pink cactus

Several weeks ago I noticed my little zygo cactus had a bud. I thought it would bloom in time for Thanskgiving.

It's only just now opening up fully. Timing's kind of off, but still pretty!

my paradise fish

I'd had concerns about him lately. He'd been off color (see end of this post), and then was suddenly darting away, hiding after taking a few bites of food. He refused flake and NLS pellets for a few days, then I offered him one of his favorites- frozen brine shrimp. A bite, and then he hid under the ceramic arch (a spot I never saw him go into before). Spent days either there or under the filter sponge, and often darted off to hide when I approached the tank or lifted the lid. I started to wonder was he ill? was the frozen food spoiled? did someone (a kid visited the house recently) rap on the glass with a finger and traumatize him? But then his color came back-

with such dashing around upon the sight of me that I could barely get him in focus again!

Mr. Fire-Tail (though not so glorious as then)

I started to think maybe it was the cold, with winter here and his tank unheated (but I keep the room temp just above his limit). However, returning from a weekend away when it was colder than ever, found him in good form- greeting me at the glass

and getting in the way when I wanted to get photos of how my crypt balansae are doing- I thought they might melt away from the shock of transfering in here and being in a coldwater tank. They're doing fine! Standing up straighter, and showing a few new leaves

Tucker's fin extensions are getting longer- I've been trying to keep up on water changes ever week even though one fish doesn't put much waste in the water, and make sure to use the gravel vac too (I finally bought a new one that fits the tank properly and it made such a difference) perhaps that has been what he needed- just his own space, and better care.

He gets a little spoiled now, being the only fish. Gets any carpet beetle I catch, or housefly, or mosquito. When we left for the holiday, I gave him two live worms as a treat. He gets really excited over that. I finally got a decent photo from the short end of the tank- in showing his colors, that is- the angle and composition are poor, but you can see the bright blue on edge of fins. So I think he's feeling good.

Bothers me that I still don't know what was off, though. The water quality? temperature? food? was he a bit ill or just had a mood swing. Who knows. 

last acorns

I finally cracked the last gathered white oak acorns a few days ago.

They were all bad. Had been in a single layer in a basket that I agitated quite often, I didn't see any visible mold on the outsides, but once opened, those not insect infested or rotted to a powder, had this discoloration- starting to spoil.

Threw them all out. 

I'm still gathering a whole lot of pin oak acorns out of the yard, every few days, to dispose of on walks in the woods . . . where I think the animals have been eating them, because the last spot I dumped acorns, I found a pile of deer droppings this time. 

Well at least they were discovered by the wildlife, outside of my yard.

Fred

There's only one plant in our household that has a name- the huge schefflera in the dining room window, that my husband had for years before we married. It's Fred (and we hang Christmas ornaments on him in Dec). After the chop, lots of leaves are turning yellow and falling off. I kind of expected that. Dismayed maybe I've harmed the plant, more than just a setback. But no fear- new tender young leaves are growing!

I cut down

all the dead cardinal climber vines off the deck- after the first freeze they go from attractive with a bit of color change, to limp and slimy all at once. Couldn't help collecting the fallen seed off the deck, even though I don't really need to save any- there's still plenty in the original packet.

just before

the freeze, I took these pictures. My older sister sent me a packet of wildflower seeds (deer resistant). It was late in the season, but I scattered them in one of the empty garden beds. And some grew! They came up a month or so ago. This is definitely a marigold- and one of the few left still alive after the chill.

These I think are alyssum

and this one came up in the middle of something else, looks like a monarda

I don't recognize the others- and it was hard to tease out the small weeds from among some of them

but they're all done for now anyways, from the cold

first freeze

was last night. I spent the last two days raking leaves and picking up more pin oak acorns out of the grass. Put some leaf litter/grass clippings mulch around and over some of my plants just as it was getting dark yesterday- the new rosemary, sweetspire, hyssop (which also got cut back to two inches), wild geraniums, lemon balm and tarragon, etc. 

A few days earlier I had spread the compost on all the garden beds- it was just barely enough. I didn't have any left over to feed the ferns, hostas or other yard perennials. Now I'll have to spend this afternoon cutting down the plants killed by frost, that just look icky- the coleus and celosia, the black tatters of leaves on monarda and joe pye stems. Other things that just look dried up, I'll leave be until spring. 

Pictures from compost spreading day, just because it looked so rich. Momentarily- as soon as this was done, I put leaf/grass mulch over the copmost layer. I could tell the soil had been neglected past two seasons- removing some weeds before spreading the compost, found the soil was hard, dry and somewhat compacted. Maybe that's why I haven't seen squirrels digging in the garden so much this year. I thought it was because the hawks and owls passing through our yard more often had taken some of them- but maybe also because the soil just wasn't as soft and inviting, when I hadn't been mulching and feeding it. Well, now it got that treatment again.

another angle- still just as empty.

There are some things still here, though- rue looks great, as if re-flourishing since its little trim

Borage coming up in bed one also has lovely bluish hue, robust leaves

Nicotiana in a few scattered spots

This tall one next to the dill has been blooming like crazy

other side

The dill is over my head again! I would cut the umbrels for more dried seed, but they're still green yet

Here's a smaller dill alone in bed three. 

A few small leeks in bed ten. I'd like to eat them, but want them to grow bigger first.

I cut some bug-riddled leaves out of the lovage, and that looks better now 

My new rosemary looks rather pale. I trimmed it a bit more (using for tea), the leaves look all faintly speckled as if from aphid bites . . . 

The blue sage still has tons of color, though quite a few flower stems are gone to seed now

I found a few bees on them- I think affected by the cold, because they were moving very slowly

but that allowed me to get quite close

I also brought in a lot of potted plants against the cold, and put the young beautyberries in the mini greenhouse to overwinter (never got around to planting them). More pics soon.

Why do I tend to forget how much I love gardening, until I'm out there again? Tidying things up, seeing the richness of the turned compost, digging my fingers through the soil, leaning against the sun-warmed bricks of the bed edges, just feel so content and happy in what I'm doing. It's good work.

work outside

Turned my compost pile. Thought a post was missing that holds up the perimeter of the bin container- but it was actually broken a third from the top, and bent down inside the edge. Don't know how that happened. This was my process, same as last time but I don't recall if I wrote it down: pull off the perimeter and move to the new spot. Lay small sticks or dry stems (usually from monarda, echinacea or pye weed trimming) in the bottom of the new bin space. Pull and shovel all material out of the other, smaller metal bin under the deck (where fresh kitchen waste goes- it has a sealed lid). Dump that into the wheelbarrow, ferry to the new bin spot, shovel into the base. Take all the unfinished stuff off the top of the old compost pile, put into the new bin spot. Sifting out sticks along the way, which get carried back over to the metal bin, to be the new base of that one. When I finally get down to mostly unrecognizable stuff, mostly blackened, with just a few leaf bits solid in the bottom of the old pile, it's ready to go into the garden. 

It wasn't as much this year- or just got compressed down- I can't remember if I dug this out in spring- maybe that's why . . .

I'm pretty satisfied with my process now, though it confounds my husband when he helps me with it (last year, when I had no energy). Basically, I use the smaller metal bin for fresh kitchen waste, any food material- because animals can't get in there. The big bin in the rear of the yard, gets leaves and yard waste only. Until it's time to turn the pile, then the metal bin contents get shifted to be the bottom of the new pile where it gets buried very deep and keeps breaking down until it's time to turn the pile all over again. I think this helps keep pests out of my pile- there's still a hole in the side of the plastic bin perimeter where something chewed to get in once . . . especially in the winter.

I only shoveled out a fifth of the compost so far, into the wheelbarrow and left up by the garden overnight. Too tired to continue, plus I saw a wren poking around in the metal bin's base of stems (before I shut the lid) and thought I'll leave the exposed garden soil for a day, let the birds pick through that perhaps. I'd scraped up all the mulch off the garden beds, pulled some dead plants and weeds. Left the dill (looking lovely!) one swiss chard and one collards plant, one big borage that regrew in fall, and a half dozen white nicotiana (self-seeded). 

Tomorrow I will spread the compost on all the beds, then some grass clippings/leaf mulch back over it, and maybe dig more rocks into the base of the bed edges again. Lots more work to do with that.

I found that one of my pathetic kidney bean plants, actually made beans in the pod. But they're not red. I picked it too soon, should have let stay on the plant to dry out.

There's lots of maple and oak leaves to start raking up. I was concerned that I'll forget where my new young plants are back there on the slope- the elephant's foot, st. john's wort and sumac. But I found the first two stand up just tall enough above the litter I can see them well (if I remember to pay attention) and the little sumac has flame-red leaves now since the first frost:

So it really stands out.

end of acorns, first step

Well, almost. There's a few left in the last basket. I spent a few hours going through all the acorns. Because I'd forgotten to sift them around for a day (or maybe two), and also perhaps the baskets didn't have an open enough weave on the bottom, and I found that a lot of them were suddenly going moldy. There was also film of mold growing on the bottom of the baskets, I threw one out and scoured the other with bleach and set it outside on the porch to dry, ick. 

So while the other day, I felt like more than half the acorns were good, which was pleasing, this time most of them were bad, which was discouraging and gross. I threw a lot out without even bothering to open them, due to the mold. And then I drained the bowl of opened good acorns but got distracted with another task out of the room for a moment, forgot to come back to it, and they discolored very quickly. Looked bad enough I threw those out too. This was halfway thru sorting all the acorns though, so it wasn't a total loss. 

I ended up with a full bucket of bad acorns, full bucket of shells again, paper bag full of solid but with-a-worm-hole nuts to discard in the woods, and just over half a quart bag of good, clean ones to go in the freezer. Very tired of it. There's just a few handfuls left that weren't ready to split yet. I shake the basket when I walk past through the room, to keep 'em aerated. (Though only one layer now, so they probably don't need it).

The bad acorns and moldy ones this time around disgusted me so much, I felt compelled to scour my kitchen sink and other things just to feel clean again.

acorns day 4

of the shelling stage, still. Heaped a plate again with ones that were starting to split open. Learned that the quick spoilage happens from the nutmeat getting exposed to air, so if you drop them immediately in water, they don't start to discolor. So I tried that.

It definitely made the job go quicker- instead of making continual trips across the room to freezer, I just plop them all in the bowl of water, rinse and pat dry and freeze at the end. Above pic, all the acorns that split entirely in half while I was shelling, so I finished them right away. Set aside the ones that remained intact with their skins on to do after.

While I was splitting these, to check for bad spots, the ones in the bowl soaked out enough tannins to color it all yellow.

My bowl for shells filled for the third time since starting all this, so I empty in the yard under shrubs as mulch.

And the bowl (slightly smaller) of bad acorn discards, filled for the fourth time, prompting a walk through the woods . . . 

Almost filled a quart bag entire, from this shelling alone.

first frost

Last night. I had just planted out more of my new plants during the day- slender mountain mint, sedum and New England aster on the larger sunny sideyard. (Probably the last will get eaten by the deer, though I'm taking the chance. These plants much bigger than the ones I tried setting out before, if that makes any difference). They'd been in the mini greenhouse until now, I still have the bergamot and American beautyberry in there. Undecided where to put them. Have a full week of sun and warmer nights up ahead, so I can take my time. I planted the elephant's foot out on the easement, near where there's yellow salvia, ferns and solomon's seal under a maple. 

Brought some of the plants into the basement window for the night: all the geraniums. They're looking better since the temperatures dropped this past week. I think because it killed off some of the insects that were plaguing them.

The citronella is still one of my favorites. 

Lime scented one is upstairs

next to the stevia. Which surprised me by sprouting tiny new leaves at base of some stems.

My one echeveria 

It's still quite small for the pot size

Doing quite poorly is my cuban oregano. Leaves are all small, tons have dropped from the lower stems. Not sure why, though I suspect insects again. Planning to clip all this back and restart in another pot.

I did a drastic thing to our big schefflera in the dining room window. Cut all the leggy tall stems, and replanted in the pot. I did one first about two weeks ago, dipped the end in rooting hormone, and watched to see if the leaves would die and fall off, or if it would recover and sprout new growth. It appears to be doing the latter! So I went ahead and pruned, replanted all the other tall stems:

Window feels very exposed now, to say the least.