First Week in June Status Check

What's blooming: Bridal Veil spirea (a Vermont early-summer classic), allium, something that looks like a wild phlox, perennial geranium, dwarf Korean lilacs, rhodies, iris

What's almost done blooming: creeping phlox, bleeding heart, PJM rhodies

What's definitely done blooming: Lilacs, tree peony

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I sprayed my apple tree with pesticide yesterday. Everything in my head was against this, but I know no other solution to having a productive tree. I could justify this only by knowing that most other apples I've eaten in my life were likely sprayed diligently.

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Today, I drove our riding lawn mower down the street about 1/2 mile, towing a trailer, to ask a neighbor if I could have his grass clippings from a field he had just mowed. Grass clippings are my favorite vegetable garden mulch, as they stop the weeds then can be tilled into the soil or added to the compost pile when all is said and done.

A few years ago, I tried to mulch with straw, but it sprouted, so my efforts at mulching about doubled my efforts at weeding. That was the year I gave up on straw.

At any rate, my neighbor gladly shared his grass clippings. He went on to tell me a story about how he had been hit by a pickup truck while out riding a bicycle a few years ago, followed by a coma for a month. It was a chilling story and one of those out-of-the-blue reminders of the potential fragility of it all. Here today; gone tomorrow. Unless some sort of random luck blows your way after you've been hit by a truck. I told him I was glad to meet him, glad he was still alive, and glad to take his grass.