An October Walk

In early October, we visited family in upstate New York to celebrate Oliver's birthday. We took a walk one unseasonably warm morning, just Kevin, O and I. Our meanderings had a magical feeling that reminded me of being outside as a kid, playing with sticks, leaves, puddles and mud. I took the first deep breaths I'd had in weeks. We did pick up a couple of ticks, though --- never let nature lull you into complacency.

 

Yellow brick road.

 

Ack! November!

Somehow it's November. I stumbled through the past few months in a anxiety-induced coma of sorts, but the garden grew anyway. An important lesson: Seeds and weeds often grow despite our best / worst efforts. Much of life is out of our control.

Happily, our garden continues to provide purple passion even as the sun steals away day by day. This week I picked a couple of small cabbages and some of the onions. Still to come: Brussel sprouts and spinach. I'll take it as long as I can get it.

#VPTJulyPix Squashed!

It's over-flowing-amounts-of-summer-squash time in the garden. For some reason this freaks me out. I don't like the sinking feeling I get when I know we're not keeping up with the picking of said squash, let alone the eating. I wanted to try to capture the feeling somehow in an image - and this is the result. 

More to come, but right now I've got to go pick more squash.

#VPTJulyPix Flower: Rudbeckia hirta.

It's black-eyed susan season in the gardens. They're taking over and I don't mind a bit. 

Up. #VPTJulyPix

Our Concord grapes are climbers with Crimson King aspirations.

Ready for my close-up

Even the small things in the garden are lovely.

Self-sowing Lupin

I've got to give credit to the Lupin, they're a self-seeding perennial - the type of flower that's the inspiration for this blog title. We have a few plants in one of our gardens and year after year they move slightly as their seed starts are shifted by the wind. Their purple spikes are striking and the seed pods are a welcome, fuzzy sight.

Looking up a bit of information on them, I didn't realize the beans from the pods can be eaten and were popular throughout the Roman Empire. Good to know.

Another interesting note: Lupins convert nitrogen in the atmosphere into ammonia via their roots. This fertilizes otherwise crappy soil for the plants around them. It also makes them a good companion plant for crops that need nitrogen including cukes, broccoli, squash and spinach.

Climbers

Only one of our three clematis seems to be doing well this year, and it's a bit sad to see the others lag. We cut one back because it had overreached itself and grown a precariously large ball of vines that would probably have ripped off in a big storm. The third, which grows on lattice on the west side of our porch, just doesn't do as well in this location as the ones in the backyard. One of the vagaries of gardening is the odd microzones in your own yard.

It's a quiet period for blooming in the beds. The daisies and black-eyed susans aren't yet ready, and the dwarf lillies and daylillies are just about to get started. Things are very green, and need some serious weeding. Luckily, the gardens are so full of plants, the weeds find it hard to compete.

Welcome to June

Sage plant in bloom.

 I love June. It's so full of promise. At the start of the gardening season, the summer days ahead seem endless. I wish it would stay.

We are a bit behind with the vegetables, we've got about 1/3 of the garden planted but still need to put in beans, beets, and all the seedlings we started inside. This year I'm happy to say we've bought our own tiller. I guess it's a mark of a gardener to be more excited about that than a new car or TV.

The flower gardens are kicking spring off, the irises are lovely right now and the Lady's Mantle and cranesbill geranium are providing delicate color. I could spend all day, maybe all June, wandering the garden. And weeding, of course.

Compost!

O hard at work.

It's almost time to plant the garden, and I can't wait. We recently got a small load of compost delivered on yet another cold, rainy day and Kevin and O-man wheeled it from the driveway to the garden. After a warm start, it's been a dreary spring. Just yesterday I put seedlings into pots --- about two weeks late, I'd say. I just haven't felt spring-motivated in the past few weeks, and I think it's because of snow, sleet and dig-the-coat-back-out temperatures. We did start some peas and spinach in the early warmth, though, and they seem to be doing well. The tulips enjoyed a suspended bloom-time, too, and are now showing off. Let's hope it's a believeable start to spring.

Budding Spring

 

We've returned to seasonable weather, but we're still advancing toward full spring. Last summer we planted an ornamental pear tree in the back yard, and this week it's in bloom. I'm enjoying its petite, white flowers which attract bees and butterflies in surprising numbers. The early warm, dry weather encouraged us to plant some peas and they're already up. I'm looking forward to shirtsleeve weather with great anticipation but for now will take the bare limbs and barely-there green shown by the trees.

Weird Warm Weather

This week, we've had a spell of unusually warm March weather. With temperatures in the 70s for several days, it goes without saying that the snow is gone and spring is here. This is crazy-early, though, for this kind of warmth and everyone is enjoying it with a waiting-for-the-other-shoe kind of foreboding.

The crocuses are in full bloom and the tulips seem to gain an inch a day. We've begun to clear out the winter mess from the flower beds and the lilacs have buds. If we get snow again, and you've got to admit it's likely, it's going to hurt.