The GANG garden on the day before Summer Solstice, 2014

Well, well. It’s the day before Solstice and all through the GANG —

Squash in a hugelkulture bed.

Wild hollyhocks! Thank you, birds!

Hard to see, but look on the top of the long onion stalks: onion scapes! Fry ’em up. They’re wonderful. To the left, a majestic poke plant, poisonous, strong medicine, beautiful, birds love it, and provides shade.

Potatoes, still partly covered in vetch. Bees love their blossoms.

We’ve decided to do a Solstice Ceremony tomorrow starting shortly before the moment of Solstice, 6:51 AM EST. Intrepid neighbors will gather at about 6:30 A.M., sit near the pond,

and settle into a group meditation . . . after which we will gather for a breakfast potluck in the garden sitting area. I’m bringing non-gluten muffins, Rebekka coffee and cream, Georgia, egg casserole, and who knows what and who else! We’re hoping for six people. That would be just wonderful if six people in this neighborhood actually got up early on a Saturday morning to traipse through the GANG garden gate, still mostly invisible, to the right of the little petunia and wild flower garden —

Check out this curly willow, with daylilies obtained at a neighborhood Plant Share a few years ago. The willow, tiny only a few years go, is just about to devour the fence. We’ll have to cut it back, and expert Keith Johnson will join Rebecca and me for lunch Monday and show us how.

Yesterday, Rebecca and I decided to get some annuals, put them in pots, and have them guard the regrowing butterfly bush, which was, not, after all, killed off by the long, hard, cold winter.

See the butterfly bush? Right between the pots. You can see where we cut off the dead branches, and now it’s regrowing. This on the outside of the fence, so that passersby can enjoy.

If you recall the drama about the dead/not dead mimosa. Well, here she is today. I just cut off some of the tiny branches, to encourage the others. She sits surrounded with plant friends.

HAPPY SOLSTICE! Back on Monday.