Finally Coming in From the Garden

Another summer in the garden starts .... and it starts late, thanks to massive disorganization on my part, major life changes at home, and generally too much to do in too little time....just like everyone else reading this.

Took two days to get all the seedlings potted, waterplants moved out of the greenhouse, hanging plants hung, and seeds spread.

This year I have calendula - the flower petals go in my comfrey salve (but can be eaten fresh too).

Lime Basil is added to the basil collection this year...

Along with the Boxwood Basil and Greek Basil..

And the Magic Michael Basil with the fuzzy fragrant purple tops.

Nessie was suppose to have her own water garden this year - that's not going to happen, so instead she's guarding pots of sage, rosemary and jalapeno peppers. I use the jalapeno peppers to make non-toxic insect spray for the vegetable plants later in the summer.

The larger pots of sage and rosemary are thriving, but the sage I wintered over (the red pot)got very spindlely last month and had to be cut back - it lasted all winter, and produced enough leaves to keep me in sage rinse from October to March. Now that its outside I've cut it way down, and new sprouts are already coming out.

Right next to the Magic Michael Basil are the tomatos, two plants to a large pot with several pots. And in spite of my plans, I ended up planting two rows of tomatos and peppers out in the yard gardens - along with a large area of ground covering gourds (noticed today the gourds are up - dipper, nest egg, and apple gourds).

Remember when I bought these last fall? Finally got them together, and as of this week planted. They were meant to go inside over the winter, and this next year will do just that. But the trial run this summer is outdoors, and includes tomatoes planted upside down..

Top trays have green peppers, rosemary, and blue sage. Since this was taken, the top trays have been mulched with straw to keep moisture close to the roots.

These were the recommended plants, but I'm wondering exactly how the watering will accomodate the water-thirsty tomatos and peppers as well as the sage and rosemary that prefer drier soil.

My ancient oregano plant is popping back out - wasn't really sure it would make it again this year.

This is my fourth year lavender - it winters over in the greenhouse and usually blooms a second time in February.

More sage, more oregano, more rosemary.... I use large amounts of each of these in homemade Italian Seasoning, sage rinse, and comfrey/rosemary salve (rosemary is an antibiotic).

At the very top of the Swing Garden, next to the spiral evergreens, is the Monarda Jacob Cline, probably the Monarda variety with the biggest blooms. This plant will be approximately three feet tall, covered with large red flowers and the butterflies that love them.

While I was straightening out the Swing Garden, Boss showed up and decided I had it under control. He actually lives three houses and a field down, with Miss Joyce the Librarian, but has adopted our house as his summer home.

Nothing fazes Boss - not even our noisy barking dogs.

Dismal Experiment Turned Amazing Success

Remember last summer's experiment with hay bale gardening? Remember the sad results (i.e. plants that started out healthy, then within a couple weeks turned sikcly and died)?

Huge discovery as to the reason for that: I bought my hay bales at a commercial provider (a home improvement store that starts with L) not knowing that the growers that supply them automatically spray herbicide on their product, to curb weed growth. Unfortunately that also curbs the growth of desired plants.

So as quickly as I planted young healthy plants, the herbicide did its job and began killing them.

Fast forward to last fall, and when my least favorite garden chore (fall cleanup) came due, I blew it off. There are no words for how much I *hate* fall cleanup.

Sadly, when one blows off fall cleanup, it merely becomes spring cleanup. Therefore this afternoon, I discovered these decomposing hay bales.

They were hidden behind all this.

And this.

A couple hours later, most of the weeds had been piled up on the plastic, and then rolled into a giant weed taco, and hauled away.

Meanwhile, the hay bales have wintered over, the herbicide has disappated, and now they have become some of the finest organic material around. Rich, moist, decomposing- home to earthworms, etc. Perfect for spreading out over the garden.

Couldn't have planned it better if I'd tried.

The name of this year's game plan is budget. In order to conserve water, I'm pulling the veggie crops up into containers close to the house and the rain barrels. This should eliminate most of the need for extra watering. The large beds out in the yard (like the one above) are going to be herbs - basil, lavender, comfrey, oregano, sage - and gourds. All of those do very well with minimal water even in Virginia's heat (worsening every year thanks to global warming-no, don't send me "there-is-no-global-warming" emails). Blooming herbs also attract bees, which will encourage pollination for the veggie crops.

As of today, that's the plan.

D.C. Tour

Courtesy of the U.S. Botanical Gardens..my new favorite place in D.C.

Beginning at the White House....

complete with Sasha and Melia's playset.

Continuing to the eastern end of the reflecting pool to the Washington Monument (didn't get tickets to this one either)...

and at the other end, the Lincoln Memorial..

with the Big Guy lounging inside. Gift shop is just to the right.

Thomas Jefferson has his memorial over in the ferns, right where FDR requested, so he could see it from the Oval Office.

He stands inside, bearing a startling resemblance to the T.J. bobblehead my DD brought home.

Note the amazing detail on the pediment - you can see all five men, gathered to write the first draft of the Declaration of Independence: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, T.J. himself, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston.

At the other end of the National Mall, there's the Botanical Gardens itself, with hundreds of tiny glass panes over the orchid gardens, the desert and of course, Hawaii.

Just one block east of the Gardens stands the Capitol.

And another block east, the Supreme Court.

The real buildings don't have giant poinsettias surrounding them, and they aren't created using thousands of tiny bits of wood, sticks, nuts, bark, and oyster shell, like these.

But they're pretty impressive in their own way.

Happy New Year!

From the U.S. Botanical Gardens in Washington D.C......

a little bit of spring for the new year...

It won't be long now.

Tucked In

Out past the new bed of comfrey (which is doing very, very well and will be bigger and thicker next spring)...

And past the closed and drained water lines (where the fresh mint is still growing)....

There lies the winter greenhouse door....

Where the temp is still 110 at 2 pm, and the chosen ones have come inside to winter over.

Tansy, salvia, lavender, the sedum that I was suppose to get planted this fall...

Scottish heather, oregano, rosemary and the plants from the water gardens...

Just waiting for this, which is coming soon enough...

Little greenhouse on the frozen tundra.

Help a Damsel in Dis Dress....

Some of my readers are also followers of New Old School by Damsel in Dis Dress - due to a move to a new platform, you may have noticed your feed to her blog has disappeared.

Being that her blog is one of my personal favorites, I missed it immediately (well, immediately for me anyways) and she has just helped me straighten out the feed for it.

You can go here and just follow the instructions under subscribe:

http://damselindisdress.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/feed-me/

or just connect to the latest post and then follow from there:


http://www.mynewoldschool.com/2010/11/17/review-tomorrows-harvest/

Get thee hence and find the Damsel....

Tiding Me Over To Spring

I have spoken to the cats, and they are willing to re-visit the idea of having potted plants inside.Specifically, ones they will refrain from eating down to the ground, as they did during the Great 2005 Boston Fern Incident.

So this is now the view from my office window. There's a suspended shop light with plant bulbs, big saucers under the plants, and we'll see how it goes.

At the moment, I've brought in the two year old Mandeville (the tall one), Cuban oregano (front right), and the sage bush (front left), so I'll have fresh rinse all winter, and have that lovely aroma in my office.

Also rescued this poor recuperating hanging coleus - you can't tell it, but it's on its way back. In it's prime, this was three-foot in diameter, and hung almost three feet down, covered with heart-shaped leaves, all dark red with a light green border. I owe it a second life.

I've hung the Boston Ferns in the livingroom. They are placed away from anything remotely resembling a climbing apparatus.

Not that I don't trust the cats.

Best of all is the wicker stored on the front porch till spring - the epitome of "Southern". All it needs is the sound of the screen porch door, and a glass of ice tea.

That should get me over the winter...