Returning to Normal

I was trying to catch a flock of crows flying over.  You can see one- a blur, but love the red oak leaves set against that blue, blue sky.

What a day.

I am finally feeling the fog lift from having that tooth pulled.  I took a good brisk walk down along the creek, soaking in the fall colors and bright sky.  Came back home and worked in the garden for a couple of hours, weeding and tidying up in the veg patch.  Finished cleaning up the asparagus beds.  It always looks so much nicer when that's done.

Pulled down Jacks beanstalk, now dry and dead.  Pruners and scissors, cutting and pulling the twisted vines where they had climbed, wrapping themselves around the fence wire up, up, up.  Put away the posts, fence, piled the vines into the wheelbarrow for compost.

It was chilly and I kept my purple sweatshirt on the whole time, feeling snugly.  Pulled chickweed and oxalis from between the young carrots.  The soil was cold and I was glad for my good gloves.

Kept a fire going in the stove all day too.

 

sweet gum leaf  - like burgundy leather

The autumn has truly arrived and with it colorful trees, breezy clear days with leaves swirling by.  I am ready for this shift.

Also glad for the time change, to wake before 7 with some sunlight.  And at the end of the day to come inside and hunker down for long evenings of comfort food suppers and books.

Mellow Yellow Part 2

The major source of mellow yellow this week is POLLEN.  Everything is covered with a fine dusting of tiny yellow grains. Sunday it was so thick you could see it wafting by like snow in the air, forming little drifts at the edges of things.  A light rain last night was only enough to make splattered patterns on surfaces.  Happily it doesn't seem to be blowing out of the trees quite as thickly as it was.  We can only hope that it will subside quickly and we can dust the house, rinse off the cars and carry on, pollen free into the spring.

 

This magnolia is more yellow in bud, creamier once it opens, but I think it's really fine.  

Corylopsis dangles its blossoms at the edge of the lawn

 

Native buckeye is verging  towards chartreuse but will yellow up as it opens

Creeping Jenny is truly on the chartreuse side of things 

but so lovely against the blue of the ajuga

Golden oregano in the background, yellow leaves of spider wort in the pot, 

electric next to the purple pansy

We sally forth into spring, each day brings new tasks, prepping the soil for planting the tomatoes, pruning the fig tree, pulling last falls greens from the garden before they go entirely to flower and cleaning, cooking, freezing or eating them.  This makes way for the spring planting of greens which are coming right along.  And the asparagus is starting, so having a break from other veggies is actually a good thing, it's all we can do to keep up with the asparagus harvest once it gets into full swing. 

This is an OK problem to have.

Garden Club Mob

A very tidy garden, peppers and zinnias in the distance, still going in mid-November!

With a little help from our friends, the veg patch is looking very spiffy right now.  There was an amazing stretch of warm weather last week with Sat-Mon  in the 70's,  nothing like warm sunshine to motivate outdoor work.  On Saturday our besties John and Michele came out in the afternoon and together we cut back the dead fern and weeded the two, forty foot asparagus rows that we share.  Yesterday I picked up a scoop of compost from the landfill and John and I worked together to top the beds with a couple of inches of that black goodness and finished with a few more inches of composted leaf mulch.  I said to him "These are some of the best cared for asparagus beds in the world".

In between the asparagus marathon, my friends Diana and Celeste and Celeste's friend Weegy came out on Sunday for the first of what we hope will be an ongoing joint gardening effort among friends.  Locally and  now nationally there is a crop mob movement.  More geared towards large scale sustainable farms, a big group of folks work together at one location on major projects to help the farmer, they share a meal and each time go to a different farm belonging to one of the members of the mob.  As I toiled away on the homestead here I kept thinking how nice it would be to have help on certain projects, just to make more headway, and isn't it sometimes more fun to do work with friends to talk to? Not to mention more hands always make daunting jobs feel lighter.  When my friend Celeste said she was wanting to form a garden club, I proposed we combine the two ideas and the garden club mob was born. 

The sad news is that almost everyone we know that has a garden seems to also be too busy to share time in this way.  But I still have hope that our little garden mob may grow.  If you're in the vicinity and want to join the group let me know and I'll plug you in.  We are scheduled to meet at Celeste's house in early December and take on some weeding, mulching or whatever she deems most useful for her.  

Lettuce, spinach and beets, blankets ready for the frost, if it ever comes...

The group helped me tackle a corner of the veg patch that has gone to ruin over the past couple of seasons mainly because its gotten too shady to really grow veggies, so we've just been neglecting it. The result; lots of weeds, some various overgrown flowers that got tossed there on their way out of one spot but without a new home to go to, some very rambling tomatillo plants that actually put on quite a few late season fruit.  I just cooked up a couple of quarts to freeze for green salsa this winter.  The crew also helped weed and mulch the winter veg.  It was really nice to have help and company to face a job I had been avoiding for months, moral support is a wonderful thing sometimes.

Fall greens; weeded and mulched and ready for harvest and cool nights

Work done, we took a tour of our place which continues to show lots of fall color.  We still have not had a frost so mums, ginger lilies and roses are blooming.  We finished with a little potluck luncheon including home grown salad greens. Everyone came and went from 10-2 and there was still time for people to do more with their days.  I hope we'll be able to keep it going and get more folks involved, seems a very civilized way to see some great gardens, help each other out, and hopefully share plants and garden knowledge too. 

Another month of garden madness

 Peony Festiva Maxima with Siberian Iris Gay Butterflies 

This past month- yes it's been an entire month since my last post- has been a month full of gardening. I know that comes as no surprise to you my faithful readers.  The roses and peonies have been the highlight of our garden over these past weeks.  First this vigorous apricot climber, named Crepuscule- horrible sounding- though it means twilight in French, was in it's glory for about 2 weeks.  It stretches across 30 feet of the fence, 15 feet in both directions from its base.  The only thing that would make it more glorious would be if it were more fragrant, but I'm not complaining.

 This rose starts out pink and mellows to apricot

As the crepuscule rose (reminds me of corpuscle!) was fading, the pale pink New Dawn rose on the west side of the house came into its prime, with the jackmanii clematis blooming in unison, an idea I got from the Wayside gardens catalog.  This combo is a treat and it drapes in front of the kitchen window making dish washing much more pleasant.

Another climber that we got from Niche Gardens is the Lonicera (honeysuckle) Goldflame.  It's mop top of multicolored fragrant blooms crowned the top of the entrance gate for many weeks and is just now shedding onto the walkway below.

In the vegetable garden we were blessed with weeks of asparagus and now we move into the full flush of spring goodness with peas, beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach, chois, kale and onions threatening to produce more than we can possibly consume.  This is one of the thickest and tallest stands of peas we have ever grown.  When picking them yesterday they were so tall and so many that my arms actually started to get tired!  And wow are they sweet.

In the past two weeks I've also been working at getting the summer garden planted, tomatoes are in and staked, 2 dozen plants this year.  The slicers are: Bolseno, Cherokee Purple, Big Beef, Celebrity, Mrs. Benson and Georgia Streak.  Two kinds of plum tomatoes; Red Agate and Marianna and two cherries, Sungold and Sugar Cherry.  We are in a never ending search for a red cherry tomato that we like, sweet and not too tough a skin and every year we try a new variety, every year we are a little disappointed.  I think its hard to beat the sweetness of the Sungold.  If you know of a great red cherry- leave me a comment about it.

I also planted cucumbers, squash, beans, basil and sweet potatoes.  Still need to set out the peppers and eggplants and then we will be pretty well set for summer.  I just love having a garden that I can walk out into and ponder dinner or run to for a green onion, bunch of cilantro or handful of spinach for the morning omelet or dinner tacos.  It's work to keep it all going and there are days when I question our sanity in growing such a big garden, but most of the time, I'm grateful to be able to have this spot of earth where I can enjoy the green of plants, the blue of the sky and feel the sun that nourishes my body and the plants that feed us.

Taxes finished- now I can fully enjoy the season

Dear friends-
Apologies once again for the long dry spell.  It's spring, what more can I say?  I just finished my taxes, phew, another year I managed to sort them out by myself with the help of Turbo Tax. Self-employment has some downsides, not the least of which is paying all 14% of your own social security, hopefully I'll actually get to collect back on that one day.

The past month has been filled with gardening both home and in town.  In the past few weeks I've enrolled about 15 new families bringing the total number of families in the three community gardens up to around 40.  I've only got a few plots left which is great.   It's the time of year when everyone is excited, the gardens are looking tidy and the new spring veggies are growing fast and green.  Hopefully the enthusiasm will continue,  there are always folks that flake out when it starts to get hot.

 On the home front- just a few highlights from the last few weeks:

New growth and cones on the evergreens, I roam around petting and fondling the tender tips

Weeping redbud Traveler.   My friend Michele says 

"Don't you want to sit and stare at that for about 8 hours and see how it changes you?"

If only I could find a spare 8 hours...

Apple trees in bloom, fortunately ours did not get nipped by the late frost last week

Pollen on the pond like marbled paper or chunky aggregate granite.  It's been so thick for weeks you could chew the air and everyone's complaining of scratchy throats, snotty noses, runny eyes and dusty houses.

Heavy rains in early April allowed the giant carp to swim up stream to spawn for the first time in several years.  Once their work is done, they die and become food for the critters.

Pinkster Azaleas in bloom.  They are finished now, the mountain laurel will be next...

That was just a taste really.  Been eating piles of asparagus, fresh baby green salads, radishes, finishing off the collards and kale from the winter, working away at last years storage crops, sweet potatoes, garlic, frozen tomato sauce and black-eyed peas, strawberries frozen and now fresh.

There have been lots of snakes of all kinds, new turtles come to court Gertrude, lizards galore and two gray tree frogs have taken up residence in the rain barrel.  They look like soft putty slapped down on the rim of the gray trash can, I can't put the lid on tight for fear of crushing them.

The lilac and dianthes are in bloom and their heavenly scents waft around the garden and into the open windows, rafts of blue and purple columbines adorn the front walkway with splashes of white daisies among them and dots of bright orange poppies scattered through.  The roses and peonies are about to put on the best show of our spring season.  I'll do my best to post some photos.

Now that the weather has settled down and nights are above 50 degrees for the most part, this coming week will be time to start planting the summer garden; tomatoes, beans, squash and cukes.  Once that is done, maybe we can slow down, but there is still lots of weeding, mulching and plant rearranging to be done...

April Continues to Blow Me Away

The front walk this week

Who knew that columbines could become borderline invasive.  That's what all the purple is on both sides of the pathway, the result of scattering seeds willy nilly fall after fall.  We do have lots of nice hybrid colors, dark purple, blue, pale lavender, plum.  But too many of all of them, so this season we'll be removing some plants after they finish blooming and won't be scattering seeds.

It's been a spectacular April.  Lots of rain making things lush and happy, enough warm weather to get things blooming, but no so much to make them finish too quick.  I continue to revel in the glory of it and am eternally grateful to live in such a fabulous place.

A typical days harvest from the asparagus patch

Needless to say they are daily on the plate.  Favorite combos; asparagus and eggs and/or muenster cheese and/or mushrooms. I've been eating piles of them blanched in salads and the skinny ones get munched raw in the garden the moment they are picked.

 

Illini Warrior, the first peony to bloom

I've waxed poetic in these posts many times on the glories of the peony, my favorite flower, queen of the garden.  The next two weeks should be peony filled, I'll try to be better about posting. We planted a lot of new varieties a couple of years ago and they are finally large enough that they should put on a very good show this year.  This Illini is so red it looks superimposed in this photo!

Radishes just say spring don't they?

Especially these Easter egg radishes in their fancy colors.  Lots of these have been going into the salads along side the asparagus.  I'm also fond of slicing them thin and layering them onto home baked crusty white bread spread with fresh butter and sprinkled with salt...

The lilac is in full bloom

It's funny how small this bush looks in this picture.  The scent it casts is anything but, you can smell it all over the yard and inside the house. At night the fragrance wafts over and into the windows by our bed, making for sweet dreams.  That chair right there in the photo, that is where I want to be sitting as often as possible, surrounded by the glorious soft scent of lilac.

Asparagus, Morels and no Time to Sit Still

12 days without a post, it must be April!  BUSY, BUSY, BUSY.  I've barely had time to enjoy my garden let alone get any work done in it or write a post.  It's a good thing David has been around to do the major share of watering, weeding, and mulching, if it had been up to me, everything would probably be buried in chickweed going to seed by now.

I have managed to get the spring garden well under way with two plantings of several things.  We have good stands now of young carrots, beets, fennel, turnips, peas, lettuce, radish and kale.  The onions are growing as are the garlic, the strawberries are flowering and we've started harvesting asparagus.  I also set out some cabbage plants and sowed seed for bok choy, tatsoi and swiss chard last week.  We'll be working hard in another month to eat all the vegggies we've planted.

Tomatoes are stepped up to bigger pots and have been hardening off for a week, hope to plant them next weekend.  After the hottest first week for April on record all the leaves have flown out and the tulips and daffodils made a quick exit.  Thankfully the temps have cooled back down to normal.  The weeping redbud has been putting on an excellent show.

I took my first real spring bird walk yesterday with my friend Stew, still a bit early for the migrants but managed to see ovenbird, northern waterthrushes, yellow throated warbler, common yellow throat and heard but did not see northern parula and hooded warbler.  It was a splendid day weatherwise and we enjoyed each others company while getting warbler neck from trying to spot those darn parulas, always in the very tops of the tallest trees straight overhead. David caught this pileated woodpecker messing around in the yard, seems he may be considering our vicinity for a nesting ground this season, that would be very fine.

And to top off the season, morels!  Perhaps the best harvest we've found on the land near our house in all the years we've lived here, it's such a matter of timing and then just being able to spot the things, they look exactly like the leaf litter and D has a much better eye for them than I do.  I can be starting straight at them and not see them. But oh they were yummy.

More Warm Southern Winter Days

The global warming trend continues with two days in a row in the 70's. It's crazy. I feel compelled to go outside and work though I have lots of things to do inside too. Yesterday our buddy J came by and together we cut back our 75 asparagus plants and weeded, fertilized and mulched the two 40 foot rows. We will be so glad when those babies start popping up in April.

Back when we first started the garden in 1998 our best friends J&M asked would we please plant extra asparagus for them? They live in a mill house in Carrboro with a postage stamp cottage garden. It's a lovely garden with sun in front and shade in back but no space for asparagus.

So we got together, dug the deep trenches, amended the soil and ordered the 75 asparagus crowns to plant. Each year J&M help with the maintenance and get as much 'grass as they can eat in return. When you first plant asparagus you don't cut them in the first year. Second year you cut for two weeks, third year for 4, after that, 6 weeks or as long as they keep putting up decent sized spears. Now we harvest a pound or so a day for about a month in the peak season and we eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner and give lots away to friends. At any rate, one more chore taken care of and you will hear more about asparagus in April.

I also raked leaves and shredded leaves to make mulch for the asparagus beds. I am using an ancient leaf shredder that belonged to my father, I have no idea how old it is and am sure its blade is as dull as a spoon, but it makes this lovely light chopped leaf mulch. Combined with the heavy aged leaf that we bring by the truckload from the Carrboro public works pile, it makes the perfect covering to block out weeds, hold in moisture, and adds organic matter to the soil as it breaks down.

Last night we made a yard fire and grilled some chicken wings from the freezer and I cooked up a skillet of fried rice with lots o'veggies in it, the "eating from what's here" campaign has been going fairly well, only buying dairy and fruit for the past couple of weeks. We are not going hungry. The veggies that I picked on January 1st should last at least another couple of weeks counting the cabbages which have good storage capacity. What's really amazing is that even after three nights in the teens and 20's, the broccoli still looks pretty good and the spinach and swiss chard and radicchio, which I covered with floating row fabric, survived and are enjoying the warm weather! Life in the South, can't beat it this time of year.