Gardening at the dimming of the day

Camellia sasanqua Autumn Sunrise. 

I can't get over the glossyness of the deep green leaves. 

The flower- all I can say is - wow.

When I realized I had until the end of the month for the time to change, I vowed to spend as many evenings outside as I can, enjoying the late day light and the opportunity to putter around putting the garden to bed.  If I can fill a wheelbarrow with weeds and dead plants to put on the heap I feel like I've made progress. 

I spent this evening deadheading the coneflowers and verbena bonariensis -the goldfinches seem to be finished eating all the seeds.   It looks much tidier now. 

We are still harvesting some late season figs, they ripen slowly in the cooler air but we pick a small handful each day.  They are less watery and taste richer this time of year.  A treat for my morning cereal.

October Begins!

I love October, and its starting out glorious. Cool crisp days and nights just right for a fire, snuggling under blankets at bedtime, the clarity of the light bringing the autumn garden into perfect focus.  I'm making a vow to try and blog every day this month and to bring something special from the garden to you with each post, because even though I'm putting some things to bed for the winter, other things are just coming into their prime.

This is Ceratostigma plumbaganoides  "Miss Wilmot"  which I got years ago from my father, its actually been blooming since mid summer but it caught my eye yesterday looking so blue in the afternoon light.  A nice small shrub, quite hardy, it dies back in winter but bloooms all summer long.

Now- its way too fine a day to fritter away sitting inside at the computer, I'm off to play outdoors!

Home from the Beach

So- I didn't blog from the beach, we achieved a comatose state pretty quickly and I just didn't feel like reaching back out to the rest of the world.

Beach week for me means doing exactly what I want when I want, from a short list of activities.

Top ten list for beach R&R:  Walking on the beach, swimming in the ocean, body surfing, riding bikes around the island, kayaking, reading, napping, playing scrabble, watching the ocean roll in and eating whatever I want including; salty snacks, ice cream, chocolate and fresh fish.

Bodacious Crab Cakes

Baby Snapping Turtle

David spotted this little guy trying to cross our road and picked him up to bring home and show me.  You can see he's a snapper even this small. He's got clay on his back, must have very recently emerged from his egg.  We took him down to the pond where we imagine he'll be happy. He's a blur leaving D's hand and heading for the water.

We'll be a blur later today heading to the beach for a week.  There we'll be running down to the water ourselves. Might post from there- might not, we'll see what happens.

Rain Glorious Rain

Bean Blossom

It rained all night last night, starting in the evening and just kept on. When I went to bed it lulled me into slumber and each time I woke or stirred in the night I smiled to hear it was still coming down, slow and gentle but steady.

I went out still in my jammies this morning first thing to check the rain gauge, nine tenths of an inch- a life saver, the most we've seen in a month. Hoping for a bit more before its all over.

Blessed Rain

We woke today to rain! I lay in the bed with a smile on my face, just listening to the wonderful sound of it. We are 8 inches behind and so any precip is desperately needed and appreciated.

It was dry during the day but it's been raining again this evening and looks like we are in for several days in a row. Perhaps the drought is breaking. Amen.

You probably have these spectacular writing spiders in your gardens too, they seem to get enormous at this time of year. If we've got one, we've got 30. There are other colorful arachnids about these days too but they are harder to get a photo of. Walking in the woods right now requires a good broad spider stick waved in front of me to keep my hair and face from filling with webs!

More About Beans!

I can't recommend highly enough the idea of multiple plantings of beans. I planted my first beans in May and then did a second planting of haricots verts and Garden of Eden in early July. The first planting is about finished now, the second one is still going strong and should give beans right up until frost.

In this bowl are haricots verts, Garden of Eden and yard long beans. The yard longs are really a pea, a few go a long way, they are delicious quickly blanched and then thrown into a stir-fry. My favorite combo of late; Japanese eggplant, red bell pepper, shitake mushrooms and the yard longs with some onion, garlic and a little sauce made of sambal, hoisin, and soy. Serve over soba noodles or rice, you can add, chicken, pork or tofu for protein. Quick and yummy.

Also the Swiss chard has been phenomenal as usual, this was planted in March and we have cut about 50 bunches off of it and it's still looking remarkably good. I planted more for the fall that is still small but should go easily until December with a little protection. The variety is Bright Lights- a wonderful rainbow of colors.

In the foreground are the first planting of haricots verts, I'm leaving the few beans left to make seed, behind them are the second planting from early July, still green and producing.