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