My garden keeps me guessing. I have my own ideas of what should grow where, but my garden? It’s on a completely different track. Fifty years of trying to impose our will on the “more or less” two acres surrounding our house has had mixed success, nowhere more evident than in the vegetable garden.

I have no idea where the poppies came from, but they’ve popped (!) up everywhere, especially in the asparagus bed. Asparagus is a perennial, sending up its delicious shoots from a deep-down tangle of roots. Once planted any other perennial seeds that fall there can take root and become part of the bed, showing up every spring right along with the asparagus.

Or, in the case of poppies, which are annuals, they simply drop their seeds before dying. Poppy seeds form in a little cup with holes on the top, like a salt shaker. When they’ve dried out you can turn the cup upside down, or the wind does it, and tiny poppy seeds are sprinkled all over the nice, rich asparagus bed.

Wally loved the poppies and would never weed them out, even when they threatened to take over the asparagus. Not that a delicate poppy was ever a threat to the much more robust asparagus root-and-shoot system. But I’ve always subscribed to neat rows of vegetables, weed-free, properly spaced, like a Farmer MacDonald’s picture book garden.

If you’ve ever been in my garden, you know how far from reality this is. Talk about denial.  Weed City is more like it. Still, a girl can dream.

Back to the poppies. As one tiny step to claiming back myself after Wally died, I began pulling up the poppies, not all of them, just thinning them, something he would never do. The result has been more poppies than ever, as the remaining plants grew taller, made more seeds for the next generation.

Survival of the fittest and all that.

Poppies aren’t the only self-sown “weeds” in my garden. Cilantro never grows where I plant it, in a neat row in the herb bed. Oh no, it comes up with the dill, some years with the asparagus, and this year it’s hopped over to the onions. And a kind of mustard, red-leaved and lobed, it must have been part of a mesclun mix of greens we planted a few years back. It’s spicy hot and I’ve left it alone where it’s showing up among the beets. I like to add a few leaves to a salad.

The lone mullein I spared last fall has sent up its four-foot tall yellow-flowering stalk, towering over the lettuce/greens bed.  I figure any plant that determined to be noticed ought to be given a chance.

But here’s a worrisome newcomer. I’ve always left a certain amount of jewelweed that always sprouts around the compost bins and other sunny corners in the barnyard. Also known as touch-me-not, this is a cool plant. It’s juicy stalks and leaves can be crushed to soothe poison ivy rashes or mosquito bites. I’ve used it on BTM rash too. But I mostly save it for its seed pods. Touch one with your finger and they burst open, sending seeds everywhere. Kids love them.

Yesterday, pulling weeds as usual, I noticed a new one growing amongst the jewelweed, a taller, larger-leaved, thicker stemmed version. And its flowers about to open were purple. Hmmmm. It pulled as easily as jewelweed, but what were those ugly looking root buds growing up the stem? This thing looked like it could take over the world, and it already has claimed the compost environs.

It's Himalayan Balsam my inaturalist app told me, and it’s not nice. Like jewelweed it’s in the genus Impatiens (Impatiens glandulifera), and also has the trigger touch seed distribution, only these guys can send seed up to seven feet from the mother plant. Read about the damage it can do to riverbanks and other moist, rich spots. I’m pulling all that I find.

Have you read or heard of Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, “the story of the collaboration in a multi-species forest ecosystem”? Perhaps something like that is going on in my garden, even as the spinach dutifully grew to maturity where I planted it, where the tomatoes are conforming to the stakes I’ve tied them to, the plants I call weeds – gallinsaga, amaranth, creeping Charlie, goutweed, grasses, Japanese knotweed, and yes, poppies – are living their lives to a beat of their own.

Maybe it’s what goes on in humans. We each have a vision for our lives. First up is survival. We need to eat and then to procreate, though part of the population leaves that to others. In the plant world poppies are wantonly spreading their DNA (do plants have DNA?) everywhere, while peonies pretty much stay put, only recreating when someone digs up their roots and divides them.

We move beyond mere survival to imagining ourselves into adulthood. We become who/what we want to be or to emulate. Some of us follow the path our parents took, some take a winding course that surprises even us at every turn. Some toss over the applecart and change the gender they were assigned at birth.

In this tiny town of 2,300, some people can bust through forests and build new roads, there are roofers unafraid to climb all over the steepest inclines in freezing wind and baking sun, along with fishermen, woodcutters, and linemen out in weather the rest of us hide from. Firemen jump from their trucks and run, apparently heedlessly, up to crashes that could explode at any moment.

Caretakers, whether hired or related, tend the dying or confused. Their patience with these patients is unfathomable to the twitchy or peppy among us who can’t sit still. Living within our boundaries are thinkers, musicians, artists, and people you can trust with your pipes or your wires.

And then there are the parents, who innocently signed up to do 18 years, only to discover that this love thing is a life sentence.

Lincolnville Beach is a Thoroughbred

And did you know we even have race horse owners living among us? Ron and Christine Zdrojeski saw their horse, Lincolnville Beach (yes, that’s her name!) take first place at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto a couple of weeks ago. Take a look.   Ron and Christine are donating her winnings to the Beach Schoolhouse Restoration Project. Now that’s a first!!

Strawberry Festival

This, the 29th Annual Strawberry Festival & Parade in Lincolnville Center, Saturday July 9, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., is a traditional summer church fair, with something for people of all ages. United Christian Church sponsors the event and looks forward every year to the fun. Two years ago it was cancelled due to Covid and last year it was a drive-through, pick up your shortcake event.

Now it’s back, starting with a parade through the Center starting at Drake’s Corner at 10 a.m. Children and their families are encouraged to meet at the Lincolnville Community Library,  208 Main Street at 9:30, to decorate bikes, trikes, unicycles, strollers, wagons and whatever the children would like to ride in the parade. From there, they will join the parade led by a much-loved clown and followed by the Lincolnville Band and vintage vehicles. The parade ends at the Meeting House and Community Building on church grounds, 18 Searsmont Road, where the Lincolnville Town Band will play.

There’ll be hot dogs and popcorn for sale outside and strawberry shortcake, pies and baked goods, whoopie pies and ice cream sandwiches inside the Community Building, including the option of gluten-free biscuits and sugarless strawberries.

Face painting on the lawn all morning, and a scavenger hunt for kids as well as curious grownups as well as the chance to tour the historic 1821 Meeting House.

Handicap parking is next door behind the Tidewater garage. All other parking is right around the corner on Heal Road; follow the signs. Dogs must be on a leash.

Contact Roberta Heald at (207) 763-3266 or email. 

LIA Scholarships

Christine Leary writes:

Six members of the 2022 Camden Hills Regional High School senior class have been awarded scholarships by the Lincolnville Improvement Association (LIA). Recipients of the awards were selected on the basis of outstanding academic performance, school and community involvement, and financial need. 

This year’s recipients are:

• Lilianna Clement, daughter of Christine Buckley and Phil Clement
• Tucker (Joon) Clement, son of Christine Buckley and Phil Clement
• Isabella Kinney, daughter of Michelle and David Kinney
• Dylan Morgenstern, son of Michelle and Sam Sommers and Michael Morgenstern
• Allison Morse, daughter of Pam and Jim Morse
• Mae Puntansu, daughter of Ian Putansu

The LIA raises the majority of its scholarship funds through the annual Blueberry WingDing, a popular Lincolnville Beach tradition since 2002, highlighted by a homemade blueberry pancake breakfast. This year’s event will be held August 13 at the Lobster Pound on Route One. 

2022 was the inaugural year of the LIA’s Legacy Scholarship program in which three of the organization’s scholarships honor longtime LIA members Andy Andrews, Brian Cronin, and Robert Plausse for their significant contributions.

“We are gratified to be able to assist these exemplary young people in their college endeavors,” said Dan Leary, LIA president. “Our organization has a long history of helping local students via scholarships and believe there is no better way to give back to the Lincolnville community.”

Soup Café

A reminder that there will be no Soup Café this Thursday, July 7, as it’s the first Thursday in the month. Soup Café will resume the next week.