woodpecker

Moving shadow on the dining room table alerted me that a bird was very near the window- I was actually able to get a few photos of it in tree branches right outside. I think it's a downy woodpecker, but maybe the hairy woodpecker- it was moving constantly so the photos aren't sharp and hard to tell.

I wonder if it's the one that cleaned out the hole in our maple tree.

small eats

Not much alive in the garden now. Rain, and possibly snow this week. Found a way that I like to eat the sculpit: sautéed with onions in a bit of butter, with pasta or cous cous. 

Tried it the first way in some leftover mac 'n cheese to dress it up, surprised how good it was. Cut more next time, served it as a side dish with cous cous and salmon. Very good like that!

Also have finally started using the winter savory regularly, it thrives all winter so might as well. Last week I simmered lentils with just the winter savory and a bit of salt at the end. It was so flavorful my husband asked if I'd put a chunk of pork fat in there (though it's been a long time since I trimmed pork chops for that). Nope, just the winter savory! 

Yesterday I made a small meat pie, which I usually like with thyme and bay leaf. I used the winter savory this time, plus a handful of baby kale leaves- and again, it was better than I'd expected. Definitely to repeat.

greenhouse fix

It was warm today- nearly sixty! I spent some time out on the deck repairing my greenhouse. Some of the plastic sheeting had ripped in the wind. Had a large panel of polycarbonate that just fit the door so I drilled holes and fastened that on. Then put smaller patches of thinner plastic panels from various things on either side of the door. It looks so clear! but you can tell by how many screws are showing, how patched-together it still is.

Sides and back are still just plastic sheeting, I'm fine with that for now.

another violet!

Hard to see, but in one cutting pot I found a bit of soil pushed up- it's finally growing! The bit of new growth is on the left edge- 

It's barely even green yet, so tender pale. It will be 'vintage lace'. So yes, worth keeping them under glass for nearly a year waiting.

moss

surviving bekana

Last night was supposedly 26° (I didn't get up at the coldest point to check) so I cut all the lettuces beforehand- light leafy simpsons

and the darker romaine/ceasar, webb wonder and crisp mint.

(The sad thing is my kids don't appreciate it. My oldest said yesterday when I made a salad: "I don't like your lettuce, Mom. Why don't you grow iceberg lettuce?" Gah!) Cut the lettuces because I didn't want to find them all a frozen slushy mess the next morning, but I pushed mulch up against the tokyo bekana and covered all of those with plastic cloches. They are just fine (and have less slug damage):

I also tossed more leaf mulch and an upended pot over my lemon balm, which is still green, knowing there's more warm days ahead might as well keep it going a bit longer.

The rest of the plants, just have mulch. I didn't even cover my camellia. Rhododendron leaves droop and curl at night. Sweet alyssum just keeps on thriving! This is why I bought seeds of several colors, I'd love to have this edging the front bed next spring/summer/fall- heck maybe all year round! right now that space I extended is just a wide swath of leaf mulch, I need something in there to look decent late in the season and I bet this will be it.

Another plant doing fine even though it's colder, is the sculpit. Its leaves are twice from in spring!

I ate some in scrambled eggs with tatsoi yesterday. It's not my favorite taste, but I want to find ways to use a plant that does so well in the early spring/late fall. 

angelfish update

She's a little better. Scrape on the head is already healing, and the pectoral fin is in use, although she seems to move it gingerly. Half got completely torn off- oh it must hurt. I feel so bad for her.

a little work

Outside. It's getting colder. The ground muddy from recent rain. Some of my little contraptions holding soap to deter deer aren't in good shape- the one that's just a peak over the soap basket keeps riding up on the line, and another made from a tray that had holes I taped over, looks like it leaked. I replaced both today with new upended containers, that will shield rain off the soap better. So far seems to be working- I can't really tell much because the hostas have gone dormant, but the forsythia, young shrubs and oakleaf hydrangea appear untouched. More telling, I no longer see tracks or find piles of deer droppings in the yard.

Dumped my slug traps this morning. I've caught four or five fat slugs each time I refill- leave sit for three or four days and then empty before it gets smelly. I do my mixture leaner than the recommendations I found online. I use about two cups warm water, one teaspoon sugar and one teaspoon yeast. I bet I could do with less sugar, too. It lures the slugs, but doesn't get stinky as fast (first time I also used flour, as one website suggested- that went rank very quick! Don't need the flour). 

Squirrel has been digging among the lettuces and in the empty beds again. He can't make a mess of my planter boxes though, because I put wire over those. Which bows down in the middle now so I bet the squirrel was there sitting on it at least once.

My meals this week are planned around eating what little is left in the garden, before colder nights and/or snow finally kills the plants. Last night cut all the chard for a pasta dish (the leaves were small but plentiful). Today I'm putting tatsoi and sculpit in eggs for lunch, tomorrow will use sage and purple dead nettle in quesadillas- there's plenty of that coming up around the garden and yard again.

Tonight will cut lettuce to go in hamburgers and maybe a small salad. Tomorrow will use tokyo bekana in a stir-fry. And then I might finally make a pie from the sunberries I froze all summer.

bird encounter

A few weeks ago- when my pole beans were still up- I was down under the deck and saw a bird flit out of the euonymus into the bean vines. I thought it was the wren, but when it came closer, hopping through the lettuces and up onto the dry clematis stems, I saw it had a dark tuft on its head, and a perkier stance- a titmouse! It came closer, hopping onto the wood bench near where I usually sit, and then up onto a pot with dried coleus I hadn't cleaned up yet. I stood very still- I was only a few feet behind the chair. It seemed to have a very large nare which I thought was odd, then it started poking its beak in the soil just inside the edge of the pot, tipped its head to look, poked again. I saw it was actually holding a large seed (the open space behind the seed was what I'd thought to be its nare). How I wish I'd had my camera in pocket. Then I must've made an involuntary movement- the bird suddenly and very quickly flew away. I keep remembering the moment though, how perfectly lively, alert and dainty the bird, how close it was.

One of the maples on the shady sideyard has always had this big dark spot on its lower trunk- looks like where a branch once came off. Now it's obviously a hole, with raw scraped edges. 

I am pretty certain an animal cleared out a cavity to live in- unless my movements nearby made it decide that's not a safe place after all and it didn't stay. It looks too small for a raccoon, so I think probably a woodpecker. But I've been watching and haven't yet seen a bird (or other animal) go in/out.

Even longer ago- many weeks now, there was a morning I looked out the kitchen window and surprised to see two birds very close- a northern flicker and a smaller woodpecker - downy or hairy?- both on the balusters of the deck where there's holes from the carpenter bees last year. They were only a few spaces apart from each other, inspecting the holes together. I did run to get my camera that time, but when I came back they were gone. Darn. It would've been a great photo, so close, and then I might have been able to identify the woodpecker.

early plans

It feels too soon to plan the garden, but some seed companies are already out of stock! (I guess that means a lot more people are gardening which is nice to know) so I placed a few orders online while I can. With my favorite local growers plus a new one I discovered Native Seed Search. I actually don't need much garden seed- the only thing I usually grow that I'm out of is peppers- but always like to try something new. So this is what's coming in the mail:

Carrots- 'Bolero', 'Dragon' and 'Red Core Chantenay'

Sweet Alyssum in three shades of purple / pink

Sweet peppers

Benne (sesame seed)

Melon de Castilla

German Thyme

'Slo Bolt' Cilantro

Cowpeas 'Corrientes'

Ancho peppers

Turnip Rutabaga 'Westport Macomber'

Salad Burnet

Sweet Mace (aka Mexican Tarragon)

Peanuts 'Virginia Jumbo Champ'

If I have success with these seeds, then I won't have to buy all my replacement herbs from the nursery every year- will only need stevia- which I really miss- and rosemary- if the sweet mace works as a good substitute for tarragon. 

I'd also like to add to my garden strawberries, potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, garlic etc . . .  Have to figure some of that out- more space, more sun, what made the potatoes get disease two years in a row so I gave up on them. Maybe next year, or the one after.

pretty pinks

'Frosted Brandy' african violet bloomed: 

It does have the darker edging- with glittery speckles if you look close-

Still enjoying the flowers of 'Bob Serbin' too.

And my tradescantia zebrina nearby must like its new location- I found a new pair of leaves growing where one of the stems had been trimmed.

not so great

It hasn't been the best week for my fishes. I lost another guppy- yesterday, after tank maintenance. When I dose liquid vitamins, the small fishes always dart around gobbling up the granules. I never thought this would harm them, but later in the day found one blue guppy expired on the substrate, looking bloated. I will start stirring that into a cup of tank water to dissolve first, from now on. Six guppies now. 

Last week one white cloud got caught by the siphon hose. I netted it and returned to the tank. I think it's the one that's been looking paler and thinner than the others- can't do anything but wait to see if it recovers. But they seemed fewer when they were feeding, past few days. I made an effort to count closely, and there's only ten. I don't know if one is unwell and hiding, or if it's died. There is a minnow that seems to stay apart from the rest- on one side of the tank by himself, but it's hard to tell if it's sick or just been ousted. Earlier in the week lots of displaying and chasing again. It was really amusing to see three males rising through the water column, furiously vibrating their fins at each other in parallel. Most of them look bold, and bright fins.

My angelfish has startled again. A few times mildly this week, then once very badly yesterday. I don't know what caused it as I approached the tank not holding anything or moving suddenly (which often seems to trigger her fear). She bolted away into the corner, crashed into the wall behind the heater and was there head down absolutely still for a minute or so, stunned. I really thought she'd died this time. Then she jolted out of the corner- has scraped off some scales on her head, and one pectoral fin is injured- held clamped tight to her side. When she started moving it a bit hours later (very stiffly and only partly extended) I saw it's torn and there's a bloody streak. I feel so bad for her. I don't know why she keeps getting scared. Maybe too alone now, without the tetras. I don't know how to solve this. Maybe a different fish as dithers? 

I think I did figure out why she startles so much, though. From when she was very small, and the tank used to be down in the dark hallway. My husband would go through there to his office, often holding his silver laptop and one day he wondered if light reflecting off the laptop frightened the young angelfishes- maybe it looked like a much bigger fish to them. So he stood there in the dark hallway and tipped the laptop to bounce the light off it- and the baby angels bolted into the corner. After that he tried to be more careful and hold it differently so it didn't flash at them, but I don't know how long this was going on. He told me about it much later. My best guess is that Miss Beautiful was simply traumatized by that, and I don't know if she will ever get over it.

She didn't want her picture taken (understandably)

Meanwhile, I still have nine black skirt tetras living in the 20H. Most of them they look perfectly fine and they eat eagerly, though one is usually pale. 

Probably stressed. I do a large water change every week, rinsing one or the other of the filter sponges, and have been testing the parameters to make sure nitrates don't get too high. Also dropping in every hornwort trimming from the other tank, so they have plenty of plant mass to give some natural filtration. They like it dim- I noticed when I put a row of coleus pots on the table in front of their tank, they started coming out of the corner and hanging around in the open space more. But I know it's too crowded in there. It's been a month and nobody has even asked, where I posted to re-home them. 

The only ones doing great? My little bowl of shrimps. Nothing bothers those guys! Well, and the kuhli loaches in my angelfish tank. The few glimpses I catch of them, all four look fat and content.

some houseplant notes

Potted up one of my smaller african violets- from its small paper cup 

 into a regular pot

Took a cutting from the pothos in a sub-irrigated planter, added it to the pot with the one that came from the angelfish tank, and braided cord around the pot to hang it. Thicker on the line from the pole hook to where it divides to go around the pot, idea is maybe the vine will climb the braid and then I can train it to grow along the pole. Always wanted to have a pothos vine climbing around near the ceiling, never had it work before.

It's immediate neighbor is the tradescantia zebrina- I stuck all the rooted cuttings into the pot so it looks a lot fuller now-

and the new stems grew upright this much in just a week

Also removed two small bits of creeping charlie from a regular pot and added them to the hanging one

which got a new string as it was crooked before

It looks better now. Seems to prefer hanging. Stays a lot drier I've noticed.

Aglaonema has gotten leggy. I moved it to a different spot, guessing it needs more light.

Finally, my two parlor palms weren't doing so great again. I suspected spider mites and sprayed them twice for that over the past month. Older leaves have drying tips but the younger ones appear fresh green entirely, so I hope they're doing better. 

seeds to save- and bake!

I saved hyssop seed. Fall from the little throats of the dried flowers-

Mixed with the chaff-

Cleaned up ready to store. Don't have a good reason for this- I still have plenty of hyssop seed in the original packet I bought, and I now have seven two-year-old plants in the yard that will grow back every spring. I'm not picturing planting more hyssop, but as it so generously seed, I thought I'd save it. Can always take to the local seed/plant exchange which I skipped this year due to covid (they held it as an outdoor event but I didn't go). Looking forward to spring!

On another note, I did something I never thought I would- I took some of my saved seeds out of the fridge and baked them to use as pie weights. My usual collection of dried beans for pie weights- which I've been using over and over for many years- isn't quite enough when I make two pies. So as I have far more purple-podded pole bean seed than I actually need next year, I picked out fifteen of the fattest smoothest ones to save (planning for ten to twelve good plants) and poured the majority into the uncooked pie crust shells with the old dried beans.

Then they went in the oven. But the center bubbled up under the new beans- I don't know if because there simply wasn't enough to weigh it down, or if the beans weren't dry enough, and the moisture did something.

Well, it still made a fine pie (the beans get removed and filling poured in, which was cooked separate).