed, including this chicken coop collects water.
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- I love the handmade gate on the chicken yard.
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- This is a drying shed.
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- Inside trays of nettles are slowly drying.
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- The area behind the house is full of rock and boulders. The crevices in between hold everything from creepying thyme to pansies and tulips.
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- I had to share my friend’s hooded bug net shirt – something every Mainer should have in the spring.
