Hi Maine_Kate and mainemary, happy mothers day all!

I am surprised to see much activity on the forums being that the snow is finally gone and the season has begun!
Thanks all for being here for all of us to share with.

Greetings
Getting excited about gardening again,has been such a long winter for me
lanie in Brownfield

Hi from Poland, everything is about a month behind, Sure tired of rain

Howdy from Eastport!

We had a grand winter traveling from Feb 1 until May in a camper van, what a trip. 15,000 miles checking out the south US. I took TONS of wild flower pix out west, hope to get them posted on a website soon.

Hi from North Yarmouth. I spent the first 6 weeks of this year winter sowing 350 containers of seeds.I had half of them out on the front porch and the other half out back on a rack. All of the snow didn't even phase them. I had about 75% germination. Now I've been planting and am I ever sore!

winter sowing is great. welcome all. Its great to have such a strong Maine gardeners group.

Just joined the forum. Hi from Lisbon Falls

Kittery - I know barely counts as Maine!

Hi from Rockland! I finally got a username, but I've been reading the garden web site for a while. I have an indoor 'garden' where we live, and I have a good sized garden at my mother's house.
So glad I found this forum!

welcome welcome, darn we all need to have a maine gardeners BBQ get together at some point in the near future and have a plant swap while we are at it.

My kids/family keep me too busy to plan any more than what I have, but I would love to attend one if someone else held a gardenweb get together or plant swap.

checkin in form livermore falls. have to post this was a perfect weather day. no clouds no humitity and sun sun sun ..... weeeee finaly hope everyone enjoyed.

Jeremy in Hiram, near cornish Maine!

greetings westernmaine and Jeremy...show us some pics of your gardens! please :)

Maureen from Rockland. I'll work on getting some pictures of the garden...

Hi, we built a house in Kennebunk almost 8 years ago. I dug out mountains of sand and clay, replaced them with mountains of loam. Planted shrubs, trees, bulbs, perennieals, annuals, tried many things, been happy some years, disgusted in others, but so it goes.
This year so far so good, except for my daffodils.
I've also designed and built a few dollhouses in the past couple years. I like to add some gardens there too.

Hi kennebunker and maureen. Welcome to the Maine Forum.
When spike first opened this forum, his intro last year was something about how are the tomatoes in regards to our weather.

This year my tomatoes are still quite small and no blooms yet, hope everyone else is having better sucess.

I would love to see pictures of your garden maureen. Its always fun to see what others have created.

Not sure what you mean kennebunker about adding gardens to where you have the doll houses? Sorry, I didnt quite get that. How large are the doll houses? What type of gardens are you planning for?

Thank you for the welcome Lilyrosviollet.
The garden not looking good this year. moving things around and busy painting house and all the rain slowing everything down.
I will try a picture of the front. Please keep in mind under the trees nothing grows well. this time last year. all was still dirt. in spring things were blooming. now things just falling over from rain. also no money to spend. all in all not bad for no money. I am still trying to identify things. I have lots of ladies mantel??? think thats what its called.
It seams like everything in yard it tall and needs staking or ground creeping taking everything over. I need to arrange things more but have problems with the ground. Cant dig the smallest whole. Think time to do raised beds. Just more work no time for. Opps 8 am time to move out side now, before work at 2pm. more another time....

Hello from New Gloucester where the pumpkins and squash are growing well!

Another from York

Just had probably the best weather of the year this past weekend. Sunny 80 degrees no humidity. Garden looks great.
All is well.....

welcome Barncats and MaineDad.
great id names, surprized they were never taken prior! :)

MY pumkins and squash are just starting to take off, still nothing looks ready to harvest for a long while to come.
(whats your secret MaineDad?)

hello from Lisbon Falls.

Checking in from the north eastern part of the state.

We went to Baxter to spend this morning with the moose.

http://www.thymeforewe.com/baxter_state_park1.html

http://www.thymeforewe.com/baxter_state_park2.html

Hello from Rockland!

Hey everyone,
Just a quick hello from Saco. I got my first morning glory today, (bright pink) woohoo, and the glads are blooming beautifully as well. We've finally defeated the slugs.What a gorgeous day!

Hi indicanoe, I live in Saco too. Welcome!

Hi from Joyce in Lewiston. I am new to this forum. Just moved to the city from N Monmouth. There is just my husband & I. We found a nice apt. with a large yard & the landlord said I could till up as much as I wanted, less for him to mow! I have a 20'x 25' plot divided into 4 sections. Everything looks great. I have 1 Early Girl tomato plant , 1 Big Boy tomato plant, 6 cukes with lots of little baby cukes,4 dill plants 1 green pepper with a lot of leaves, 3 large basil plants, 4 small head lettuces, 2 pumpkins, only 1 that has any fruit set and lots of flowers around them. A friend also gave me a pair of plastic pink flamingos which I gave a nice spot at the back of the garden. I also dug up a little near the road & planted sunflowers & zinnias which are growing very well.
The plants seem to love this heat! I am glad we have an air conditioner in our tiny 3rd floor apt!!

Did someone say morning glories? :-) Since I'm at home today - gotta take cats to the vet for shots - I got to see "Grandpa Ott" and "Scarlet O'Hara" open, for a change. They've been blooming for a few days now, but I've only seen first the buds and then the spent flowers because of my work schedule. I had such a time getting these beauties to grow for me this year! Cold and wet conditions made it really difficult for them to get their feet down.

It's worth the replanting I had to do to see them crawling up the mailbox post and around the deck rails now, though. I went nuts and planted every variety (except the dwarf ones) I could get my hands on locally. So more colors will be coming along soon.

Hey veilchen!! Thanks for the welcome. So did you have problems with the slugs this year? They were terrible in our area. I unfortunatly had to resort to slug bait to get ahead of them. Ugh!! Hope your garden is doing well.

Why, yes, someone did say morning glories!! I absolutly love them and plant them every year. We have them from the ground, to the porch railing, on their way to the roof of the house. Two more flowers today!!

Slugs are not terrible in my garden, the damage I get seems to be from the baby slugs and baby snails (new to my garden since 2 yrs ago). When I start seeing too many holes, I sprinkle the Escar-go and it seems to keep them in check for a while.

lilyroseviolet,

Sorry to respond so late - Been hanging out in the tractor forum...

My secret to our pumpkin success is doing self pollenation. My son and I tie up the female flowers at night. The next morning we take a male flower off the vine and open up the females and rub the pollen from the male into the female. We then tie up the females again and wait for the magic to happen.

We obviously till in a lot of manure in the fall and spring and keep the soil watered well. The pumpkin patch gets larger each year as my son gets older!

MaineDad

Robin those moose pictures are totally awesome! What a rare treat to have been able to see them so close and in their natural habitat!

Indicanoe, trncclure,joyce and roserock
welcome welcome...do tell us how you got your name?! :)

MaineDad, thank you for the secret...errr how do you tell a male from a female as I thought pumpkins all were both.
I understand that tying up pumpkins is best at night so as not to disturb or find any bees to confront with. ouch that would not be good. Sounds like a wonderful childrens picture story. How old is your son now? Perhaps your son should write the book and illustrate it, get rich and keep his dad and mom home to garden with full time. :)

Hi! I'm not quite in Maine yet but will be in about a week and a half and am getting impatient (though sad to leave my plants in MD - the one bed i started from scratch just finally got almost good this year. oh well). Will be in Trenton. Not much of any garden there now; will look forward to seeing what wildflowers, etc. may be lurking in the woods, and any other hidden treasures. Have loved the Mid-Atlantic forum and our swaps (to which I owe much of my garden - both for the plants received and for the opportunity to make room by passing along the things i had too many of!) - looking forward to meeting GardenWeb people in Maine!
-libby

Hi, I am in Yarmouth and just joined this web site.

hello from houlton

Hi, Trenton! Hi, Yarmouth! Hi, Houlton!

Nina in Sidney

No, not gardening in Maine, but in California. But I grew up on stories of Maine, my grandmother's home state; does anyone know the town of Prentiss north of Bangor? Anyway, while visiting my great-aunt Blanche many years ago in midsummer, I fell in love with her wonderful flower garden, a simple garden but a place of great beauty. I determined then and there that someday I too would have a garden full of flowers and every kind of loveliness. Well, 3000 miles away and 30 years later I do, and I think of that long-ago garden in Maine every year.

I cannot believe I have not responded to this before. I have not been spending much time on the web but I have been spending plenty of time in the dirt. I live in Hollis but am moving to Saco. The hardest part of the move is moving my plants. Fall is the best time but it sure keep me busy. I am amazed at the people from Maine on the site now. Welcome to all. Hope you are enjoying it.

I have been reading the Garden Forums for two years now and only finally registered as a member today. I am in Saco and spend every weekend in my veggie or flower gardens or in the kitchen canning the results. The Maine Gardening Forum isn't used very much by my fellow Mainers but I still look regularly at this forum and several others. Maybe I will add to it occasionally now that I have "found my voice."

Hi diene and PJ! I'm in Saco too.

Hello from Kennebunk :D

Hello - I now live in Florida and after 25 years, Maine gardening is finally fading into Florida gardening. We lived in and absolutely loved New Gloucester and had a wonderful garden. ... moose, racoons, birds everywhere, including a flock of bluebirds.. old deep woods.. For years my heart ached for Maine. Finding this forum was a wonderful trip down memory lane and such a pleasure to hear the names of the little towns surrounding New Gloucester. We 'tamed' the elements with lots of help from Organic garding and Mother Earth News. The best to all of you.. and thanks for the memories
Linda
Florida

hi from milo maine

Hello from South Gardiner.

Hi. I'm Dan. I have a small farm in Brooksville (Blue Hill Peninsula). I spent the day picking up more seaweed off the Deer Isle causeway beach in the rain. If this keeps up I'm going to get the whole garden (nearly 3 acres) mulched. More likely we'll eventually get enough snow that I can't get in there.

welcome everyone.
Dan you must be close to Eliot Colemans place?!

I am from MDI and understand the seaweed collecting and the snow problem...good for you anyways that you are able to get your gardens done up with seaweed. My father-in-law calls it rock weed.

I still have much to collect myself....Its that hill from the rocky beach that is the most work for me.lol

Eliot, although he seems to commonly refer to his home as either "Harborside" or "Blue Hill", does live in Brooksville. (I suspect he's being cagey to preserve what privacy he may have left.) That said, he lives out on Cape Rosier, on the far end of town from me, where I rarely have business going. Our paths cross once or twice a year. I have much more contact with those who have less public lives to hide from. At the farmer's Solstice party, there were representatives from Wind & Sun (that's me), Stoneset, King Hill, Horsepower, and of course Old Ackley Farm, as they hosted the event. Others I might commonly see are those of Carding Brook Farm and Five Star Nursery. Denizens of Four Season Farm are rarely seen.

Rock weed is the common name for a species of seaweed. Most of what I collect is rock weed. Every now and then I'll get a little kelp or some other specie.

Doesn't MDI have any beaches where you can drive right up to it? It was more work in the rain yesterday because the sand wasn't frozen. When I was there last week it was great. I brought the garden cart and could get it from anywhere I wanted, and it's more or less a level path to the truck. Last week I chose to take it from a spot where the waves had heaped it up some, but also washed all the sand down so I got more green matter for my effort. When it's frozen, seaweed isn't so slimy either. Also, when I get the load home I jack the trailer tongue off the truck (2wd Tacoma), pick it up with the small tractor, and haul it off to the garden where I spread by hand. Then I bring the trailer back, fork the load from the truck into the trailer, and go spread that. So it's easier to get around in the garden when the ground is frozen too.

I'd like to get more crab shell too, but I've mostly cleaned out my source, at least so there isn't enough to make a truck and trailer load in one shot possible. I started looking for more sources. At the first place I stopped, the guy looked at me and said, "Do you know a guy named Colman? He stops and picks up all our shells every day."

Dan

Ive only been to colemans's place 3 times, but relatively speaking I meant you were out by him. I would love to know more about those farmer gatherings...would the blue hill coop be a good source to find future dates?!

The beach where I collect seaweed is across the street from my and on my inlaws private beach...I can drive up to the beach but the beach itself is very rocky and steep. SOmetimes I bring a large garden cart and haul my small treasures home up the big hill. I think of it as a good workout. :) However, nearing 50 I think I'll check out some other sites, thanks for the encouragment.

As crabshells go....I know one source where you can get them if you are interested. I was getting them from him but (sniff sniff) due to complaints from family and neighbors I could no longer have it delivered 3 times a week to my house. :(

Dont know if the drive to MDI for crab shells would be worth it to you and it does makes me sad (jonesing) to think they would be slipping through my hands, but he just hauls them to the dump. We bartered ( I supplied him with flowers for his wife) so it worked out well.
email me if you are interested in the crab shells and I'll try to hook you up.

The thought of crab shells slipping through my gloveless hands makes me want to wash like Howard Hughes. Did you say this guy delivered on MDI though? I may know of someone who might want them. I'll have to check. For me, a better option is to let them accumulate and then get a big load. But that's probably not possible for the supplier.

I keep posting this picture, but I haven't done so on this thread yet. This is how my truck and trailer look with a load of seaweed. Crab is denser, so it doesn't get piled as high. But it gives some idea of what I mean by a big load.

{{gwi:161836}}

The parties aren't regular or part of a formal organization. This was just a holiday party at which many were farmers. If you want info on how to crash them then I'm not sure what to say, except maybe I should throw one in late winter and see who shows up. I'm in the phone book if you want more info.

Dan

thats quite the serious load of seaweed there in that picture!

I will be gone for the winter, so I may need to check back in the Spring, except that I will probably be too busy with the gardens and other chores to attend any parties, thank you though.

I was more interested in a formal farmer get together type thing, but nothing so formal as like a master gardeners program thing. Just some local farmers doing the self sustaining organic methods, or csa types.

cheers

I guess the party you really missed was MOFGA Farmer-To-Farmer, an annual conference held in Bar Harbor. It was the first weekend in November. There's always next year.

Dan