Square-inch Gardening

My DH and I were shopping and noticed this flower border in front of the store. Having no room for planters and no soil other than the dirt between the building and the blacktopped parking lot, this store owner decided to take advantage of that tiny gap and planted marigolds. 

It makes for a pretty display, little espaliered marigolds against the foundation stonework. Such a nice pop of color. 

A cute touch of color in an otherwise drab parking lot. 

What Dreams May Come

So the movie is really sad, but the saturated colors are fantastic. That's what I thought of when I saw my historic Siberian irises in full bloom.

They're actually a rich purple when you see them in person, but for some odd reason they always photograph this beautiful blue.

Anyway you look at them, they are gorgeous! Yet fleeting. They'll be gone by the end of the week.

Potting Up

Finally, finally, finally my DH and I had the whole afternoon to dedicate to our gardens.

Naturally it rained cats and dogs! But that didn't stop us. We set up a little workspace on the front porch and potted up a few hundred hostas, lilies, hemerocallis and peonies. We knew they would have preferred to be planted, but the torrential downpour was not going to let that happen.

It was just nice to spend time at home, our pup at our feet, and play with plants.

New and Old

I'm finally getting a chance to get out into the gardens and do some cleaning up, pruning and weeding.

Part of me is loving being outside and seeing such immediate results from the work, but the other part of me is screaming NOOOO!!!

Again this year I am faced with the realization that I love gardens, but could really do without the whole gardening thing.

I HATE WEEDING.

Okay, time to get over that and get some more weeding done.

In the News

One of the great things about this blog and having done the "post a day" for a year was that it really gave me a chance to practice my writing skills. Not that I couldn't write if I had to, just that it would take me a long time to write anything.

And then edit it.

And rewrite.

And edit some more.

So having finished the year of posts, I have a lot more confidence in my ability to kick out an article for the newspaper

And that's just what I did.

It's not my first one, its actually my third! But I felt good about how it sounded and I was able to just sit down, focus, and write it up. This one is in the garden club lectures. The others were about a yarn crawl and training dogs. I know you probably don't think they're related, but in a way they are. Dogs need training to stay out of the garden and what better way to train a herding dog than with sheep from which wool comes. See! It all fits together. Sort of.

Well it's a happy day at any rate because my article made it into the paper. Not the front page - more like page 8 - and I think that's very cool!

Morning Glory

This morning was hurried and rushed. The alarm went off late. Our pup needed extra TLC. Where did I put my shoes!? The lid to my coffee cup was purposely hiding in the rear of the cupboard. My coat sleeve was that awkward inside-out and got stuck.

Oh, and did I mention the truck had to go into the shop?

So by the time I managed to get out the door, I was already frazzled. I tossed the keys in the truck, got my bag stuck in the door and tripped over a hellebore as I made my way out to the street to meet my ride.

Then I turned and glanced at our chionodoxa.

Ahhhhhh.

It was going to be alright.

Fall's Labor Blooms

Last November my DH and I spent hours and hours planting bulbs for the town streets and planters and parks. Hours.

It was hard and dirty work. It was cold. It went on and on and there was no respite from it.

I was not a happy camper. At all.

But yesterday when we were walking our pup, I saw that all of out labor had paid off. There were blooms popping up everywhere we looked. It was so pretty.

And mostly it was so nice to see something pay off. Now everyone can enjoy the flowers.

The best part? They spread. We don't have to do it again!!!

Such a Heel

My goal this year was/is to post exclusively from my mobile devices - whatever I had on hand at the time - phone, tablet.  Just not on the computer.  But since I keep on forgetting to charge my mobile devices, I think that tonight I'll make an exception - otherwise it will be days and days before I post.

My DH & I watched the Superbowl yesterday and my super plan was to get the heels turned on my pink socks.  I had one done, so I just wanted to get the other one done so I could move forward to the ankle and cuffs while I was commuting this week.  Best laid plans, though...

I thought I did a great job on the heel - it looked like a heel, but when I looked at it again this morning, I found out that it really wasn't a heel at all - it was more of a pocket.  A pocket with a missing side.

So I ripped it out and did it again.

I figure that's not too bad considering that the last time I knit a pair of socks it was actually 5 times knitting for 1 pair of socks.  This time it's only been 1 1/2 times knitting a pair of socks.  Now that I'm on to the ankle and cuff, I feel pretty confident that I'll actually just zip on through without having to rip the whole thing out again.

I've even been eyeing my next ball of sock yarn and contemplating what they'll look like.  I guess I just like tempting the fates!

Other things going on...there's a yarn crawl coming up.  I'm helping with the advertising for it - sending announcements out to newspapers and such.  It looks like fun, but I don't think that our truck would be able to make the journey.  So while I'm enjoying helping out - I find it really ironic that I probably won't get to go!  More savings for Rhinebeck!

I haven't finished spinning up my little bit of wool that I got at Rhinebeck this past year.  I keep plugging away at it on the little slicker brushes that I got, so about 1/10th of a 1/10th of an ounce at a time.  My DH says it looks like I'm picking out each individual fiber and brushing it.  That's pretty accurate.  But it was supposed to take a long time to do, so I guess it is fulfilling its purpose.

Oh, I made the steak sandwich for the game, but just did veggies and dip.  No brownies, no nachos.  Very basic.  It was wonderful.  We both enjoyed the sandwich - a lot! Our little pup even had a piece of steak.  She was very well behaved for the entire evening after that - until the last bite of sandwich was eaten, then it was back to normal.

I'm actually on a quest for a better brownie recipe made with cocoa instead of chocolate.  Last week I tried the one that I used to make when I was just learning how to bake.  It was horrid!  Cakey, dry, not much chocolate flavor.  Today I whipped up the Joy of Cooking brownie.  We'll see how it rates tomorrow.

To go along with the brownie, I'm testing frosting recipes.  Actually it was the frosting testing that spurred on the brownie testing.  My friend, D-, makes a fantastic frosting.  He says it's so simple and gave me the recipe.  I tried it last week.  If I had stuck to his directions, I would have been glueing sand to the top of the brownies.  I added extra water to get it to come together.  I think he left something out.  So I'm on a quest for that as well - a terrific mocha buttercream recipe.  I made some modifications and have a new one to go with this week's brownies.  DH thinks it's pretty good.  I thought the initial texture and flavor were okay.  We'll see how it holds up.

See? This is why I'm on the mobile platform.  All this blathering on and no pictures.  So dull.

But I'll continue a bit anyway.  I got the town to let us use the town hall for a gardening lecture series.  I'm giving the first one on winter gardening.  I'm the first to admit that I am not the best gardener in the world, but I do know some great gardeners.  My DH is already nervous for me!  He thinks I need to prep and practice.  I mentioned that I might just show up in my gardening togs - dirty jeans and a t-shirt.  I thought he was going to have a stroke right there on the spot.

One way or another it's happening 2 weeks from now.  Maybe if I don't advertise it?

Just a thought...

Down at the Daylily Farm

Seriously, if you asked me even 5 years ago if there was such a thing as a daylily farm, I would have laughed out loud at you.  A daylily farm?  You've got to be kidding me.

But there is such a thing.  And what's more - I actually went there.

It's over in Connecticut, down by the Housatonic River, nestled in between the mountains.  You take the highway, to the state route, to the county route, to a street, to a road, to a dirt road with little hand-painted signs that tell you to make sure you stay on the road because there's a nasty 4-foot drop on either side that would split your car in 2 should you choose to pull over.  That was a joy to drive down in my big pickup truck - I thought I would have a stroke!

But once you get there, oh so pretty.  The road opens up and you realize that you're in the valley - and the only thing there is the daylily farm.

They have the most adorable little shop.  Natural cedar building with a wood stove.  Inside it was painted a creamy white and hand-oiled wood accents for the shelves.  Potatoes, squashes and garlic were mounded in hand-made baskets.  Watercolors of the dayliles graced the walls.  (Yes, I said "graced" - because they were so delicate and gentle in their art.)

None of the daylilies are in bloom now, but can you imagine this filled with flowers?  I could.

We ordered the fans (that's how they come - in fans) a few weeks ago, so they were all dug up and boxed, ready to be picked up.  These ones are for the Garden Club to give away, unfortunately, not for my gardens.  So I chatted a bit with the farmer (daylily farmer - heh heh heh!) and thanked him for getting up with the sun so I could pick up the fans.

Then I made my way back down that dirt road at a whopping 3 m.p.h. and headed home.  Snails crawl faster.

Flying Bulbs

2 days and over 18,000 bulbs - and they're all gone.  Every last one was picked up by a resident of one of the hamlets of our town to be lovingly planted in their gardens, alongside the roads and in front of churches, synagogues, schools and bus stops.

Well, probably lovingly at first - and then they'll just start tossing them in the ground.  18,000 is a heck of a lot of bulbs!

Honestly I really didn't think that we would be able to get enough people to take the bulbs and agree to plant them.  They did, though.  I think it has a great deal to do with my DH's gift of gab.  He talked up the planting project from one end of town to the other - and people were really enthusiastic about it.

Now comes the waiting for Spring and hoping that they all bloom their little hearts out!  It's going to be gorgeous.  You gotta love flowers.

Pumpkin Peppers

It's almost time for pumpkins.  I've already made the first pumpkin pie of the season and today my DH and I were out looking for some carving pumpkins for Halloween.  We didn't find it yet, but I did find these "pumpkin" peppers in the gardens.

I guess I must have missed them somehow, so now they've over-ripened and turned these fantastic shades of orange, gold and red.  I think I'll leave them for Mr. Rabbit.

I just love it when Mother Nature takes care of the seasonal decorations!

A Rose By Any Other Name

I don't know what it is about some of the flowers in our gardens, but they make me want to take out everything from the background except for the bloom.

Maybe it's the brilliant color.  But probably it's the way that the light shines through the petals.  It looks like they're absorbing the sun directly.

This rose looks to me as if it is made out of porcelain.  Its' petals seem so delicate and fragile.  Even though I know that it would take a bit of effort to tear them - and I'd probably get pricked by a thorn when I tried.

I never had much luck with roses before I found this Knockout Rose.  They would get black spot or aphids would eat them to the stem.  I was really good at growing rose canes, not so much at getting blooms.  This one blooms from May through --- well, as long as the weather holds.

All in all, this Knockout Rose lives up to its' name.  It's October and there are still a lot of blooms growing.  Some parts of the bush have gotten a bit of mildew, but the overall plant is thriving.  That's what I like about disease resistant rose bushes most of all.

Oh - and a Midnight Muffin Madness note.  My DH is bringing pie tomorrow (pumpkin - I'll post), so the muffins will resume next week.

Early Easter

Picking tomatos was like going on an Easter egg hunt today.  With the great weather we've been having, the vines have broken free of their carefully constructed cages and headed off to the lawn.

They're all snuggled down in the grass and the little cherry tomatoes are sitting in little nests.

When I first went out to the vegetable garden, I didn't think that we had many tomatoes this week, but once I realized that they were all hiding from me in the lawn, the hunt was on!

This is the best part of the tomato harvest.  I always think that there won't be any - then I find a whole basketful of them.

These are the ones that we'll eat in the winter - roasted or sundried, it will bring back the memory of today's little tomato hunt.

War of the Weeds

No matter what time of year, no matter where you look, there will always be weeds.  If you touch the soil, you're doing something that will encourage some type of weed to grow.  It is inevitable.

But not all weeds are created equal.  And some weeds have to be eradicated or you will lose your garden, your yard, and even the foundation of your house.  These are the bad boys of weeds - and that's the lecture I went to hear today.  (I know, right?  It's hard to contain the excitement, but I'll be happy I went next spring.)

So what was our little chipmunk hanging out next to?  Garlic mustard.  This lovely little plant is edible and was brought to our fine shores by the colonists back in the day.  But it was supposed to stay in pots.  Oops!  Pull it before the flowers go to seed or mow it down.

Pretty flowers, nice ground cover.  How innocent this ground ivy looks.  It feeds the native bees, but it can kill a horse.  It spreads out like a mat and smothers everything it covers.  Pull it out and then smother the ground that it grew on with newspaper covered in mulch.  You may need to use a herbicide if it is way out of control.

This nutsedge would seem to make a nice grassy ground cover, but not really.  It keeps going and going, spreading through little nut-like rhizomes and covering a larger and larger area.  It sucks up all the water and nutrients in the soil, leaving death in its' wake.  Dig it out (4-6 inches down) and burn the rhizomes.

My DH and I thought this was really cute.  It almost looks like a patch of little fir trees, right?  But no such luck.  This is horsetail and it spreads through spores - thousands of thousands of little microscopic spores.  And if that wasn't bad enough, the roots keep going and going.  Dig it up, smother it, repeat and repeat and repeat.

Pretty little morning glory-like flower, lovely little vine.  Chokes out anything it covers, bringing it down and feeding on its' dead remains.  Bindweed - not so pretty.  The seeds can still grow after 50 years of being buried in the soil.  The roots go down 20-30 feet.  You can control this, but it will be an ongoing battle - forever.  Pull it out before it goes to seed then plant thickly on top of where it was so it doesn't have a chance to come back up.

This japanese knotweed was brought over as a lovely ornamental.  It escaped.  It has no predator, no insect waiting to munch on its' tender spring shoots.  It just grows and chokes out anything in its' path.  Dig it up, cut it down, smother it, burn it.  It's a little stubborn.

Leaves of three, leave it be.  Yes, my DH's personal nemesis - poison ivy.  Uproot this in March, when the ground it still a bit frozen and the oils are the least potent.  Get a paintbush and paint the leaves with herbicide in the early Fall when the plant is sucking up all of the nutrients it can get.  Don't touch it.  Don't burn it.  Don't chop it into little itty bitty pieces.  I like wearing one of those disposable painters suits and plastic gloves when dealing with this.  My DH is very allergic to it and although I've never (knock on wood) had the misfortune of getting that oil on me, I see the horrible rash and allergic reaction he has.  It's enough for me to use a very large amount of caution when dealing with this nasty, evil, mean vine.

Industries have been built around this guy.  Books have been written, movies made, songs sung...well, you get the point.  Crabgrass - a nation's obsession with unsuccessful eradication.  If you want to use the lawn fertilizer with the pre-emergent chemicals in it, broadcast it when the forsythia is in bloom.  Otherwise, it's an annual.  Pull it up.  Of course, the seeds can spit themselves out about 4 feet away from the original plant, so be prepared to do the same thing next year - and every year after that.

We have been battling this one for about 5 years now, but it keeps coming back.  Thousands of seeds - and tiny sharp barbs.  I always wear gloves when we pull this or I end up with a nasty rash.  The mile-a-minute vine can take down a forest.   Don't believe me?  Take a look at this.

This is from the Mad Gardener's site and it shows what used to be a hillside in Pennsylvania.  Those trees - dead.  Their roots that prevented erosion - dead.

It burns! It burns!  Wild parsnip roots were eaten by the Romans, but I can't see that harvesting it is very fun.  You get the juice on you and you think nothing of it, until the sun touches your skin where the juice was - then it burns like acid.  Phytophotodermititis - say it with me!  And not just the one time - nope, phytophotodermititis can last for a few years.  It really hurts.  A lot.  Pull it up, cut it down.  Stop the seeds from spreading.

You're going to have weeds.  They are already in the soil.  The animals bring them into your garden.  The plants you buy have weeds.  It's just another plant trying to grow.  Dandelions are weeds, but they're also salad greens and the basis for some nice homemade wine.

Pull up, cut them back every 3 weeks, burn them - burn them all!, poison them, dig them up, smother them to death.  Click on the name of the weed to go to the photo's website for some real technical information.

You're still going to have weeds.

I just want to keep them at bay and make sure that the really destructive ones don't gain a foothold.  I don't think that that is too much to hope for.

City Gardening

I saw this woman in the garden in the middle of Broadway poking something in the plants.  I almost was afraid to ask, but my curiosity got the better of my and I simply had to.  So I asked this lady just what she was doing sticking a probe into a flower in the middle of Broadway.  She said she was gardening.

I checked her knees - perfectly clean.  As you well know, according to the Knee Theory of Gardening, you really aren't gardening unless you get down on your hands and your knees and get a little mud on them.

Like this spectacular bout of gardening I did this past June.  See?  Mud, ground in dirt, soaking wet, caked into the jeans.  Even my sneakers are wet.  (Oh, and Duke's garden seems to have settled in nicely over the summer, so we think it will survive this coming winter.)

I almost shared the Knee Theory of Gardening with the lady, but she seemed so intent and sincere about her "gardening" that I just didn't have the heart.

She was, after all, checking the moisture in the plants to see if they needed water.

I also didn't have the heart to let her know that you check the moisture of the plant in the soil at the root - not inside of the flower.

City gardening...it's different.

Garden Duties

Today my DH and I got to attend to some fun gardening duties for a change.  We went to view sites and just talk about gardens.  Not ours, so no weeding involved.

Our first stop was at the town's war memorial.  They want to put in some flowers for spring and were hoping that the garden club would be able to provide the bulbs.  Of course we can!  Naturally it's a red, white and blue themed space, so we're going to get them blue chionodoxa, white daffodils and red tulips.  They won't all be out at the exact same time, but it should be a lovely display.

Our second stop was a lovely garden overlooking the valley.  We're hoping that it will be on the garden tour next year, and so far it looks like the garden has what it takes to participate.  They have a beautiful space, well maintained, interesting species and cultivars and an enthusiastic hostess.

There are formalities that have to be attended to, of course, but it look as though this little 6-acre mountain-top retreat will make for a lovely addition to the tour.  Fingers crossed.

Of course, when we spend that much time out and about on the weekend, our little pup needs to have extra attention when we get home to burn off all of that energy that she has stored up for us.

But seriously, garden viewing and playing with the pup - what a relaxing way to spend the day.

Love it!

Italian Harvest

More tomatoes today.  But I also decided to pick a few grapes to make it a real Italian harvest.  We mostly have the Jelly Bean tomatoes - they were still hot when I picked them off the vines.

I don't know what it is, but there's something so right, so home, so perfect about eating a sun warmed tomato fresh from the vine.  They are little bites of sunshine!

It was also time to harvest the shallots and chives.  This was our first year trying to grow shallots - and aside from me planting them 9-inches deep (oops!), I think they did pretty well.  We got 4-5 new shallots for each one that we planted.

The chives were perfect too.  The new ones from this year are thin and delicate - the ones that we over-wintered look almost like scallions.  They are huge and hardy with a strong flavor.

My DH has been in snack heaven since I brought these in.  He's torn between wrapping a chive around the tomato and popping it in his mouth, or wrapping a fresh basil leaf around a tomato and popping it in his mouth.

Either way, it's a win-win for him in the snack department.

And you have to love that.

Hardy Horse

Our quiet Saturday was not so quiet.  We had a good start - reading, drinking coffee, playing with our pup.  But then things quickly spiraled into busy-ness.

I packed up a quick picnic lunch - sandwiches, chips and water - and we jumped into the truck to head off to the final flower sale of the season.  (I promise I sold more than I bought!)  Then it was off to dinner with some of the flower club members.

Then, since we were on the other side of the county, we had to get some shopping done for those things you just can't get near our bucolic manor.  You know, trickle chargers for the truck batteries in winter and the like.

We also took a close look at a greenhouse.  I really thought that we would get it, but no dice.  My DH pointed out that it wouldn't handle the snow load, so after all of the research and checking and pricing it out, we had to pass.  (And it was on sale!)

Then we stopped to get some frames for our Town Hall.  We had the fundraiser last winter to put lights on 2 spruce trees so we're going to put up a photograph and acknowledgement in Town Hall for all of the donors.  I think it's sweet, but trying to find a frame that is nice but won't look dated 50 years from now was a bit of a challenge.

My reward for all of this was spending 5 minutes at a lovely yarn shop, browsing for some fiber for my next project.  Unfortunately I didn't find anything that was "perfect, just perfect".  (And since my DH was there, it really was just 5 minutes!)

On the way home we were supposed to stop at a nursery to pick up our hardy mums for the Fall planters.  This proved to be too much for me and my DH to handle so we continued the drive home.

Once home, our little pup was a bundle of energy since she was cooped up inside all day.  She demanded some serious attention and a long walk.  My DH was wiped out, so our pup and I went for a nice little 2 mile stroll (pull, tug, walk 2 steps, repeat).

12 hours after we left for the flower sale, I finally sat back down in my reading chair to pick up where I had left off.  My eyes weren't cooperating - they kept closing.

At the end of the day I couldn't help but think about this horse.  She's on her feet all day long - when I leave for work in the morning, when I come home at night - and she has 4 feet.  I've never seen her even laying down for a roll in the dust.  She just keeps going.  No complaints.

I dont think I could ever be a horse.

Fern Berries

I spotted this on my way out the door this morning.  It's the frond on our foxtail fern (Asparagus densiflorus "Meyersii") and it has berries!

She's usually an indoor plant, but during the summer, my DH puts her outside to enjoy the warm sunlight.  I guess it paid off, because for the first time, she has little berries on her tail.  (That doesn't sound quite right somehow...)

Anyway, it was a nice little surprise to start the day.

Yay.

Tomato Tomato

You say tomato, I say tomato.  Hmmm - that doesn't really translate well in text does it?

The tomatoes are ready for harvesting so I spent the evening out in the vegetable garden, flashlight in hand, hunting for the ripe ones.  My DH really loves these bite-sized "Jelly Bean" tomatoes.  Wrap them in a basil leaf and it's the perfect mouthful of Italian goodness.

Of course, I had to plant some cherry tomatoes.  They're perfect soaked in vodka and dipped in Bloody Mary spices.  And then I needed to have some heirlooms just for BLTs.

Over the next week or so, they'll all ripen and we'll get the ones that the rabbit leaves us.  He only takes one bite out of each one - I guess it's the best bite.

Once we're done with eating and gifting, I'll dehydrate the rest and pack them in olive oil with some garlic cloves.  They keep for a few months that way so we'll still have our garden harvest in January.

This is what makes the vegetable garden worthwhile.