Mark's Enchanted Garden

My friend Mark Boucher from Manchester, Maine, (about one hour north of Portland) took this photo of a poppy from his garden.

He says of the garden: " It's a pretty cool vegetable garden and very atypical because I allow lots of 'wild' things to grow in it ... ferns, wildflowers, whatever shows up (I had a beautiful mullein plant grow up in the middle of my tomatoes this year!!), and mulch heavily with leaves so I never have to weed or water it. My feeling is that these 'weed' plants draw a lot of beneficial insects and 'disguise' the vegetables from the bad insects. I also have beautiful poppies that self seed and come back every year. I took down about 10 huge trees in the woods to create it...taking the trees out in a line from east to west, and used the trees to make raised beds (photo of the work in progress about 5 years ago). It is a small garden but amazing how much it produces ... I can't keep up with the stringbeans!! I have harvested my garlic this past weekend ... love it! In it's place I planted rows of bok choi that I can harvest in late September!!"

Hmm ... no weeding or watering ... sounds like my kind of gardening! And, if Mark wants a little help with the string beans ... we'll be right over! Actually, my sister, Ruth and I are driving out to Mark and Greg's place today. Ruth is really excited about the raised beds and the "wild" things. We're looking forward to this fun "field trip"! We're going "Where the Wild Things Are"!

Thanks, Mark.