Happy New Year

May 2011 blow in on a wild, free wind, and may you feel earth's energy in your very own bones.

Hibiscus trionum

I spent way too many hours trying to figure out what this flower is. It is a relic of Nellie's Garden, a late self-seeder that pops out of the soil when it's good and ready, 'round about July.

I have only ever seen it in my garden, so I thought it was Rare and Wonderful. Then I saw it in seedling form in one of those dirty sidewalk-tree-holes in Wilkes-Barre, where it had somehow persevered past dog crap and cigarette ash. It was alive, which is more than I can say for the tree that had once been there.

This city street sighting deflated my hopes of Rare, but confirmed Wonderful. Anything that is fertilized, instead of fried, by the fluid that was once malt liquor and is now pee, is Wonderful.

What I like about this flower is a lot of things: It has pyramidal lanterns. It is a really dark, shiny, healthy green with unusual long, lobed leaves and sharp, angular stems. You can scamper out first thing in the morning to see it, and the bud is a tight, white scroll. You can fix your coffee and sit on the bottom step and watch it, and hang out the laundry and load up the truck and walk the dog, and there it sits. You can sigh and flick it, to inspire activity, but... nothing. You can think it is a little bit more unfurled, which it isn't, and go inside to get your this-and-that so you can leave for the day, and then when you come back out, you see: you missed it.

Which is why it is called flower-of-an-hour. Like I said, I spent forever trying to figure out what it is, and finally in exasperation posted a question at the Dave's Garden ID forum, and someone replied with the correct answer in, like, 7.5 seconds.

On further reading, the following words and phrases have been used to describe Hibiscus trionum in the Dave's Garden PlantFiles: terrible, evil, noxious, bugger, scraggly, Attila the Hun, invasive, kill them early and kill them often. If that isn't enough to knot the little bastards onto my heartstrings forever, I don't know what is.

Cold roses

So far, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day has been spent indoors, where the wind mostly isn't. I ducked out to document the roses, but fingers became unserviceable rather quickly.

Matt didn't even dive out the back door during breakfast to chuck kitchen implements at the squirrels eating all the suet, which means that it is very, very cold out there.

Happy winter Wednesday, everyone.

Smokin'

Sometimes, Matt comes home with other people's castoffs. The items are often related to food, and just a little bit broken (a cafeteria-sized stockpot with a tear in the bottom, a wine barrel with one busted stave). They could be used, Matt will say, because they can be fixed.

Matt is really good at fixing things, which I am grateful for. He fixes the important equipment in my life, like my truck and my wheelbarrow, as well as other niceties, like the toilet, the kitchen sink, and the water heater. So I know what he says is true: the miscellaneous kitchen implements could be used, because they can be fixed. Still, I am wary.

Matt's most recent acquisition was The Big Chief. It's a lightweight metal box, about two feet high and eighteen inches wide. It appeared in the entryway under the front porch, its identifying features partially obscured by a mess of other things. I eyed it dubiously. I decided what it was. I was so wrong that now I can't even remember what I decided. I passed it often, in a hurry, and furrowed my brow at it, in a disapproving sort of way. What are you, and are you broken?

At some point I learned that The Big Chief is an electric smoker, for smoking food. This did not elevate its reputation. I was brought up to believe that electric appliances should not smoke. And since it had not yet smoked any food, its state of repair or disrepair was undetermined. Think about it - an electric appliance that, when working properly, is supposed to smoke? If it's broken, the only possible outcome is that it will burst into flames and take the house with it.

I shifted my furrowed eyebrows from The Big Chief, to Matt, to The Big Chief, in order to convey my skepticism. Matt explained that any activity involving The Big Chief would be conducted outdoors, and under strict supervision.

Matt fired up The Big Chief, by flicking a switch and inserting a small pan of water-soaked cherry kindling. He smoked our jalapenos to perfection, along with some green tomatoes for omelets. Good old Matt.

This is not a fancy picture but an actual reality

I was about to have the most productive evening of my life, but then the Fedco catalog came. And because of that, I went to the liquor store. And now I am just going to sit and read and sip and enjoy the once-a-year publication which I look forward to the very most.

I have heard plenty of praise for the Fedco seed catalog over the years - on account of its all-around excellent selection of useful and interesting seeds and its ethics in sourcing sustainable stock. But I have not heard near enough about how it's just damn good reading. The plant descriptions are insightful, original, funny, and valuable to someone who knows a little and cares a lot about what they grow. I can never get into those academic cutting edge garden design books... but Fedco is where it's at in garden writing, if you ask me.

The way this catalog is written actually exemplifies what I respect and admire in the world of honorable small business (I should say I don't know what kind of business Fedco is - cooperative, for profit, non-profit, etc. - I'm talking "business" in a broad sense)... I appreciate that the information presented helps me choose what to buy based on the experience of serious farmers and gardeners. Where and how will this do well, and what can I do to encourage it? Fedco is not in the practice of fudging hardiness zones or calling things "the only TRUE BLACK suchandsuch" or inspiring amateur gardeners from the far north to try germinating their very own rainforest exotics. (Which is not to say that pushing boundaries is a bad thing, but false or embellished salesmanship is, and Fedco doesn't do it.) Fedco is honest and vital and (best of all) clever, and for that, I give it my undying devotion.

You can order from Fedco here, but if you use their searchable catalog, you miss out on the paper catalog visuals. Take this porcupine with his popcorn, from the 2010 catalog - isn't your life enriched for having seen this? So put in a catalog request, and revel in the pleasantly plump volume of newsprint when it's delivered. This is what winter is for.

Happy seed shopping, folks.

Making pizza from scratch

Golden August afternoons sure do seem a world away, now that we're into the weather where the laundry freezes stiff like cardboard cutouts on the clothesline. This picture, one of my favorites of the summer, went unposted at the time. In the background, those are my tireless companions, always eager to shift the toil from the garden to the kitchen. First we fixed their dog food. Then we fixed my pizza.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today and tomorrow I give thanks for many things, not the least of which is Hillside Farms Heavy Cream (which may or may not give me a coronary at some point, depending on whether some other fate nabs me first). In the summer, when the Jersey cows are on pasture, the cream is butter colored. In the winter it turns white. When you open a fresh bottle, there is what I call a Butter Clot in the neck. It is probably just really thick cream. You have to scoop this out with your finger and plunk it on your tongue, because if you just pour the bottle, the Butter Clot will be stuck and then all of sudden not stuck, and cream will douse your coffee mug and the counter.

I'm rich! (or, All about mulch)

It was a beastly windy day. I sat at my desk, and then went outside to admire my pile of gold, which cheered and warmed me. I grinned like a cat and cracked my knuckles in a miserly way. What to do with my spoils? Such a heap of plenty! So many possibilities!

Here's the thing. Every year I want to order yards of mulch (the ground-bark-and-wood-chips kind). I do order yards of mulch - for my clients, but not myself. The first urge to call in a man with a dumptruck happens on the first day I feel completely out of control. Everyone's garden is tended but mine! There is pigweed in my strawberries! Pokeweed under my roses! Polygonum in my sweet potatoes! THE BINDWEED IS GOING TO STRANGLE MY DOG!

Yes, it always escalates from feeling all a-tad-unkempt to feeling all we-are-in-grave-danger. I'm crazy like that.

So, I do not order mulch. I partly do not order mulch because I am too busy with paying work. I partly do not order it because I do not want to spend the money. I mostly do not order it because I have this thing about how my immediate environment should provide: I can produce all the organic matter I need here on my lot, or I can pick it up in my neighborhood, for free. That's how it ought to be.

We do produce most of our organic matter. We make a lot of compost, and I supplement by hauling bags of the neighbors' grass clippings home each spring, and in the fall, on community-dog-park-cleanup day, requesting that the waste be kept separate: maxi pads and dirty diapers in these bags; nice clean oak leaves in those bags, and then taking the leaves home. (Later, I sort out the dog poop and, at arm's distance, those things I can only hope are balloons.)

This October, I went to the Starzec farm, had my usual "how was the garlic? how was the hay?" conversation with some of my favorite farmers, and drove away with my usual eight bales of straw. But because I was mulching far less garlic than usual, I had seven bales of straw left over. That is enough for the whole rest of the city garden. Good god, all of a sudden, I was wealthy!

I have been reveling in this fact ever since I realized it. I mulched the blueberries. I might mulch the herbs this fall, but I will horde the rest of my sweet, sweet stash until the spring.

Rosa 'Pat Austin' does chores with me

Yesterday, quince jelly...

Today, a clean desk...

Oh, the toil of it all! When I am through mopping my brow with a rose petal, I think I shall faint...

A viola

For Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

Cold blue lanterns

Pineapple tomatillo (ground cherry) husks after frost

Autumn crocus

Yesterday morning, I was delighted to see that Garden Rant posted a story I'd sent them. You can read it here: A Tale of Tree-Dwelling Thieves. Thanks, Garden Rant!

Herbs versus the animal kingdom

Salvia officinalis 'Tricolor'. Deer-resistant.

One garden that I maintain stands out above all others as the most challenging in the animal control department. My client feeds the deer in her backyard. I should say, my client feeds an entire Noah's ark of animals in her backyard. Rolling the wheelbarrow around the corner and down the path causes the rushing, clattering, crashing sound of mass departure.

Let me paint you a picture. Occasionally, I must defer to the skunk: if he is coming up the path, I do not continue down it. Sometimes, there are fawns asleep in the compost heap. And... I once witnessed a pair of juvenile woodchucks tearing through the yard. The second little fatty was in hot pursuit of the first, who had a treasure clutched in his jaws: one of those red rubber Kong dog toys, I am quite sure. Pure mayhem.

If it weren't for the fact that my client's dedicated husband always has his finger on the trigger of the deer repellent squirt bottle, there would be no garden at all.

The heaviest pressure is on a pair of small flower beds outside client's husband's office. Either he doesn't spray this area, or the stone-wall-resident woodchuck has grown to appreciate a meal spritzed with that nasty putrescent-egg-solids potion. Either way, these beds have been steadily grazed to the ground. Each year I replace the disappeared plants with something I think will be more critter resistant, and this season, I actually gained some ground.

They do not like herbs! While my old standbys for deer-resistant plants - beebalm, yarrow, and ornamental salvia - have all been sampled, enjoyed, and subsequently cropped, the lavender and culinary sage appear to still - in autumn! - be in possession of all of their parts.

Lavandula angustifolia (English lavendar),
resistant to dog-toy-toting woodchucks.

Just before frost, there was flame

A Candle: California poppy bud

A Campfire: Calendulas

A little blue

This time of year catches me unawares when it comes back around, as if my heartbreak isn't predictable. It's not just the deeply cloudy skies, or the way the hours of daylight quickly diminish like sand in an hourglass, or that for a whole summer I spent each day - from coffee to cocktail - in someone's garden.

I watched my three friends - two black swallowtail caterpillars and a banded orbweaver spider - feed until well past the frost date. Wiser and wilder than I, they packed it in safely before our first real hard freeze. I checked on them obsessively until each disappeared, hoping I'd find the place where one would build a chrysalis or egg case. I cried when I lost track of them. I have always cried at goodbyes, and somehow, at this time of year, I feel closer to the others who live in my garden than just about anyone else.

I look for ways to feel like I still have a purpose. Tactics that work are physical - lots of yoga classes and hikes. I try to - and do - feel grateful that I have a job that allows me so much time off. I appreciate that I am in tune with the seasons, and that it's okay to feel sad about death.

And I remind myself that what I'm witnessing isn't only death, but also dormancy. I read once that a chipmunk stores far more seeds in his hollow than he should ever need, and then hibernates atop a great mound of them, which I imagine are so deep and so old that they perhaps ferment like compost and give off a little heat. This cheers me immensely.

Cotton

The only way I can describe cotton flowers is: Tattooed. The petals are a freckled complexion, and the husk they emerge from is an ink-speckled scroll.

Matt brought two seedlings home from a friend at the farmers market in the spring. We are well north of the cotton belt, but of course growing zones and geography do not stop the inquiring mind.

The seedlings waited in static perfection under the grow lights, forever. We planted them, and they went out of sight, out of mind, dwarfed by peppers and eggplants. Then one day a flower peaked out, and we were entranced. I did not get any pictures of the pink ones, probably because I was chasing the woodchuck with a pitchfork. Oh well.

I would have loved to see the pods split and the cotton poof out, but our season is apparently too short, even when it's long. So oh well, again.

Weeks after peppers reached their knee-high potential and eggplants slumped under weighty fruit production, the cotton stood up tall, with straight strong stems. It was purple and cream and green, and sort of built like a praying mantis, with slim angles and soldered joints.

Happy Halloween

This is me, dressed up as a polyphemus larva!

Just kidding. Yesterday, Matt found this caterpillar on our hike. It is Antheraea polyphemus (I had some ID help from a professional). If it hurries up and pupates for the long winter, it will turn into a beautiful, brown giant silk moth in the spring.

Long, tall, and purple: Three fabulous flowers

Ageratum, probably self-seeded from 'Dondo Blue'.
Grows to about 24" high.

I pretty much threw a temper tantrum this year when my tall cutting ageratum seedlings all got damping off and croaked. I maintained my funk for two months, and then all of a sudden, little baby ageratums starting sprouting in the garden! One, two, ten, two hundred! The freakin' things were everywhere, having (apparently) seeded themselves quite successfully the year before. They waited to germinate until July, and I feared they wouldn't mature before frost. But they took off gangbusters and made a pillowy blue-and-purple late summer display.

Ageratum, probably seeded from 'Red Sea'

This honeybee passed away on a blue powderpuff, in the night.

During my extended conniption over not having tall ageratum, I searched at local nurseries. This caused much cussing and stomping of feet. Five inches may be a fashionable height for spike heels, but it is an abominably dumpy height for ageratum, if you ask me.

Instead of ageratum, I found something I'd never grown: Lavandula multifida. It's the lavender that smells like a skunk! Who wouldn't want one? It has soft, ferny, blue green foliage, and rather unobtrusive flowers that go on blooming forever. I really like it.

Lavandula multifida

Also during my ageratum anxiety period, I dug up little Verbena bonariensis volunteers with their clods of soil and poked them in the garden hither and thither, like a mad squirrel-woman caching her snacks. I am at a point in my life when I have to have tall, skinny purple flowers everywhere. Or else my garden is all for naught.

Verbena bonariensis blooms, bobbing high above
a patch of purple sage and dark purple nicotiana.

I heart garlic

I planted garlic this week - 15 different kinds, about 120 cloves altogether. Not nearly as many as in years past, but this year space is limited. All of the garlic is our own seed, except for the purple Italian, a gift from a friend.

To read about how I plant garlic, see Garlic Harvest 2010.

Above, Laika lords over the strawbale. I mulch garlic beds with six inches of straw for a few reasons... First, without mulch, it is very convenient for a squirrel to yank out a garlic clove and pop in a peanut (and a squirrel can do that approximately 120 times in half as many seconds). Mulch also keeps cloves from heaving out of the freezing and thawing ground over winter. And mulch will keep weeds down next summer. Here are all the kinds we keep.

Whistlestop

Brown tempest

California

Carpathian

Chinese red and white

Colorado black

Continental

German red

German white

German extra hardy

Legacy

Music

German porcelain

Purple Italian

Romanian red

Garlic makes the heart grow fonder.

(For further good instructions on planting garlic, see Curbstone Valley Farm's Planting Garlic post.)