are taking a beating. The brown around the edges of some of the petals, I believe, is the result of our sweltering summer.
Category Archives: My Garden
Crowded Carrots
QUESTION: are these too phat to thin?
Diggin the Dirt on Flowers
Fellow revelers, help me out with the following question that was posed:
What types of flowers are the readers out there growing? I’ve almost ignored flowers since I started my renewed interest in the garden. I have a few calendulas (pot marigolds) growing in a small pot, and a handful of neglected bulbs in the ground along one fence which keep coming back year after year. Any ideas on some nice flowers to grow?
As for me, in the front yard I have my famous day lilies from Wisconsin alternating with the hostas (which bloom every year now that they’ve matured – this is one of the things that I very much love about hostas, which can otherwise seem kinda bland). Again behind the front row of flowers/hostas, I have some white small flowers whose name I cannot remember. I want to say nasturtium but I know that’s not it (anyone who can take a peek at my photo here, and help me out, please do). The native plant garden is just behind that, with a black-eyed susan that’s now giving me plenty of blooms. I love having this in my yard. It reminds me of the Replacements song, I Saw Susan Dancing in the Rain. I think next year I may grow daisies just b/c of Prince’s song that has the line in it: I’m blinded by the daisies in your yard…
Onto the steps, where I have zinnias, three pots for each of three of my favorite people. In the backyard I have begonias, and upstairs petunias so I can sing the song, “I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, an onion patch, an onion patch…and all I do is cry .. boohoo boohoo.”
A few days ago I bought some bulbs at Home Depot because they were 75% off, and they looked pretty. Hard to resist. I’m planning on keeping them for next spring, though I’m not sure how well they keep (I’m assuming there will be no problem with them but have no experience to go on here). They’re gladiolas and dutch irises (LOVE the smell of these). A friend, many moons back, gave me crocus bulbs but it was in my pre-garden days and I never did get them in the ground. I may get some next year; these would be inspired by the Joni Mitchell song about having crocuses to bring to school tomorrow…
QUESTION: Has anyone else’s garden been inspired by a song? Any recommendations for any particular flowers? I used to keep marigolds around some of my vegetable plants but haven’t needed them this year.
Poopy Plant
Here is the mysterious bugger that appeared in my backyard two days ago, half past 9 (at least that's when I spotted it). Today, just as suddenly, he was gone. (I don't know why I'm assuming this one was a he - really I don't. I swear.) I'm not sure if he was placed here by aliens or removed by same, but it sure was a curious site out there, surrounded by nothing but a few flies. Oh, yes, that is poo on its, ah, head. I don't know whose - maybe the critter that released that seed in my yard. I'm aware all this is a bit much information (and if ever there was a time to revive the term "grody," here it is). Notwithstanding, here's my ... QUESTION: what the ???? Anyone ever seen anything like this before? Anyone know where it went?
Mysterious Plant from Outer Space (RFP on Communal Garden Journal)
Ralph’s comment:
I like that idea.
I’d like to have a communal type of garden journal as an experiment, too, with people from different places commenting on something each day. For example, today I saw a new plant I’ve never seen before.
It looked like it maybe had the consistency of mushroom, but was red with some yellow toward the head.
I have NO IDEA what this is. It looks like it could be evil, especially since I think it was born with some poo on its head. I don’t know whose poo it was.
Pics to come.
QUESTION: what’s the best way to identify a plant of unknown origin (short of tasting it, which I’m not inclined – particularly on this one).
OMG
Cukes! These are from the homemade self watering containers.
Still on the Weed
This discussion of weeds: is there really such a thing? has generated a touch of interest and a tad of controversy, so I think we should stay on the weed, for now, so to speak. In this post, I look at what constitutes a weed. As in the words of one famous reveler, “A weed by any other name would smell as sweet.” Another fellow reveler put it better when he said, in relevant part (the rest is good too, check it out in the full comment appearing earlier today):
I recently listened to a podcast where someone said ‘a weed is an herb growing in the wrong place’. It still makes sense if you broaden the term herb to plant. Although I never thought of it, weeds serve to help the garden. Weeds are often some of the first flowers to appear in the garden and attract bees and other beneficial insects. Check out http://www.theselfsufficientgardener.com and listen to the episode on weeds. It gave me a whole new outlook on weeds, and gave my garden a different look- especially the part that now grows wild. Once I did go walking through the wild section with a machete. It’s not that it is that wild, I just needed to cut the tall grass seeds and get rid of them without damaging the red clover growing below. The lawn mower would have cut everything. … I hate to kill plants, especially if I planted them. (Thanks Ralph!)
As I mentioned, my mother is here visiting from Wisconsin. She has been preparing, for quite a long time now, for one massive blow-out rummage sale in Beloit in August. My mom seems to be a magnet for things: she knows antiques, books, history, dishes, furniture, philosophy, literature, music, records, record players, and this and so much more. She seems to be able to find something to appreciate in nearly every person and every thing. For that reason, she has amassed quite a collection of oddball items and exquisite finds. And it is all good stuff. It’s just that it’s still, well, stuff. She has recognized the need to let go of it, and saying good-bye to all of it, properly, has turned out to be quite an undertaking. She has undertaken to meticulously wash, inspect, iron, shine and spiff every little thing and every little thing on every little thing. My dad has suggested the process is ravaging her, and she needs to just let go of it. Which is exactly what she is doing. She, I believe, in this ritual preparation is saying good-bye to these things of hers which have become weeds.
For a year or more, I went through a process of letting go of decades of collected stuff. The task was to big for me on my own. I had a professional clutter buster who helped me see that the only way to make room for new and better things in your life is to let go of the clutter, which is, basically, anything that’s not useful anymore. So over the course of that year, I undertook multiple clutter busting sessions. The process changed my life. I happened upon his blog today, and found this very apt description of his of clutter busting:
It’s common that clients are surprised at how much stuff they actually have. As the clutter bust proceeds, more and more stuff is found hidden in drawers, closets, under the bed, in boxes, underneath things and in piles. It’s like the clown car at the circus, twenty clowns end up coming out of a tiny car.
We get anesthetized by our clutter and we lose touch. Our awareness is dulled. In the same way vision can get hazy, awareness gets out of focus. We get used to the blur and it becomes normal for us.
That’s why I’m kindly relentless with encouragement to dig deeper into your stuff. There’s hidden stuff silently wrecking your life.
see today’s post (June 27, 2011) on Brooks Palmer’s blog: http://brooks-palmer.blogspot.com/
I think if there’s room left for the word “weed,” to me it would be defined as clutter in the garden.
If you take a close look at the portrait of my garden, you’ll notice that there’s a patch of brownish green grass toward the bottom (close to my house and farthest from the fence), and, as described, this is where begins the grass/weeds/wild section of the yard. It occupies several feet from where the picture ends to the front of my house. My mom suggested that I build up the soil in that area to keep rainwater from seeping and puddling toward the basement. And, she said, as long as I’m at it, I may as well plant some things there too. I’m wondering if this is her subtle way of disapproving of that remainder of the yard that is still wild and unruly. Were she to make a blatant suggestion that I do anything with it other than let it be as it is, she knows I would defend it and launch into one of my weeds-are-plants-too rants. Bless her heart.
I may do it. I may try to tame that part of the yard. I’m not sure if that wild part of my yard is a nod to my own rebellious side, or if I just got exhausted plotting and planting the front half of the yard, and let the rest of it rest. I will probably do something in the back half. I’ll probably put my mom to work on it too. Who knows what we’ll discover there. It takes a very special dynamic to garden with another person. Maybe instead we’ll just kick back with some beer and cheese, and watch the grass grow.
QUESTION: What in your life, or garden, or garden of life needs weeding? Is there anything in your garden that has lost its usefulness to you? What other plant or thing might arrive when you make room for it? Go ahead … gimme the dirt!
So Happy Together
Here she is as of this sunny Sunday morning. Aside from the pumpkins stretching out and taking more real estate than I’d anticipated (they’re to the right of the hostas, having been transplanted from the upper corner of the garden where two remain), they all seem pretty happy together. Lining the front fence are my hostas which I thinned from the side. You can see the border of hostas now on the bottom of the picture. They’re in bloom, with some tall pretty stand-up flowers that look like they’ve reached up to admire the rest of the garden. As I mentioned before, these are the oldest plants in the yard. A neighbor who still lives across the street from me gave them to me when I first moved in more than ten years ago. They have survived bitter winters, and more than one invasive procedure to fix a main pipe running from my basement to the street. I thinned them out early in the season because they just really look like they wanted to move. So I put some of them up front. You can see one just to the left of the yellow day lily, which my sister brought from Wisconsin. The small wall of white flowers that border the hostas and day lilies (which, I’ve just learned in picking the link are so called because each flower lasts only a day, making even more poignant the fact that the first one appeared on the summer solstice – what sage plants have I!). have a name I can’t remember right now. Behind them is my little native plant garden, which has ironweed, some others, and the lone yellow black-eyed susan poking out toward the left of the pic. Surrounding the various native plants are the small ones that are actually Johnny jump ups scattered from seed I planted off to the side but which attracted birds, who gave them a new home. At least this is what I suspect they are. Several people have asked me if I’m going to pull them out, assuming they’re weeds because they were so much smaller than the native plants I put in from small plants (not seeds). I’m hoping they bloom brilliantly, though they might not till next year. (Note, in grabbing the hyperlink for the johnny jump-ups, I thrilled to learn that they are edible!!! I just love pretty eatable things.) Still closer to the house are the pumpkins from the CT restaurant I mentioned in an earlier post, along with the wild ginger from Saratoga Springs, and the couple of container plants – one that my super-neighbor-friend from down the block has for sweetpeas and green beans that are much taller than we anticipated and my own cukes in their own self-watering container (these are where u see the yellow flowers – and also in the other planter box to compare whether the sel-watering type fares better). The rest of the yard closest to the house – which is barely visible from this pic b/c it’s cut off there – is pretty much wild, for whatever that means anymore. I do think I have a tall weed/plant taking over, and have been trying to weigh its usefulness. I spotted what I thought was the same plant on the Wildman tour of Prospect Park recently, and when I asked our guide, he said it was goldenrod. I probably won’t mess with it this year but already thinking ahead to next spring. With that in mind, here’s my …
QUESTION: what is the point of goldenrod? Is there really any objective, verifiable difference between a weed and a plant? Is it really just in the eye of the beholder? Assuming this is a native plant, how does it help the greater ecosystem if it’s just taking up a little spot in my front yard? If I decide to keep the goldenrod, assuming that’s what it is, how would a native plant activist feel about me moving it out of the way? Does that disturb the whole notion that we should just leave native plants well enough alone, wherever they happen to reside? Would moving it be better than pulling it out and feeding it to my compost bin? Would doing so, in the eyes of the nativist, be a sin? Help me out here. I don’t mean to disturb the universe. So, go ahead … gimme the dirt!
Summer.
For the first of summer, my garden yielded this hello: day lilies in beautiful bloom. These were carried to my Brooklyn garden by my sister’s hand, arriving unscathed after a 19-hour trek across country (we won’t mention how the people members of the family fared). I snapped this photo on my way to work, as I was rushing out the door this morning. It was a happy summer solstice moment.
QUESTION: how did the world say happy summer to you today?
What I’m Growing
It occurred to me I hadn’t shared with you what it is I actually put into the ground. So here goes, by category, only edibles:
TREES/BUSHES:
- peach tree
- cherry tree
- elderberry bushes (almost certain not dogwoods now)
- Meyer lemon tree (in a container)
VEGETABLES:
- tomatoes, four plant, purchased at a Saratoga Springs farmers’ market, all heirloom
- cucumbers, eight plants, don’t remember where I purchased these but I think it may have been Shannon’s
- pumpkins, from seeds, picked up at a restaurant in New Haven, CT, when we went to see my friend, Bill Demerit, who’s studying theater there. I planted these and they shot right up. I now have six plants (confirm). Unfortunately, these are more the jack-o-lantern variety, but I figure they will give some nice color to the garden late in the season.
- wild ginger, three plants, purchased from the farmers market in Saratoga Springs from a woman who was the only one with a plethora of native plants
- carrots, multiple. These are from seeds, which I didn’t really think would take off, since I’ve had difficulty growing carrots from seeds before but that was straight in the ground. These are growing in a wooden box (like an apple crate) that I used to have hops from Six-Point brewery growing in (ever want to check out some good looking hops, pay them a visit by going to Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook – on the upstairs terrace, they usually have hops growing there).
- beets, multiple. These are also from seeds and, again, I planted more than I need, thinking they might not come up for the same reason – I’ve tried planting them from seed in the ground before with no luck. In contrast, these little seeds [brand], which I put into the small plastic starter containers you get new plants in [name?] sprung right up. I now have the dilemma of where to make their seasonal home.
- jalapeno peppers. These I picked up in a set of three starter plants from Shannon’s. I had good luck with these plants last year and wanted to try it again. I have them in a different location (south-facing upstairs terrace) than my north-facing backyard where they were before. We’ll see if it matters. They are in a couple planters with some other hot peppers (another jalapeno and cayenne, I believe) that I tried to maintain indoors over the winter but I’m not sure they’re actually going to produce again since they’ve remained essentially unchanged from last fall when I brought them in.
- new addition: green beans (these seeds just went in the ground from my very most awesome neighbor friend, who is also growing green beans & sweet peas in a self-watering container)
HERBS:
- sage
- thyme (three types)
- rosemary (not doing so great)
- cilantro
- parsley
- mountain mint (got this from the Grand Army Plaza farmers market)
- (will be growing: basil from the Triscuit box seed card & dill from same)
QUESTION: what grows in your garden? Who’s happy this season? Who’s not?
revelgardener 