St. Fiacre-Irish French Patron of Gardeners, Potters and Florists

Today my friends and "Garden Advisors". Jack and Marty Roberge,  visited my Sylvester Feeley Abundant Life Garden.  (Jack and Marty were the ones who advised me to choose the spot on The Mount last year. It is on a hill just behind cypress groves.  It was cultivated back before the 50ties as a peach orchard and possibly in the 60ties for potatoes.  It gets about 9 hours of good spring and summer sun each day.  I had pretty good luck last year as a first time gardener.  Starting in early April I planted carrots (which never came to much), red and green leaf lettuce which were very productive, broccoli, cucumbers, zucchini and Beafsteak Tomatoes.  The tomatoes did pretty well.  But I did not stake them well and the voles ate a lot of them. I also did not get after the hornworms that weakened my tomatoes, but all in all the tomatoes did just great.  My best tactic was surrounding my garden with a ring of marigold, which are natural pest controllers.  My 2nd planting was of bush beans which did just fine, cauliflower which the slugs got.  (I put the cups of beer out too late!!!  They had already taken care of the cauliflower)  Marty and Jack gave me this anachron done by Patricia Baker    who does each one individually.  This saint, Fiacre was born in Ireland but emigrated to France where he became a kind of agricultural hermit.  He is said to have had quite miraculous powers of planting and also of healing people.  However he has the bad reputation of having excluded women from his monastery because of a woman who claimed he was a sorcerer.  (You can google information on Fiacre, but one has to know that myth gets confused with fact and real history with this ancient saints. (Notice the phrases above and at the sides of this anachron. Also notice all the details of fruits, birds, owls, butterflies, and all kinds of vegetables.) Join me in praying hard to St. Fiacre for my and all gardens this spring!      

You can find pictures of Patrica Banker's anachrons at http://www.saintspreserved.com/  and also at http://www.folkloricarts.com/