life in the garden

 Tomatillo flower!

 The first baby melon!

Crikey, look at the armor on that thistle!

This is the first thistle I've ever seen here,

and I've been watching it grow with a sort of horrified fascination.

It's massive now. Taller than me.

And it is beginning to go to seed because

every time I gear up to tackle removing it...

...I find a butterfly or a bee reveling in the flowers.

So I decide to wait another day or two.

If I have thousands of thistles next year,

it will be entirely My Own Fault.

Even the goats did not tackle this plant,

and who can blame them?

Yeah! Who can blame us?

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

 

~~~~~

bank holiday

And another big project is underway!

On the west edge of the Upper West Side,

between the perimeter fence and the driveway,

is a narrow rocky bank.

It is partially supported by an old stone wall

that has been gradually collapsing for decades.

At the base of the wall is a narrow strip of rocky garden,

with violets and daylilies, and other lovely blooming things.

"Where are these violets?" you might well be asking.

"And what daylilies?"

 Fair question!
I think they're under here:

Buried beneath a tangle of bittersweet, grape,

forsythia, rubus...and did I mention bittersweet?

Every Spring I spend days hand-cutting and removing invasives

before the violets and daylilies (and I) become overwhelmed.

And prior to this year, I have always managed to enjoy 

at least some flower garden.

But last Winter, when a lot of this sort of thing was going on:

there was an unfortunate incident involving the plowman.

The result was a sadly gouged-up garden

buried beneath a heavy layer of driveway gravel and stone.

It wasn't the plowman's fault; my driveway is terrible.

I am very fortunate to have a plowman, after long years without.

(Some years, I call my driveway The Snowshoe Highway.)

But I must admit, it was disheartening

to imagine what the "garden" would look like come Spring.

And sure enough, almost all the plants appearing this Spring

 were those hardy and tenacious and prolific invasives.

So, when I recently hired the brushcutting fellow,

one of his first assignments was to take 99% of this bank vegetation

Right Down To The Ground.

Here's a progress shot, looking north after the first session.

See the bright green area along the fence to the left?

That's the edge of the terrace garden.

For scale, that fence is 6-foot woven wire with 2x4" openings.

Which makes this amazing squash plant about 7 feet tall so far:

It's a Sow True Seed winter squash, called

Pink Jumbo Banana. 

The description says each squash can weigh 25-40 pounds!

Do you think I should make little hammocks to support the 

two baby squash(!) already growing high up on the fence? 

I'm thinking maybe.

~~~

Today the brushcutting was finished.
When my younger helper comes on Wednesday,
he can pull all the wilted (by then) cuttings off the bank
and pile them up on the Very Raised Bed.
I am loving having a way to make good use of such material!

Now, I would love to have your advice, all you lovely gardeners!

I'd like to plant the whole bank with perennials this Autumn.
Any recommendations for plants?
What are your undemanding perennial favorites?
I'm in Zone 5, and the bank is rocky (of course).
It gets a lot of afternoon sun.
I'm hoping for plants that will spread densely,
but not grow tall enough to shade the terrace garden above.

So far, I'm considering daylilies and iris
(tall, so they would be planted at the base of the stone wall),
and several varieties of shorter coreopsis along the upper bank.
I've never grown coreopsis; not even dyer's coreopsis.
It is an annual, and since it is so difficult to garden here,
the return of perennials is important. To my sanity.
But...it seems there are now perennial coreopsis,
reputed to be equally hardy and even more colorful.
And perhaps a dye source! Worth a try.

That's all I've come up with for possibilities so far.
Please, please feel free to make suggestions.
Prepping and planting this garden is going to be a lot of work.
Any guidance to making it successful will be much appreciated!

~~~~~

sunday

It is Sunday this time. I checked.

Right after morning chores, Piper and I headed to the pond.

Our trip had three purposes.
The first was, of course, Piper Entertainment.

By the way, it is really difficult to get pictures of Piper lately.

She deliberately avoids the camera.

As soon as she sees it, she swiftly ducks her head

and looks at me reproachfully from the corner of her eye.

Like this:

It's truly bizarre.

All I can think of is she has started her own blog

and resents my use of her images on this one.

~~~

Secondly, our trip was part of the new

Cloud Harvest Cashmere Capture and Release Program.

Specifically, I am live-trapping chipmunks and mice in the goat barn,

and releasing them in a lovely location with natural shelter,

abundant food sources, running water,

and a lack of human habitation for miles in all directions.

I wouldn't do this when wild food sources are not available,

so it is important to do it now, well before Winter.

Plenty of time for the critters to make cozy nests

and gather up supplies to replace the oats

they've been stealing from the goats all day, every day.

Piper hasn't made the connection yet,

but every time the little traps close,

she gets to go to the pond!

Yesterday we went three times.

I will not be surprised if we do the same today.

Current tally: Mice 3, Chipmunks 4

~~~

The third reason for our trip this morning was to collect goldenrod.

Dyepot time!

I only took about 20 stems, because the flowers were being

enjoyed by thousands of tiny mystery insects.

Any entymologists here?

The bugs were thin, less than 1/2 inch long,

with orange heads and dark grey bodies. Very stylish.

They did not wish to leave the flowers.

I had to touch each one gently so it would fly to another flowerhead.

Back at home, google failed(!) to identify the bugs.

I am just hoping they do not destroy vegetables,

because despite my careful efforts

I'm sure I brought a few hundred home.

Since I took so few goldenrods,

I added a bit of Queen Anne's Lace

and a little yarrow.

(It's an experiment. It's ALL an experiment.)

Then I took every whole, clean leaf from each goldenrod stalk.

For some stalks, this meant nearly every leaf.

For others, it meant almost none.

When I was finished, Piper checked my work:

The clean leaves went into a quart jar

and boiling water was added.

I recently read that goldenrod leaves make a nice tea,

so I'll try it and report back.

The dyepot simmered gently all afternoon,
and is now cooling.

It smells nice.

At least, I think so.

But I've heard people complain about a black walnut dyebath,

and I think that smells nice, too.

If this was a scratch-and-sniff picture,
you could all weigh in!

When I first tried botanical dyeing, I intended to keep detailed records:

weights of plants and fiber, temperatures and times, and so on.

And keep samples of all results: fiber, fabric, other.

(Because I have that sciencey mind, you know.)

However, that approach soon seemed pointless. And joyless.

Because the variables are many, and some are uncontrollable.

Replication is, in a word, unlikely.

Now I approach each dyeing experiment

as a potentially lovely surprise.

And some have especially sweet associations:

plant materials collected for me by a forester I used to work with,

or the dye made with leaves and twigs of a tree that meant a lot to me,

and which is now sadly gone.

(Piper killed it - on purpose - but we don't talk about that.)

I don't plan to use today's dye immediately,

but when I do I will post about it.

Have you ever dyed with plants?

I'm sure some of you are far more experienced than I am.

I'd love it if you would share your thoughts - 

or even a link to your favorite dyeing blogpost? - 

in the comments!

~~~~~

a ramble in the gardens

I haven't written much about my gardening endeavors this year,

not because it hasn't been an daily activity for several months...

Remember my seedlings? Much bigger now!

...but because everything has been sooooo slow.

Slow to grow, slow to flower.

Until this past week, the only vegetable I harvested was kale.

Thank you, kale! You have given me hope. And food.

A few days ago, I harvested the first straightneck summer squash

from the new and heavily mulched bed near the goat barn.

At first glance, I thought the camera was over-reacting, but no:

this extreme yellow is the genuine color of the squash:

Like last year, there are little garden beds in multiple places, 

and a slightly larger garden on the edge of the Upper West Side terrace.

The Upper West Side is a goat browse area,

but a small sunny section is fenced off for the garden.

(I have plans to make it bigger next year!)

There are winter squash growing up the 6-foot perimeter fence,

and you can perhaps make out the sweet corn and pole beans in the background:

I tried the corn/beans/squash "companion planting" thing.

So far, not impressed.
It all looks more "naturally competitive" than "companionable" to me:

During Wednesday's daylong deluge, some of the corn took quite a whalloping.
And now we're having very cool weather. Like October-cool.
Will the corn manage to produce ripe ears?
It's a rollercoaster ride, this gardening thing.

And here's a high point:

The very first Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Acorn Squash,
harvested the day after the storm!
This is one of three Sow True Seed heritage squash varieties I planted
as part of Tipper's Blind Pig and the Acorn "Squash Reporters @ Large" project.
For weeks I have been reading about other gardens and other squash,
and wondering if I would have anything to contribute before Winter.
Waiting, waiting, waiting...
Lots of plants. Lots of leaves. Lots of flowers.
Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Look, Tipper! I got one! 

(And many flowers on all three varieties. Fingers crossed!)
~~~

Meanwhile, there's one other precious harvest taking place

by the daily handful:

My lone surviving highbush blueberry
also had a slow, tough haul into Summer,
but is now doing very well indeed!
This is especially satisfying, because last year the bush was clearly
in trouble, striving to recover after a series of catastrophic events.
I did my best to help, but as you know...
well, I love plants, but I'm more useful with animals.

This blueberry bush is a survivor!

Doesn't it make your mouth water?

Mine, too!

~~~

All day long, I have thought today was Sunday.

Even when I was at the dump - which is only open on Saturday -

I told someone I'd see them "tomorrow," meaning Monday.

I wonder what day I will think it is tomorrow.

Whatever day you think it is, I hope you are having a good one!

~~~~~