We had peas for seven last weekend, with leftovers, and will have lots more this coming weekend, as well. It is a good year for them. Nancy and I had eaten several meals for just ourselves, and some Sugar Snap peas, as well. They all are doing well this year.

The strawberries went by way too fast. I will have to buy some to have them on the Fourth of July. Not a real problem, except that Jordan's Farm, which is jus down the street, is not doing you-pick this year. They had enough blossoms damaged by frost that they need all the berries they can get to sell in their own shop. I will probably buy from them rather than going to Maxwell's to pick.

You will notice, in the top photo, that the all-blue or maybe red Norland potatoes are in full blossom. I am sure that I will try to get some small potatoes to go with the peas. If I can't, I will have something else to buy at the farm stand.

We have been eating a lot of lettuce from our garden, and the Swiss chard is ready to eat. We want to wait until daughter-in-law Marah comes to visit because I am growing it because she said she likes it. In the meantime we have been eating a lot of beet greens.

Other photos show that things are continue to come in early. The Black-eyed Susans, or Rudbeckia, are in great form for this time of year. And the poppies are coming in, as well. We have tried over the years to encourage the double-flowered poppies, on the right, in the third photo down. But since these are all open pollinated flowers, we end up getting what we get. Later in the week we had one poppy that was almost purple. I would have taken a picture of that, but my computer was down Monday through Wednesday and I had the camera in my office desk waiting so I could download those photos. Oh well.

The final is an overview of the flowers in our vegetable garden – poppies and some others. It is sometimes tough to find room to plant the vegetables.

The column in last Sunday's paper was on the Deering Oaks rose circle. The one coming up is on a new rain garden at Back Cove. I hesitated to do two straight city of Portland columns, but both were timely.

About the Author

Tom Atwell has written the Maine Gardener column in the Maine Sunday Telegram since the spring of 2004. He has worked at the Press Herald/Sunday Telegram since 1974, about the same time he started gardening with any seriousness.

He gardens with his wife, Nancy. She not only is the better gardener of the pair, but also knows the botanical names of plants. They have two grown children and four grandchildren.

Tom was born in Skowhegan, grew up in Farmington and graduated from the University of Maine with a BA in journalism. His goal each year is to have continuous compost from his three compost bins, continuous bloom in his low-maintenance garden and more fruits and vegetables on his family table than the garden pests eat in the field.

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