Big Wind

Mizzy BunnyButt heads inside before the Big Wind gets here.

Hurray, it's #SixonSaturday time again!

If you like snooping around other folks' gardens or if you've got a garden for us to snoop around, drop over to our SoS guru, Mr P who'll explain everything.





It's been the week of the Big Wind here.  With plenty of things still ripening, it was time to scramble!


1.  Family Heirlooms.

You know the hypothetical - if you only had time to rescue one thing, what's the first thing you'd grab?  Threaten me with high winds & no question, I save my pears.

Precious pears!  And o, some other stuff, too.

2.  Braving the storm.

Thankfully, we had plenty of time to prepare for the Big Wind, but there was no way to safeguard my pepper plants.  There's my neighbour's one tree, my raised beds, then lawn after lawn after lawn for the Big Wind to race across.

Hope to see you on the other side, guys.

3.  Gather the booty.

So I picked any pepper close to full size, & put them in the shed where mater cuttings & pumpkins hang out.  Hopefully, most of this will ripen.

Pepper mania.

4.  Mater huddle.

After picking any tomato with the faintest blush of colour, we moved the caged plants down from the terrace & snuggled them in with the potted trees.  A couple of heavy pots in front, & good to go.

Kinda like a garden sleep over.

Although the corn's been harvested, I've left the stalks to discourage critturs from trampling the pumpkin vine.


5.  Another suspect?

The Big Wind came & the peppers survived.  The mater huddle worked well, although the second pot from the left (in the photo up ⇑⇑⇑ there) did topple, which pushed the one next to it off kilter.  Since the Wind continues this week, we've adjusted the front planters, which seems to've worked its magic.

But was it the Big Wind messing w/my maters?  Could this rather pungent evidence suggest another suspect in the case, one fond of jumping up on my pots?

Fox scat.

Some colour to that stuff, eh?


6.  And the seasons have changed.

It was sometime during the Big Wind that I finally had to break out a hoodie for the BigNose walks.  Summer is officially over.

Mlle DoodleFace waiting to go.

And that's my Six for this week.  Until next time, happy gardening!

My never ending harvest.

2 Pumpkins, 3 Questions, 4 Glads, & 5 (maybe 6) Pears

Catch me if you can.

Many thanks to everyone for your well wishes regarding the BigNoseDog who suffered a vestibular episode a fortnight ago.

It's been a battle of wills between him & myself this week.  He's a bit wobbly, yet madder'n a wet hen at having his walkabouts truncated.  When it's time to come home from his walk, he braces his terrier tank self in the middle of the path & refuses to budge.

But who can blame him?

While he's napping, it's on to #SixonSaturday - six things in the garden, on a Saturday, to quote our host, The Propagator.  In addition to Mr P's own Six at his link, you'll find SoS guidelines, should you wish to give us a peek into your garden.  There's also links in his comment section to other SoS-ers from across the globe.

This week in my garden, the rain has done away with the need to water plants.  That leaves me free to pick corn, eat all the cherry tomatoes on my way to the house, & wait for the lawn to need mowed.

Until then, a counting song.  One terrier terror . . .



1. Two pretty pumpkins

There are actually 3 pumpkins in the garden, but only 2 in this shot.

First & last to grow.

I've not done much about mildew this year, other than cut off the leaves.  Someone's sure to report me to the Pumpkin Protection League.


2.  First Question of Three - Tomatoes.

I grew my rosella cherries from seed, transferred them to vigoroot bags filled with new compost, & in time, supported them with cane cages (as seen in the background).  The tomatoes were supposed to have a smoky flavour but are super sweet & about the size of grapes.

Garden candy.

Two self seeders of unknown origin appeared in the pot containing the late, great Asian pear.  No new compost was added, but they're supported in cages.

Feral tomatoes.

The self seeders are a little behind the rosella, but their fruit is markedly larger.  Both types were regularly watered & fed.  What you think => vigoroot bags or tomato type account for the difference in size?  Another thought is that, because the self seeders started later, they were at a different stage in reproduction during the drought.

Maybe all/none of the above?


3.  Second Question - Who am I?

Last year, I gave a neighbour some plant food for her cosmos, so she gave me cuttings of an aromatic shrub that I admired.  The cuttings rooted & grew like Topsy.

While my neighbour's specimen was a narrow, willowy 6' beauty, mine grew horizontally.  In fact, mine've been so insistent about not growing upwards that they've taken their support stakes down with them.  I pound the stakes back in, but of course, the bigger the plants get, the less effective the stakes are in keeping them upright.

Laying down on the job.

They haven't produced flowers, but have a wonderful herby-citrusy scent.  Here's a close-up of the foliage.

The tips turn up.

They're in a sun trap, but are planted near the house, which might be why they lay down.  On the other hand, they're in full sun by 11:00 a.m. until sunset.

If I (or my neighbour) knew what they were, I might be able to figure out how to get them to straighten up & fly right.

Any ideas about the seed & breed of them?


4.  Third & Last Question - Empress Tree Seedlings.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my kazillion seedlings coming up in a pot where I'd planted some empress tree seeds.  I was a bit of a Doubting Thomas that they were really empress trees.  Here's what they look like now.

Baby empress?

Now that they're bigger, they do indeed look like those in my image search of empress seedlings.  And I have scads of them.  Scads.  Can anyone confirm or refute my identification?


5.  Four glads.

Some nursery sent me a sack of free glad corms with an order, which I stuffed into my large planters.  There've been much more than 4 really gorgeous blooms, but I have 4 photos, so enjoy these beauts.

Some w/the hollyhocks.

Some w/the sedum

Some are a bit frilly.

Some for the kitchen.

6.  Five (maybe six) pears.

These are my Louis Bonne pears.  This tree bloomed its little pea heart out in the spring, but its pollination mate, the Asian pear, had no blooms, then subsequently died.  Since I'd been told the Louis Bonne don't self pollinate, you can bet this crop had me dancing under the new moon.  I might even've been a little bit nekked.

How many pears do you see?

The thick trunk in the front is actually my fig tree.  The fig & the pear seem very fond of each other & tend to mingle limbs.  All in all, I've counted a dozen pears on Louise.  Pretty happy, since this is its first year fruiting.  Here's hoping the critturs don't get there first.

Seen in the graveyard on the BigNose walk - a gardener lies here.

Once again, the tail end of my Six.

I do thank y'all for taking the time to visit.  Hope to see you next week.

Have fun in your garden!

Getting Fruity!

Laburnum in the mist.

Chores've slowed down in the garden, but the lack of rain means walking slowly among my plant buddies on a daily basis to give them a drink. 

A great time of year for this, with everything coming into bloom, then blooms turning to fruit.  I love my ornamentals, but man, I adore my edibles.

Take a look at them all.




1.  The race is on.

I bought 3 berry plants last year, the labels of which have walked off into the sunset.  None of them bore fruit last summer, but this year, 2 of them are popping out red all over.

So on the race to fruition, who will get there first - us or the birds?

Breakfast waiting to happen.

2.  Peas in various finery.

It's our first year for blauwchokker peas & I'm loving them in all their stages.  We grew ours from seed planted in April.  They now stand taller'n myself & have great broadly veined leaves on nicely thick stems.

The flower is originally 2 tones of purply pink but then go blue as they wither.

Rampaging pea plants.

Then the blue tissue falls away & these black-purple pods slip out.

Pods jumping the fence.

3.  Today's flowers are tomorrow's sauce.

Slightly behind their pea friends are our rosella cherry tomato plants, but we got flowers!

Looks like a good crop coming.

I'm a fiend for eating most of our cherry maters before I make it back to the house from the garden, but these are feted for having a smoky flavour, so we're hoping to experiment with cooking a few.  Too bad for future sauces that our onions did feck-al this year, but we've got plenty of . . .


4. Garlic, garlic & more garlic!

Inviting vampires to dinner.

Our early purple Wights didn't clove, but these fellas . . . well, you can see it yourself.  Smashing. 


5.  Bean brigade.

We've 2 varieties of dwarf French this year - yin yang & fire tongue.  The yin yangs went in first & so, of course, are the first to bean up.

Yin yang beanies.

As you can see from the smudge in the photo, these guys have a white blossom.  The fire tongues have small pink flowers that hopefully will produce red speckled pods.


6.  Happy surprise.

You may remember my spring angst over my Louis Bonne pear tree.  While it bloomed to high heaven & beyond, its mate, the Asian pear, had no blossom.  Since I'd been told by the nursery that my bloomin' pear didn't self pollinate, I feared no fruit.

The Asian pear, which'd been given to me by the nursery to replace its dead predecessor, gave us great foliage then died.  Louis Bonne did this:

How'd it do that?

Such a shame that I'm the only pear eater in the house (har har har).  Do you know how many amazing pear recipes there are out there?  Come on, Louis!

Rebel Woody.

So while I'm dreaming of fruits to come, take a gander at my woodwardia. 

It was supposed to frond out scarlet, unfurl bronze, then green.  The colour in this photo is pretty accurate, so not what advertised, but I'm not complaining.  Loving this fern.

There's my #SixonSaturday.  Make sure you drop by The Propagator who's our meme host.  You'll get a gander at his six, & links to SoS-ers from all over the globe.

See you soon!