Maine 2011: The Gardens

Gene's parents rented this gorgeous house in Castine. It was built in 1810, has eight bedrooms and is full of history.My favorite part of the house was not the old house itself but the massive vegetable garden out back. It was full of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, lettuces, raspberries, blueberries, green beans, sugar snap peas, potatoes, rhubarb, celery and more and we were allowed to go out and pick to our hearts' content.
And if you know me, you know I like my veggies. I loved being able to go out and pick my own lunch. Delish!
Big fat sweet sugar snap peas.
We had to work hard for the raspberries but they were worth it. Henry and the Maine blueberries.
Happiness in the garden.
Behind the garden was even an apple tree. The apples were edible, but a bit on the tart side. The boys preferred climbing in the tree, of course. I wasn't the only one interested in the garden. We saw deer on several occasions.
After we left Castine, we stopped at the Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. We had visited two years ago on a drizzly day, and since then, they have added a Children's Garden that gets rave reviews. We had to check it out. And Henry had to write his name in water on the edge of a water feature. This stone is at the entrance to the Children's Garden. The quote is from one of my favorite books, Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney: "You must do something to make the world more beautiful." Will stopped to read a sign. We found a mazeand Mr. MacGregor's garden. We looked and looked for Peter Rabbit but we couldn't find him. Perhaps he was safely home in his burrow! We stopped to ogle some enormous sunflowersand pump some waterand smell a scratch-and-sniff scarecrow, who was stuffed with lavender and other herbs,and hop into a canoe. We found the reading room and read Miss Rumphius and thought about how we can help the earth and make it a more beautiful place. And while we were reading, the beautiful clear blue skies turned gray and thunder rumbled in the distance. We cut our visit to the Botanical Gardens short and made a wild dash back to the car and didn't quite make it in time. As Henry and I were running through the rain, he paused to look at me and say, "I don't think we're doing so good, Mommy." Maybe we didn't make it safely through the rain, but we did come back to Houston with hopes of carving out a space in our backyard for a little vegetable garden next year, and doing our own small part to make the world more beautiful. I think Miss Rumphius would approve.