autumn garden.

The days are chilly, the nights are very cold. The garden is wrapping up slowly. We have pulled out one area of the finished tomato, pepper and cucumber plants. The squash has been picked and the vines cleared. But there are still full areas. Full of red raspberries, full of kale, full of herbs and flowers that seem to go on and on even with freezing temps and frost.



We are still picking kale. I grow a lot of kale because I love it in soups and stews all winter, and also because we have a bunny (she loves it). I pick from a few main plants all summer and leave a few others for late fall - just because I love how beautiful they look when they are huge twisty frilly trees of vibrant color. We still have wonderberries and huckleberries, swiss chard, calendula, feverfew, parsley, lovage. The amaranth is battered from our strong October winds but we leave some because we love all the color.


I have been slowing digging up and re-potting herbs. I have brought in parsley, thyme, celery and basil. We are starting trays of greens for our indoor garden, but I love how long we can keep herbs going when they move to a sunny window.


We have planted more greens and radishes along with a few other things, but they grow more slowly with the cold and darkness.



We leave some things for the birds - some currants still on bush, sunflower heads bent and dried full of seeds, and the compost pile is a popular spot for the juncos. And the chipmunk clears out most of the tomatoes that I pretend I don't see (am I the only one who gets really tired of tomatoes by mid October?).


I do love this time of year - the cold, the smell of the air. Tucking in, laying to rest, getting ready for winter.

How is your garden?

herb pressing.

We love to press herbs and flowers and use them for crafts like ornaments, bookmarks, gift tags or artwork. We pick all kinds of flowers - from lilacs and violets to those lovely flowers atop the arugula going to seed and dill tops.


Pressing flowers is nice because they are so colorful even months later when peeled from between the pages. But we also love to press herbs and leaves. We are always picking different things and experimenting. Some may be for our quest to see if we remember what they are later, or just using something that caught the eye of A or G.

We also love pressing things for ... smell. There is something quite heady about getting a whiff of an herb in January during a blizzard. We try different things to see what holds the smell best. We do dehydrate herbs for culinary uses but they turn dark and crinkle in the dehydrator so all we get is smell. Pressing in a flower press we keep color and shape and often the scent!


So throughout the summer we will remember to pick and press for both crafts and smell. This week we heard that we might get an early frost and could lose the delicate greenery. Which means it was the perfect time to pick. One of our presses is full of summer flowers, but we still had some space in the second one.

We picked all kinds of things - remembering or wondering which would be best later.


We picked flowering herb tops such as hyssop, chocolate mint, spearmint, lemon balm, tiny dill heads, shisho, thai basil, purple basil. We picked other leafy herbs like celery tops, thyme, marjoram, cilantro, and fennel. And of course the boys picked some other things that looked interesting like nasturtium flowers, lilacs, a piece of tomato leaf (G wants to sniff it later!), and some clover just for good luck. They wanted to save all the four leaf clover so they will have good luck all winter, so they searched and searched. ;)

I am interested to see if the celery still smells in 4 months!

What do you think would retain its scent best?

august garden, pt. 2

We have been busy busy both at home and out and about this week and I have a lot to share, but I keep getting distracted by the garden this time of year.

I usually am in the garden twice a day - in the morning while the boys are eating breakfast. I water pots, pick, tie, check and basically wander outside. I go out again in the evening when the boys are playing in the alley with friends - to water the pots again and beds if needed, weed, check and basically wander outside. The garden is always mostly shaded at these times, and yet sun peeks in here and there. It is a great place to wander. To walk. To think. To think about not thinking. To feel the grass underfoot. When the light is just right I usually grab my camera and wander some more.


I love wandering so I can pick all of the veggies, fruit and herbs of course - we are overly abundant in tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, squash, and the raspberries are ripening, eaten right off the canes.

But it is more than that. There is so much to see. The curls of the vines, the way things move to the sun. The color - so vivid! It is all so complex. But all so simple.


The beans have wound up and over sunflowers, amaranth, and even bushes. They reach for the sunshine. The insects all seem to have a path, a plan, and a single minded pursuit.


The herbs are wild by now. I dig around and under massive plants to find fenugreek, feverfew, toothache plant (chewing on the leaves makes your whole mouth tingle!). I turn the nozzle on the rainbarrel and the water rushes out, loud and fast after a rain.


Some things look completely surreal - the boys search and touch the tiny fuzzy melon vines every time they think of it. The fuzz feels like the backs of the bumblebees we sometimes stroke.


The garden is so thick that it envelopes us when we sit outside. Everything feels private even though we are very close to neighbors here. We turn on the gazebo lights and listen to the frogs (amazing we have them in our yard) and crickets.


This week we cleared some space for fall planting - we planted beets, radishes, onions, peas, and several kinds of greens, and more will come. In the midst of so much green seeing a patch of such dark brown earth is almost startling.

I love seeing the rows of tiny little seedlings shaded under what now seems like ancient trees of kale.


And, just as I start thinking about the indoor winter garden (baby/microgreens) seeds are going on sale. Today 37 packets of seeds arrived. So many seeds, so many plants, so many ideas, so much color, so much variety, endless possibilities.


Even though it is still hot, I can just feel things will start changing soon. Slowing down. Finishing up. Cooling down.


Not yet though. While I can see the change of light and smell the cool morning air, we have quite a bit of this left. So I still have plenty of time to wander.

How does your garden grow?

august garden, pt. 1

Things I love about the garden in August?

That after even the hottest summer days, when you walk through our arch in the evening when the garden has just been watered you can feel the temperature drop immediately and you are enveloped by the smell of damp earth and flowers ... like entering another world.


That when the grass all around is brittle and brown, the garden is still green and luscious.


That there are so many busy bees you can hear them buzz and sometimes feel them lightly brush by as they go about their way.


That there is something blooming somewhere, all the time.


That even though our tomatoes (and cucumbers, and peppers, and melons, and squash) come in a LOT later than everyone else in our area because of our garden location/sunlight (no matter how early we start), we do still get them.


That it all gets SO thick that my husband just about every night wanders with a shirt full of veggies saying "I can't find anything else!" and then I find another shirt worth.


That there are bushes flowering in August every year that are not supposed to. I have lilacs! In mid-August!


That under all of those leaves are a LOT of squash.


That even when I think we have lost something due to wet or dry to heat or cold, when pulling 'finished' plants I find things that have been busy winding their way where they need to go.


That there is always someone (big or small) out with me each evening, filling the watering can from the rain barrel, and carefully watering each and every pot we have.

And, that I'm not the only one out there talking to the birds, the chipmunk, the frog, the plants, or the bees.

busy, busy.

Busy, busy. Oh, August! We are in the peak of summer and we are looking forward to fall. We have had a few nice cloudy with some much needed rain days and have been spending time close to home, but busy busy!

LEGO Mindstorms

The boys have been busy...playing outside and inside. Snuggling. board games, karate, library, painting, robotics, building science kits, and this week making movies of each other with the video camera.

solar and generator powered robot kit

The kitchen is always a busy spot - this time of year the garden and CSA bring in an abundance of fruit and vegetables and it can be (who am I fooling, it IS) a full time job just keeping up! There has been canning, freezing, drying, baking, making. So good!

zucchini bread

dehydrated tomatoes in olive oil with spices

calendula oil

The home...I love re-arranging furniture and organizing. It makes everything feel fresh and on those hot hot days when we spend more time inside, it helps us feel all energized and creative. I also love walking into a nice bright and clean living room when my kitchen is overflowing with vegetables, canning jars and (a lot of) dirty pots! The boys always like it too and they recently got into refreshing their space and added some color and wall decals.




And last but not least, the garden. This time of year is jungle time. Tomatoes are just ripening, cucumbers are fattening up, the squash is growing so much every day it is amazing, and everything is so thickly entwined and jungle-like that it is sometimes hard to find and pick everything! I often find a HUGE cucumber in a bush or something. ;) But it is all so beautiful and busy.




I love that after a few months of slow and summer there is this mad dash to fall feeling once the garden starts to peak - the light changes, it starts getting dark a little earlier again, the mornings feel a little cooler. Ahhhh.


How is your August?

hum.

"The hum of bees is the voice of the garden."
- Elizabeth Lawrence