Mud season is Vermont’s way of welcoming spring. Every year when the snows melt, the ground here turns to, well, mud—thick, gloppy mud that lasts for weeks. Mud season lasted even longer than usual this year so our gardening has gotten off to a late start. We share a vegetable garden with our neighbors. We each plant whatever we like—Dexter and Elizabeth (ages 5 and 6) usually plant the carrots, peas and tomatoes and we do the lettuce, beets and beans—and then we all share the bounty.

Maybe to compensate for our late start, we decided this year that our three little raised beds just weren’t enough. So Bob got on his tractor and cleared almost half an acre of land last weekend. I followed behind and picked up what felt like a million stones from the cleared area. Now we have all this cleared land and we’re trying to figure out what to do with it. There’s a big outcropping of ledge that would make a perfect rock garden and a flat shady area under a trio of maple trees that’s just begging for a picnic table. We’ll move the vegetables and herbs next year and add some flowers too. And then we envision paths winding through the various plantings.

Neither of us knows much about gardening but we love learning as we go. The trick, always, is to find plants that the deer won’t eat. And frankly, our garden can’t require a lot of maintenance, since we still have two restaurants to run, books to write and an on-line store to manage. Any suggestions for easy-care, deer-deterring, Vermont-friendly plants?