the garden is winding down

I have to pick beans several days in a row now, to get enough for a side dish. 

Pulled the last of the carrots this week. I think next year I won't do the short 'n sweet ones, they are just too much trouble to clean and peel.

Soon the beets will be done too. Tomatoes are still holding on, I've started trimming out dying foliage so its looking more barren but easier to pick the tomatoes! Chard and collards perking up and looking better with the cooler weather now and my asparagus looks amazing but I didn't get a photo of it yet.

Rosemary is doing grand- 

and the two pots of hyssop nice.

I cut back the chocolate mint on the deck and that one is sprouting new leaves, looking better now too. Basil is starting to be done for the year, parsley never took off, and I've eaten most of the scant summer savory. Still have plenty of thyme and chives though!

more garden work

on structure- soon there will be fence! Gah, this is taking me so long. I've mowed as short as possible around the bed perimeter, laid down cardboard 

(it felt fitting, but also sad, to cut up this pretty floral-patterned box for part of the smothering)

and then mulch. This is where the fence will go. 

Startling how much tidier and more purposeful my garden looks with just a mulched boundary. I intend to smother and mulch the paths between the beds as well. Here you can see my nepitella on the outside edge of bed 4- 

doing nicely!

Where the border goes around corner angle, I roughly transplanted pink turtlehead a while back- and they all did just fine with that move. Mulched them with leaves- 

and planted the blue lobelia here. Not sure if it's the best spot, will see.

Also put in the star-eyed grass on the other side, flanking the rosemary.

Photos don't do justice to how pretty these little flowers are.

brick edges

I've been doing a lot of work the past few weeks to replace old rotting wooden edges (railroad ties and fence posts) from beds 7 and 8 with concrete bricks to match the rest of the garden. First was all the work to waterproof seal and paint the bricks- two layers each on all sides, with time to dry between and periodic shifting into the house to avoid rain. Then waiting days for another dry spell to do more painting. Finally was able to set them in place. Here's a few work-in-progress pictures.

Bed 7 on the right is already redone, bed 8 on the left kinda out of picture has the old edges pulled off (long sides- the short ends previously had bricks)- and in the corner here you can see my pretty purple clematis!

Bed 8 with the sides removed and the mulch heaped up out of the way-

and complete!

7 done and 8 incomplete-

7 and 8 both done-

Here's bed 8 with lettuces and peas in the foreground (of bed 6)

I finished the job on a morning sprinkling rain but due to thunderstorm heavy in the afternoon- didn't want the raised built-up-with-riches soil to start washing away so I worked in the mud. Thus the bricks got dirty.

7 and 8 redone in the background, 9 in the foreground with young collard greens, leeks and turnips- and rosemary right up front. (It's the only one survived the winter- my other rosemary plant on the opposite end of the garden died).

So nice to have the beds all finally matching! And solid, and will last for decades. They are not perfectly straight, but much tidier than the old bricks- as you can see in some of the photos where the wobbly edge of bed 6 is across the way from bed 8- but that's merely asthetic, not a functional issue and it's easy enough to level them out when I care enough to find time.

Next structural project for the garden is to actually put the fence in- hence the red flags marking where an underground wire lies.

what we ate today

out of the garden- rosemary on salmon (with a garlic butter sauce), and tokyo bekana (chinese cabbage) as a side. (Paired with carrots and brown rice cooked in chicken stock. It was delicious!

early plants

I haven't done my usual walk all around the property to see what's growing, but here's a few pictures from the last couple days minor work outside. In the garden, one plant I moved to shade spot on the inner ends of beds 3 and 4 the year before, survived: a catmint.

I made no extra effort to protect plants from the severe cold we had this winter, so pleased and surprirsed to find that both lemon balm

and sorrel survived (though tarragon, winter savory and bunching onions did not. And sage is gone. Remains to be seen if my sculpit will regrow).

My lavender looks okay, if reduced. Both rosemary plants are browned and bronzed in the upper foliage

but some green remains on the lower parts of the plants, so I hope with a trim they'll be okay.

Similar with my potted thyme, which I really thought would die in the greenhouse this winter! (camera refused to focus on the green leaf)

Chives

and parsley are also still alive.

Also my happy thing- a new tree! Pictured from my bedroom window.

In the fall, I planted a young redbud out front (don't remember if I posted about it here). I've long wanted a redbud out front. I don't know how old this one was when I bought it from the local nursery, but it's about the same size as the one I've had for years on the sideyard, and a better shape. I am hoping it blooms this year. I put it where a tree died not long after I moved into this house, and the stump was left there (on purpose) for years- I think more than five years- with those yellow-flowering sedums planted around/over it. 

When I put this tree in, that stump had rotted out enough that I literally just pulled hunks out of the ground. Very little effort. It was super easy to spade up the soft humus and soil- easiest hole for a tree planting I've ever done. And I hope the rotted wood will feed this young tree well.

reckoning

There's a lot to re-evaluate as I start working in the garden again. I found out which plants can't survive the winter without extra mulch and care. I've lost my potted figs, chocolate mint, green onions, tarragon, some stinking hellebores, the hyssop, winter savory and probably more that I can't remember now. Or have forgotten their names. 

I was surprised to find that both rosemary plants are still alive- doing better when I ignored them. My shady sideyard has been overwhelmed by the joe pye weed and black-and-blue salvia (which pleases me). The salvia crowded out the lamb's ears and gladiolas. Somehow I don't mind loosing some glads- I'm not as fond of them anymore- but I do miss the lamb's ears. Mabye I will try to move them to a different spot, because I love seeing the blue salvia thrive. I even saw two hummingbirds fighting over the space this week! 

I find I'm not too keen on the yellow salvia under my trees anymore, or the sensitive fern that looks terrible half the year, or the 'autumn joy' sedums that the deer munch on so they don't look great and have very few blooms. My lilac appears to be suffering, some branches have died, and my lavender is much reduced in size, but I cut out a lot of dead stems and hope it will grow back.

Today I pulled out a ton of mock strawberry in and around some garden beds, and straightened out one whole brick row of edging, on bed 4. I thought I was lining the bricks up straight enough, but then when I got to the end the last brick wouldn't meet the corner one square. So I took them all off again and ran a string line from one end to the other. Redid it- much straighter! Packed the clay soil in tight underneath and hopefully I won't have to re-do this one for several years (the clay gets pretty solid). I'm pleased because this bed has always had a crooked edge where the stump of an old tree never came out. I finally broke up and removed most of that. Then planted some calamint (nepitella) along the edge- which I'd pulled up when trimming in the front bed. Stems had rooted where they trailed on the ground. Easy to move and put in more areas. Such a bright, sharp scent.

The lovage there at the end wasn't doing too great but a few weeks ago I cut out yellowing foliage, weeded around it, mulched and watered. It's perking up a little bit.

In bed 1, I yanked out all the mock strawberry but left half a dozen of this plant that's growing there as volunteer (or weed) also. I've always left a few of these around the yard, they seem to get eaten more by the insects - so I view it as a decoy or trap plant. I still don't know what it is!

I was also pleased to see that the little broken stone "mowing strip" I dug in along the outside base of bed 1, is mostly still in place! There were some weeds in the cracks but once I pulled those up, it was far easier to make this a clean edge when mowing. Encourages me to continue with that project (I have a lot of rocks stacked on my bench intended for this). There are more edging bricks to straighten too (as visible on the left).

Here's the few herbs I have: parsley, thyme and chives. All bought as starts from the nursery months ago, I didn't do anything from seed this year. With my cat Eliza in the window.

She was meowing at me.

I had basil and mint also, but they died. I forget to water sometimes, still. I've removed and dumped the soil from the planter boxes that hung on my deck railings. One was badly cracked and spilled- I'd fixed it with duct tape years ago but it wasn't holding and looked awful. Another was warped, and all four the plastic really faded and discolored. Not sure yet if I will replace those or use them somewhere else. 

It's a lot of work but I'm trying to just do a little bit at a time. Mostly focused on rebuilding and fixing structures in the garden, improving the soil again (when I pulled off the bricks, nice to see the soil was still dark and healthy-looking under the dried crusty top inches), and getting rid of weeds. Have to figure out a fencing solution too, or the rabbits will just eat everything I grow. Oddly, I have not seen many squirrels in my yard this year. We do have red-tailed hawks, an owl and foxes that come through regularly, I wonder if they have just reduced the numbers. Or if they don't have as many nuts to bury, or if they aren't interested in digging in my garden because the soil got so hard and compacted without me working and amending it.

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.