smashing pumpkins

What a beautiful pop of color!

I've left our fall pumpkins out because they're so pretty, and for the animals, but they're slowly starting to decay.  One after another, Todd tosses them into the garden, where they split and reveal their fantastically vivid guts.  A new usefulness: birds steal the seeds and possums scoop out the flesh, and we admire the saturated color against the barren ground.  What a treat in January!

We had thirty stingy minutes of snow yesterday, and the remaining pumpkins, even those in a dejected slump, looked cheerful.

Snow!

It's been so warm here, in the sixties just a few days ago.  Everything is confused.  My bulbs were starting to sprout.

Bee balm was making a low carpet under a bird feeder.

German chamomile peeked between stepping stones.

Our muskrats have loved the warm days, making frequent laps around the pond with their beloved cattails.

Spring peepers, feeling the warmth, have burrowed out of the mud and begun making their spring song.  Our nesting pair of herons have been by to take advantage of the bounty.

Turkey vultures keep a vigilant watch from above, observing the uncharacteristic January activity and waiting for an opportunity for a good meal.  

We've been living in a long, delayed autumn with the warmth and frequent fog.  The dark days make it feel more wonderfully cozy inside.  

Now the weather is turning decidedly colder.  The spiderwebs that were hastily spun in late December's warmth are filled with snow.

Claudia, now positively fat on late-season voles and canned cat food discarded by our haughty girls, will be coming into the garage this week when the temperature dips.  She's used to this and seems happy enough to have an occasional glimpse at the frozen landscape.

The cats will be warm and fed...the bird feeders will be filled...and every so often, when we need a lift, we'll smash another pumpkin.

Have a great week!

sow 'n snow

 At last!

It's no more than an inch, but such a pleasure to see!

There's just something about snow.

The pastels of a January sky are so pretty above the white landscape.

I've been working in my new potting space, starting my big winter sowing project.  I'm about a third of the way done, I'd say.  It's enjoyable to have my hands in the dirt again, prepping my little containers...

...seeing all the different shapes and colors of seeds, those little pellets of potential.

This is A - G from my seed stash.

They need the freeze/thaw cycle to improve germination, so they don't mind this at all:

I've got good company while I work...

...and I love my view!

I try to put in an hour per day.  After all, in about 3 weeks I'll be starting some of the same seeds - and a lot of different ones! - under grow lights.  About the time I put those particular grow-light seedlings (hardy annuals) in the ground, it will be time to start the tender annuals under grow lights.  And then...oh boy...getting everything planted.  Planting will start around mid-March and continue through June.  Oh, and we also have to plow a new plot, lay out a drip tape irrigation system, lay down weed suppression/landscape fabric, and mulch...so while it seems odd to be starting in mid-January, there's not a minute to lose!  Thankfully it's all pleasurable work.  Going out to the barn last week, I passed by an unfamiliar green patch in the side garden.  At first I thought it was some sort of weed...

...but, studying it and thinking about what had been growing in that particular area last fall, I realized that it was German Chamomile.  I remembered the tiny white petals surrounding the cheerful yellow faces, the ferny foliage and the lovely light scent that was released whenever I brushed past, and experienced a moment of pure joy.

German Chamomile.  If all else fails, I will at least have the humble German Chamomile! What a delight to look forward to.  And then I think, what if some of the tulips and grape hyacinths that I fall-planted really do bloom?  Because my skills are so scattershot, I have almost no expectations when it comes to things that I plant.  When something does bloom, I am truly surprised and delighted.  So, as I see it, working on these containers is just another way of creating opportunities for joy.  All of my little failures, too, are disappointing, but I learn a little bit more with each disappointment.   I'm working toward something beautiful.  Maybe this will be the year that it all comes together!  If not, well, at least I've got that Chamomile.  :)  

Have a great week!

going the extra chamo-mile

Late-spring and early-summer flowers have finally given up the ghost and are going to seed.  Alas, I don't have great luck with catching seeds before they fall.  Sometimes the seeds are so tiny that they're hard to find on the plant...sometimes the seed pods "pop" when they're ripe, so you have to time it just right...and sometimes I scatter seeds just by trying to remove the pods.  This year I read about a new method - the organza bag.

I ordered 100 of these on Amazon for around $7.  They're the little pull-tie bags that people sometimes use for wedding favors, and they're perfect for this.  Just invert them over the seed head and pull the drawstrings.  No need to tie!  The seed head will eventually die and drop the seeds into the top of the bag.  Just clip off the stem and you've got a bag full of seeds.

It's a miracle!  For the first time, I've successfully gathered Jacob's Ladder, Euphorbia, and Wild Geranium seeds.  Lots of Columbine, too, which can be tricky.  You've got to catch them while they're still a bit green and juuu-uuu-uuust starting to split at the top.

Some flower spikes are too large for bags, like these foxgloves that are going to seed.

Those little green balls are immature pods.  They will turn brown as they ripen, then they'll split and drop the seeds. I've got to catch them just before this happens! 

Getting better at seed collection has been an education, and so has learning about how to prune things the right way.  I enjoy deadheading, which is popping off a spent flower head or spike once it's finished its bloom.  But proper pruning has taken a little bit of study.  For example, salvia.  I have a lot of salvia, and it produces a fantastic bloom.  But the flowers die after a couple of weeks.  I used to just take shears to the plant and chop it down to the leaves, which you can technically do.  But a little bit of reading, and I discovered that I was delaying new growth by a couple of weeks.  If I just cut off the dead spike, right above the main set of leaves below the flower, new buds would grow out of that leaf set, which I have always sheared off.

Now I'm getting new blooms in a few days, instead of a few weeks!  Victory!

We're progressing quickly through summer, and new things are blooming.  Coneflowers!  From just a couple of small plants last year, I'm going to have quite a crop soon.

Black-eyed susans are opening up...

Sedum is blooming!

Bee balm is finally blooming, too.  I'm not too crazy about red and yellow together, but I'm too garden work-exhausted to do anything about it now!

I love the coreopsis.  It's so sunny and cheerful, and just requires regular deadheading to keep going all summer long!

I've got several large patches of german chamomile.  I love it!  I don't use it for tea.  I enjoy the ferny foliage and the delightful, bobbing flowers.

These, too, need to be cut back in a few days. If I, ahem, go the extra chamo-mile now,  I should get another nice flush of flowers in a week or so...same with these delphiniums, which are growing like crazy!  A quick snip once these flower spikes start to die and I should get new, healthy spikes again.

You can see from the front that many of my 'old faithfuls' are still plugging along...the yarrow, balloon flower, golden loosestrife, etc.  We just added the frost-free pump in front to make watering easier.  A planted disguises it nicely.

The side beds are doing well.  I've cut back the catmint, salvia, euphorbia, and penstemon.  Yarrow and coneflowers are just getting ready to open up.

You can see a bit of a green haze over the new back garden, but I remain a bit ambivalent about it.  I just don't think it's going to look much different until next year.

I'm deeply watering every day to help the transplants become established, because we haven't had rain in about 2 weeks, and it's been very hot and dry.  I can see flower buds forming, but on plants that are about 6"...that are supposed to be a couple of feet tall.  At least I can collect the seeds!

So far, rabbits haven't bothered this space, which will be fenced in soon...

Of course, Claudia is working hard to keep the local rabbit population down!

(This rabbit was only stunned and was able to escape while Claudia was distracted!)

We're soon going to be into my least-favorite time of the year - the hot, dry, humid stretch of July and August.  The weather has been great so far, so I think these hot months will be a lot easier to tolerate this year...I hope!  I can ease off a bit on gardening and concentrate on other hobbies that have fallen by the wayside. 

Have a great week!