Sprawling Gardening Post Number 3

 I did not think a month would fly past until my next blog post, but here we are. The pictures below are mostly from August, there may still be some from July. There is still a lot going on in the garden so I may be blogging about it in January as I have joked before. 

Everyone is okay here in this neck of the woods. Returning to work 4 full days a week, having a cat that needed new special food and training the cats to eat in separate rooms, and shorter days have all caught up with me. 

The cats have more or less learned the new routine and grudgingly accepted it. The one cat has even gained a pound already. 

Most of my writing this month has been journaling and writing long hand written letters to a couple friends, something I do once in a while. Here is a picture of Tutu keeping me company on the back deck as write one of those letters. 

Where to start? There are so many pictures in my folder for this post. I will try to put them in some semblance of order. 

Well, when in doubt, start with a cat.

Maxwell was not the cat that needed new food. He has usually been underweight or just right most of his life with us. However with me being home so much this year, and him cleaning up after Moxie's food, when I haven't been home, he's grown quite lush and plush. I'm trying to get him on less food since he will need his teeth cleaned later as he always does. Trust me, it's cheaper to clean a pets teeth than have them pulled. He isn't a big exerciser though and is quite peeved at his new, smaller portions. This is him getting some attention on the stair landing. No doubt Tutu is already in our bedroom with Andrew and so Maxwell comes out of "hiding" for some attention. He wasn't a big lover before and isn't now, but we try to give him what we can when we see him. He does like his tummy rubbed and he appears in several of my elementary read aloud videos. He doesn't do much but he's very photogenic and I've heard from some parent that his cuteness goes a long way with viewers.

It's funny that he and Tutu share one of the most popular spots in the house, the beloved cushion from a cat pyramid that Molly used to go in. I got rid of the pyramid after she died as neither Maxwell nor Moxie would go in it but something told me to leave the cushion and it usually sits in the morning sun of the dining room. Surely the one pet knows the other has been using it?

 

To pare this giant folder of pictures down, let's move onto books. I've not made much headway in my personal book collection this summer, partially from falling asleep before I can read two pages, but also because being at the library more has been too tempting to pursue other interests and getting books on those topics. As my time outside narrows, I have been able to read more in the evening, and am trying to balance. I'm optimistic I can read another 4-6 books before the New Year out of my private collection.

I enjoyed this so much, I almost kept it, but gave it to a good friend instead thinking they would enjoy it and then pass it along. This collection of short essays was written almost 20 years ago but isn't dated at all. The writer really combines backyard birding drama or near misses and brutal deaths with tender moments and the reality of what one sees merely by looking out the window. He also talks about excursions further abroad and combines more scientific facts and history so it switches back and forth in a way that keeps it fresh. I ended up looking up several birds common in Connecticut that I had never heard of.

And speaking of books, here is another dessert made from the Simple Fruit book from the library. This chocolate torte was a lot of work and I was very disgruntled with the final result, when it was warm out of the oven. It was however, divine completely cooled. I used black raspberries instead of red and despite following the puree procedures exactly, black raspberries are just denser than red and the torte took a while to bake.

The black raspberries settled in the middle and bottom and so each cooled slice ran somewhat "from brownie to fudge."

 

I have some updated pictures from the Plant Kindness project, now wrapping up I think, as I write this.  Really, I could take pictures of bees on flowers all day long.

The gourds, all gone now and distributed throughout the community and further beyond, larger and with more color.

And I was greeted by Cheese, the ambassador of Plant Kindness. I think I met him literally two days after he arrived. 

I couldn't believe all the tomatoes available to the public. It looks like something out of a magazine.

Now to turn to gardening a little closer to home.

 

Fall moons means...

Moonflowers!!! About a dozen have bloomed, maybe 15 from the 7 seeds I've put in the pot on the back deck. Most of them bloom as you can see on the far side of the rail, and I've just missed a lot of them, as they really open close to dark. I caught these two the next morning while they were still open. The frost watch nights have nipped them and a lot of leaves have dried up and blown from the vine and yet every time I think I've seen the last moonflower of the year, another one appears. In another pot, I have the perfect complement to moonflowers...

Morning Glories!  My Grandma Perdue always had these growing on a white trellis at the end of her house. Again, I put these in the pot, and I think they would have been more robust in a bigger pot or in the ground. They were beautiful but are played out now. 

Here is a pot of mint ready for a record third cutting! It's still going, but I'm not cutting it anymore or covering it on frost watch nights. I am harvesting so many herbs, I'm going to run out of jars! As I write, Sage is drying in the dehydrator and hanging from a drying rack, but that is for another blog.

The real show stopper on the back porch though is the Dahlias I bought on sale and planted in July. I'm in love. I'll let the pictures tell the story. 

I've had about 4 more dahlias bloom in this variety, and a new variety just bloomed this week. I am cutting some of them off and taking to Mom, as I can't have cut flowers in my house because, cats. 

Let's walk around to the front garden and enjoy a different moonlit night. 

The most important part of having an herb and veggie garden is to have a dedicated guard.

This would have been on one of the many gorgeous and mild September mornings that we had and I took this while journaling or writing letters. 

As for the veggie garden, here is a bit of the harvest. We did not have as big of a tomato year as last year, but still plenty of bags to make pizza sauce. 

T

he Black Diamond (also known as cannonball) watermelons are still on the vine. A few have the browning stems, but no yellow spot. One has the yellow spot but no browning stem. In late August I picked one that I was for sure was ripe and it was barely pink. I need to work up the nerve to just pick them soon and accept however they might be,

Our strawberry bed is almost completely filled in with plants and up until about a week ago I was getting a berry here and there.

 

The real boon harvest has been in the herb garden. I really have more herbs than I know what to do with. DM me is you would like some mint for tea or Sage.  I didn't even get to the hops growing on the chicken pen wall because I had so much in the garden.

It is my hope to grow my sewing skills one day to make eye pillows with hops, lavender, and chamomile from my own garden. 

Take not of this Malabar spinach, a gorgeous if not tasty addition I get every year from my green thumb friend. I plant it at about 6 inches long around Memorial Day and it does absolutely nothing for the next three months. Then, if begins to inch up the tripod. Next blog will feature it's majestic finale.

And, I am pretty sure there are two different toads living in the front garden area. I have regular run-ins with the larger one while the smaller one surprises me in the garden. 

I hope they survive the winter. I'm always wondering what makes them choose where the ultimately bury themselves, how deep in the ground, etc. I remember last January we had a thaw day, and I was taking Tutu walking and she insisted on investigating something in the garden, it was a much smaller toad, completely covered in the mud he was in. It reminded me of one of those 3d pictures we used to get at the mall. Luckily I realized what it was and pulled her away before she could "learn by putting in her mouth."

Let's end this post with how we started it, with animals. As we make our way to the chicken pen, let's stop by the lavender and grapes.

My long suffering green thumb friend, who lovingly starts lavender from seed and cuttings for me. Of all those hopeful plants, they died one by one no matter how I adjusted their watering. This fellow has been in the ground for a good three weeks, maybe 4. The tree I found in the lavender in the spring that you see in the upper right hand corner, I still have to plant him. Maybe next weekend. I gotta get on it!

I have some pictures for the next post to show the plants pruned in late August, how well they are greening up. 

As for the grapes, I can't tell if we didn't get many Concord grapes this year, or if the birds and fox just got to them quickly. As much as I love Concords, there is no denying their tannin gives me a throbbing headache that won't answer to medication and just make it on this side of not worthwhile to eat. 

But look at these white grapes we got this year, real beauties!

We have big news at the chicken pen, new arrivals!

The Blue Rock hens are here! I now have a flock of 10, with 6 being a year old, and 4 being 6 months old, a burgeoning succession plan if you will. They have acclimated into the overall flock pretty well, although two stubborn blues are still roosting on the red board you can see just above the chicken wire in this photo. When it gets cold they will come to their senses and move inside where the food is. All the volunteer invasive honeysuckle that you see along the bottom of this picture grew all summer and I just let it go, In about two weeks the new hens striped the leaves and trampled the trunks. So, enrichment. *We were told they were blue rocks, but now I'm not so sure, They lay white eggs not brown. Who knows. What a minute...? How do I know they are laying white eggs?

I started getting these little beauties, one a day about two weeks ago! Now today I got one full sized white egg and one little egg...which means two of the four are laying now...which means I may be collecting eggs all winter again. No sign the golden comets are slowing up either. 

Ah well. This egg was so fun to hold in my hand. Half the normal size, but so heavy, with very little egg white and a lot of yolk with a strong thick shell, it had a real smoothness and heft. There is nothing like the little thrill of opening the nest box that first day in mid winter or early spring and finding the first egg of the year, or the first egg from new chickens. 

An egg, like a flower bud, like a new moon are all full of possibility. Enjoy the flower, stop and look at the sky once in a while, relish a well made breakfast on the weekend.