Melancholy. Or Not.

This afternoon in the garden began with a bit of sadness, marking the end of summer and the return of shorter days and cold weather. I started my work by pulling out all of the zucchini and cucumbers. They were well past their prime and not producing anything. After I hauled the yellow and brown vines to the compost and took down the cucumber trellis, I turned my attention to the pole beans.

The pole beans have gone all "Little Shop of Horrors" lately. After a mostly beanless summer, the pole beans have taken over their trellis and two neighboring tomato cages, and have crossed the walkway to wind around the fence that surrounds the whole garden. So I grabbed a bucket and started picking beans. I filled a gallon bucket with more than two pounds of beans! I left a lot of little beans and saw a lot of flowers, so I guess there's still a little bit of summer left out there.

Foggy Morning

After several very hot weeks, big thunderstorms rolled through last night. Things cooled off a bit, and we woke up to fog this morning.

Garden Visitor

I stepped outside this evening to see if it had cooled down enough to open the windows. That's when I noticed that we had a visitor on top of the cucumber trellis. It's a red shouldered hawk. I've heard and seen it around the neighborhood--in years past, they've nested in a backyard a few houses up the street.

I'm just hoping this visitor will help take care of the chipmunks.

Lavender and Lilies

It's summer in the flower garden, too. My mailbox bed has daylilies as tall as the mailbox. Also in full bloom: milkweed, coneflower, lavender, and roses. One of my favorite things about gardening is watching the progression of blooms throughout the growing season.

My spring garden was all pinks and purples. In the summer, there's a lot more yellow and orange. Those bright colors seem to be a better match for the steamy summer heat.

Goodbye, Spring. Hello, Summer.

I harvested all of the potatoes yesterday. The grand total is just over 28 pounds! That's quite a yield from twenty little seed potatoes.

We picked the last of the peas today, too, and pulled up and composted the pea plants. The only thing left from the spring garden is lettuce, and it's having a hard time during the heat of the day. It may not last the weekend.

After I dug up the potatoes, I added a whole wheelbarrow load of gorgeous screened compost to that bed. Compost is magic. I use the three-bin system. By the time the third bin is done, it's really beautiful stuff to add to the garden soil.

In place of the potatoes, I planted cucumbers, basil, and dill. When I pulled up the garlic a few weeks ago, I planted zucchini and yellow squash. Add that to the peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes, and it's summer in the vegetable garden.

Harvest

I harvested my first potatoes this weekend. Sort of by accident. This is my first attempt at growing potatoes. So far I've learned that, like tomatoes, potatoes probably need to be staked or caged. I discovered this after a good rainstorm flattened several potato plants. Most of them are still doing fine, even though they're growing sideways, but a few stems broke and those plants are dying. I dug up one this weekend and found about a pound and a half of redskin potatoes. So now we're looking for potato recipes. I have about 20 plants--at 1-1/2 pounds per plants, that's a lot of potatoes in our future.

Carolina Wrens

Carolina wrens are nesting in an aloe plant on my front porch. I spent a lot of time this weekend sitting on the porch watching them bring food to the babies. The babies are getting big--I can hear them chirping when the parents approach. I think they'll fledge soon. One of the parents hopped all around the porch this afternoon, with a big bug in its mouth, chirping at the nest, as if encouraging the babies to come on out for a snack.

In other backyard bird news, the chickadees have fledged. Chickadees took over the bluebird box this spring. By the time we realized they were there, there was a nest full of babies, so we just let them be. This morning, a male bluebird was calling and investigating the nest. I cleaned out the old nest bits; I hope the bluebirds decide to stick around.

Peonies

It's that time of year again--the roses, peonies, and irises are blooming like crazy in my front yard. It's nice while it lasts. I don't usually think to cut flowers and bring them in, but today I filled one vase with roses and another with peonies and irises. The irises have the strongest and best scent, which surprised me.

It rained last night, and is beautiful and sunny this afternoon. It was a soft and steady rain, so the peonies are still standing. Once they're in full bloom it only takes one good thunderstorm to flatten them as the flowers fill with water and fall over (or get knocked down by strong winds). So far so good, and there's only a little chance of thunderstorms midweek.

Wow.

This is why they call them Knockout Roses.

Potatoes

How do I know when the potatoes are done? Since they're growing underground, I can't see when they're ready...

So far, the potato experiment seems to be going well. The plants are healthy and green and hip-high. They're growing so much, I'm worried that I planted them too close together.

At least I don't have to worry about the potatoes getting sunburned. One of the websites I looked at for growing advice said to keep piling up dirt at the base of the plants so the growing potatoes aren't exposed to sunlight. I haven't seen any potatoes near the surface, but I'll keep checking. I also need to make sure I keep them watered. The raised bed drains very quickly, and potatoes don't tolerate drying out.

The website (an extension service, but I don't remember where) said that the time to harvest was after the foliage had died, usually in July. It's also possible to harvest some potatoes early (but I don't know how early...). That would probably be a good idea--to spread out the harvest--since potatoes don't freeze, can, or keep particularly well. I guess when they do come in, we'll be eating a lot of potatoes for a few weeks!

Vive la France!

Our daughter is studying at the University of Angers this semester. Angers is in the Loire Valley, in central France, about two hours away from Paris. We visited her last month. It was absolutely wonderful.

Because I'm a geeky plant person, we visited several jardins in Angers and in Paris. Here's what I learned: Jardins des Plantes are formal botanical gardens, with an emphasis on ornamental trees and flowers. There may be an arboretum, with tree species labeled, and lots of statues and fountains. The Jardin des Plantes in Angers even had an aviary full of different species of parrots.

Plain old jardins are more functional. There are lawns, and walking paths, maybe some fountains, and tree-lined allees, or walkways, with plain dirt surfaces. The Jardin du Mail, across the street from Angers' City Hall (Hotel de Ville) had a fountain and a large central lawn, lined with trees and dirt pathways. There were small landscaped flower beds near the fountain, but no brick or cement walkways, and no landscaped beds under the trees. Just dirt. After spending all these years in the South, it was disconcerting not to see beds of azaleas or swaths of pansies under the trees.

The photo shows the formal gardens in the moat at the Chateau d'Angers, the fortified thirteenth century castle in Angers. The moat has always been a dry moat--historically it housed the king's menagerie! The gardens are quite pretty, but this is as close as we could get. There's no access to the moat gardens. Inside the castle walls are more gardens--some are ornamental, but there are also vegetable gardens and a small vineyard.

Both Angers and Paris have gridded streets with lots of diagonal streets running across everything. That leaves lots of opportunities for traffic circles, many with statues in the middle--or something even bigger, like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. There are also lots of tiny triangular parks. Our hotel in Paris faced one of these pocket parks. There were some trees and some benches--it was a quiet little spot in the middle of a busy Paris neighborhood.

We loved our time in France. I already have a list of things to see and places to go on our next visit!

Bleeding Heart

I was mowing the lawn this afternoon when I noticed something new growing under a dogwood in the woods--a bleeding heart (Dicentra)! Very exciting. The goatscaping made it possible for natives like this and the trillium to have some room. But, oh, the irony... I planted a bleeding heart in the front garden a few years ago, and it didn't do well. It looked so pitiful that my husband cut it down while weeding last year. It was an accident--he didn't know what it was. I was hoping it would come up this spring, but so far it hasn't. That made the one in the woods an especially wonderful discovery this evening.

We've been trying to keep the undergrowth in the woods under control since our visit from the goats. Things are still looking pretty good back there, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take the Roundup to the poison ivy. Unfortunately, it's really enjoyed all the open space (where there used to be English ivy and honeysuckle).

Goatscaping

We were out of town for a bit, visiting our daughter who's studying in France this semester. I'll have some pictures, and thoughts on French gardens, soon.

Right before we left for our trip, we had some landscaping done. Our back woods were terribly overgrown with brambles, English ivy, and holly bushes. We would go out each spring, pull ivy for a few hours, fill up the yard waste cart, get discouraged by our lack of progress, go back inside and give up for the year. Pathetic. This year we decided to take decisive action, before the ivy completely took over. We hired Piedmont Goatscapers and their crew of goats to come in and clean up the place.

On the first day, the human crew came out to mark the young trees and plants we wanted to save. They set up a moveable pen with a solar powered electric fence. The next day, they brought the goats, and the goats went to work. The whole thing took about three days.

The most exciting part was what my neighbors called The Running of the Goats. At the end of each day, the shepherds herded the goats back to the trailer down a long chute that ran from the pen in the woods, along the edge of the woods, across the yard, to the street, where the goats were loaded on to the trailer to go home each night. The second day they were here, they caused a traffic jam, as people driving by stopped their cars to jump out and take a look and even to take pictures!

The woods look terrific now! They uncovered some native trillium growing back there, and the redbuds and dogwoods really stand out.

Violets

I know that they're weeds. I don't care. Violets are awesome. Even when they're all over my lawn. And in my flower beds.

Another orchid story

I bought my first Phalaenopsis orchid at a garden center sale after Christmas. I also bought a pretty new pot for it, figuring I'd repot it when it was done blooming. Guess what? More than two months later, it's still blooming! And it shows no signs of stopping. The shoot just keeps on growing, and new buds form at the end. Wow.

I just did some research and found out that this is normal. This type of orchid can bloom for two to six months. Plus, if I cut the stem just above where the first flower was, the plant will put out a new flower spike within a few months.

Usually all of my houseplants spend the summers on the front porch. If this baby's still blooming by then, I'm going to keep it inside where I can enjoy it!

Beautiful rainy day

It's been raining all morning. Sometimes a light rain, sometimes the gutters are overflowing, but it hasn't stopped at all. I've been waiting for rain like this. After a few days of rain in the early spring, especially when it's fairly warm, we'll wake up to the most amazing sight. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and everything is green or blooming. Never fails.

I'm looking forward to that, but I'm going to enjoy today. A rainy weekend day is perfect for a cup of tea and a good book.

Pine needles

I got my first bales of pine needles for mulch this morning. Our high school PTSA sells them for the spring fundraiser. They even deliver them. What's not to like?

I didn't grow up in the land of the long leaf pine, so I've always used shredded hardwood mulch. Since my front yard has three blueberry bushes and four azaleas, I decided I needed the more acid pine needles this year.

Things I learned:

• I love pine needles!  They smell good and they remind me of coastal piney woods. 
• They are so much easier than bark mulch to spread over large areas.  The bales are light, and I can spread by hand. I don't need a wheelbarrow, or pitchfork, or rake.  Yay!
• They're not as easy as bark mulch in areas where there are a lot of plants close together. It's difficult to get small amounts of the needles into small spaces. 
• I need to buy at least twice as many bales next year as I did this year.  

By the way, my college mentor, who grew up in eastern Virginia, called them pine tags. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else use that term, have you?

Better and better

Every day, something new is blooming in the yard! This is my very favorite time of year. When I got home from work today, I spotted these snow crocuses out in the front yard, so I grabbed the camera to see what I could get.

I got a new Panasonic G1 camera this winter. I've been working on learning how to use it to take decent photos. My husband is, literally, a pro, so I'm getting some great coaching, plus technical assistance in processing the files. I'm really happy with this one.

Daffodils!

First of the season, blooming in my front yard this morning!

And so it begins

Yesterday, I planted my first spring seeds in the vegetable garden. I planted peas and two varieties of sugar snaps. Even though we often don't get enough for more than one meal of each, there's something irresistible about peas fresh out of the garden. The birds and chipmunks think so, too, so I covered the plot with mesh. I hope that'll give the seeds a chance to sprout.

My garden experiment this year is potatoes. I've wanted to plant potatoes for the last few years, but I wasn't sure how to get started. We were in Lowe's this weekend and found a whole display of seed potatoes, so I took the plunge. I bought packages of Yukon Gold and Red Norland.  Each package had ten little potatoes in it. I followed the directions on the package, watered everything, and made sure they were under the mesh, too.

Next up:  spinach. I haven't had much luck with spinach lately. I've had very poor germination, even with fresh seed. This time, I'm going to try soaking the seeds ahead of time, like I do with peas and beans. We'll see if that helps.

I don't care what the calendar says...

..it's most definitely spring out there! It's been warm and sunny for the last week, so things are starting to sprout, including these snow crocuses in the front yard. Also spotted:  lots of daffodils, hyacinth, columbine, and daylilies. The buds are swelling on the forsythia, so I'm looking forward to that blooming before the end of the month.

The garlic is also sprouting. I wasn't sure it would work this time. I planted a few heads from last year's harvest.  So far, so good.

It's been warm, but it's also been dry. We're way below our normal precipitation so far this year. The garden soil is very dry and crumbly, rather than soaking wet and sticky like it usually is this time of year. That's not a good sign. It's also been windy--there have been several wildfires in the mountains nearby, which is very unusual for February.

I'm sure that we're not done with cold weather yet. I just hope that we get some rain, not more snow, in the coming weeks.

Hellebore

By the way, this is what hellebore looks like.  The flowers aren't quite open.  When they do open, there are five petals.  Some of the plants have these pinkish flowers.  Others are white.

Signs of Spring

This weekend I finally found the first signs of spring in the yard.  The snowdrops are starting to bloom, as are the hellebores.  The daffodils are sprouting all over the yard, too.

On the other hand, it's supposed to be twenty degrees tonight with snow flurries.

Small steps.  Spring really is coming.