FALL IS HEATING UP, at least visually, even as temperatures trend downward. Cleanup is (hopefully) under way in earnest, with time out to cook up the last bits from the vegetable garden into a batch of ‘Tomato Junk’ or soup, or local apples into applesauce, checking on the kettles between rounds of raking and cutbacks outdoors. With such delicious reminders of summer and fall in the freezer, and the right plants in the garden, there’s no “end” to fear. Some of us even feel happy about the coming riches: berries and other fruits, bark, new birds. [read more…]
my october garden chores
September 30, 2009 at 8:11 am
{ 10 Comments }
gardeners and frogs, on the edge
September 29, 2009 at 11:02 am
THE FROGBOYS CAN’T BELIEVE IT, EITHER: Another warm-weather season is drawing to a close, and with it the “everybody into the pool” mindset that pretty much sums it up around here will be traded for something involving snowsuits, not swimsuits. Everywhere I look this week, there’s a frogboy on the edge of the colder reality ahead. Meet them in this impromptu little slideshow: [read more…]
brrrr! overwintering tips for tender plants
September 25, 2009 at 12:36 pm
A THREAT OF FROST LAST WEEKEND sent me scurrying to haul in the houseplants, and though it was a false alarm, it’s time: time to make plans for them and for other tender things like cannas and bananas, cordyline and a favorite pelargonium or two in hopes that what I call these “investment plants” (not perennial on their own, but carried over year to year with extra effort by me) are still around come spring. With frost warnings posted here again tonight, what better day to offer tips for how to overwinter some favorites? [read more…]
doodle by andre: beware, the plant police!
September 24, 2009 at 6:00 am
TALK ABOUT THE UNWELCOME WAGON! Bearers of bad tidings like this beware: Loving parents don’t like hearing that their kids are running wild, and especially not from the neighbors, “sorry.” This latest weekly utterance from Andre Jordan reminds me of another doodled pair of boots altogether (not the remarkably similar ones worn by the plant police above).
slideshow: bits of beauty before the fall burn
September 23, 2009 at 7:55 am
IHAVE BURNOUT, BUT THE GARDEN’S ABOUT TO SET ITSELF ON FIRE. Even before it does, though—before it colors up like last year or maybe better with all the rain—I find bits of beauty here and there, among the shagginess and decay, like the moments in this little show. [read more…]
cover crops: feeding the soil that feeds me
September 20, 2009 at 8:29 am
A MONTH OR SO BEFORE KILLING FROST, the vegetable-garden soil that fed me gets a meal, or at least the promise of one. I sow soil-sustaining cover crops (always from non-GMO, organic seed) as the various food crops are harvested, gradually turning my vegetable beds into mini-fields of winter cereal rye (above) and mammoth red clover for the colder months. [read more…]
harvest continues: what’s in your freezer?
September 18, 2009 at 8:28 am
WHAT’S IN YOUR FREEZER? Or should I say freezers, because here I fill two, and am well into the second one already. Tomato- and herb-based concoctions took up all the room in Freezer 1; applesauce and pureed winter squash are quickly populating Number 2. A roundup of harvest-stashing recipes and other tips: [read more…]
doodle by andre: entering the no-mow zone
September 17, 2009 at 7:23 am
YES, PLEASE; HAVE YOUR WAY WITH MY LAWN, TOO; I hear you, Andre. As much as I basically like to mow, I don’t like it as much as the grass apparently liked to grow this wet, cool year. My 2009 lawn was a 1965 Tressy doll, but I couldn’t get the dial to turn the other way–to ungrow–you know? Are you all still in service to your turf (turf serfs, so to speak), too?
i know what birds like: 11 backyard-habitat tips
September 15, 2009 at 9:39 pm
I KNOW WHAT BIRDS LIKE. Boys, perhaps not so much (tee, hee), but birds—well, there I’ve got the knack. As many as 60 species that I can identify visit me each year here in the garden, which was originally planted for attracting them and seems to have succeeded. Fall is a perfect time to add some bird-friendly plantings, since many are woody plants, and also to provide for the most important thing off all: water. Big surprise–it’s all about keeping them fed, watered and sheltered in every season. Here are the essentials: [read more…]
