Wicked Unrest

Knackered.

It's #SixOnSaturday time again.  I, for one, wasn't ready.

The endless harvest, pets needing their jabs, political melodrama back home, CFS giving me stick - no way I'd post this week.

Then El Punko asks if he can take my SoS photos in order to get some practice with his new camera.

No rest for the wicked, it does seem.



1.  Harvest continues.

Last week, you saw all the peppers lined up in the shed after being picked early to protect them from the wind.  I've been bringing them inside as they develop colour.  Between them & the daily gathering of maters, the windowsill is always full.

The red CA sweet pepper has a symbiotic twin.

2.  Cucumelons.

I learned on Twitter from Rob Smith (@RobsAllotment) that cucumelon form tubers that can be lifted & stored over winter.  Mine are still producing at a great rate, although a few leaves have turned colour.  I suspect it'll be next month before I think about digging them up.

Cucumelon on the bed spring trellis.

Continuing the standard set by the California sweet pepper . . .

Cucu-weird-shape.

3.  Autumn berries.

They say lots of holly berries means a heavy winter & our trees have lots of berries, but they're going a little bit funny on us.  Hopefully none of them will make it into tiny, spiky holly saplings.

What's happening, Mizzy HollyTree?

There's also a volunteer snowberry in the garden.  Like the holly, I love their berries, hate their propensity to spread.  There's just the one this year, but give it time.

Snowberry caught in a web.

4.  Changing foliage.

In the field where we walk the dogs, the chestnut trees (buckeyes, to me) have started to change colour.  Along our street, however, the trees are holding their own.  Not so, for the flowers . . .

Columbine on the cat grave starting to fade.

. . . or the shrubs.

Gillenia getting a bit orange around the edges.

5.  Sedum, at long last.

My sedum with the purple stems & leaves (name buried somewhere out of reach at the moment) bloomed in July.  This great precursor of summer's end - Autumn Joy perhaps? - has finally got some colour.

Sedum & the oft-spoken of, crooked cherry tree.

6.  Last Rose.

The only roses in my current garden were grown from seeds I scavenged during a birthday trip to Paris a few years ago.  They've all bloomed, but not vigorously, so this last blossom really pleased me.

Last of the year's blossoms.

To me, winter, spring & summer are all single purpose.  Autumn, on the other hand, is complex, incorporates birth & death.  It's got my vote for best out of the 4.

Now for a snooze.

And that's my Six for the week.

I'm so glad El Punko wanted some photography practice.  Equally glad you stopped by for a gander.

Make sure to run over to Mr P's for links to other blogs.  And if you've got a garden to share, he's got guidelines.

See you again, soon!

Trial & Error

So we finally got our big rain!  And a high price we paid for it, too, missing the blood moon eclipse & the end of the world.  I hope for plenty of gorgeous rain photos amongst some of the SoSers today!

Here, though, I've been mulling a recent post by Hurtled to 60 wherein a fellow allotmenteer intimated that rural gardeners are superior to townies.  I myself grew up on a farm, yet don't see veg as more virtuous than sunflowers.  But then, my mother, who pressed her 7 chillen into conveyor belt cannery every year, also had a greenhouse devoted solely to African violets.

There are so many types of gardeners - neurodivergent, athletic, visual, artistic, scientific, clueless, those with long term mental or physical illnesses, those who garden by 'the rules'.   

Accidental design.

For every 10 gardeners who can understand a design well enough to perfectly replicate a gold medal display, there's one who can only garden in equal parts experience & serendipity. 

I have to 'do' to understand, something that got me banned from helping in the kitchen a long time ago.  What starts as, 'But why . . . wouldn't it be better . . . how about we . . .' ends with the clenched-teethed cook pointing to the door  =>  Out!  Out!  OUT!!!!!

I'm on my own in the garden, which means I'm also able to process information there in the way I need to.

Other gardeners & their ideas do give me inspiration, but it's only by seeing how this particular plant grows in this particular spot that I understand my garden at all.

Today I celebrate those of us, including myself, who can only garden by the seat of our pants.  Here's some of my trials & perhaps even an error or two.




1.  To bite or not to bite.

Like any first-time parent, I've been discussing the progress of my cucumelons with other gardeners.  Mine reached all their developmental markers right on schedule, but I wasn't sure when I could eat the little darlins.

My delightfully green striped chillen.

Fred the French Gardener said he picks his when they're as long as the distal phalanx of his little finger, at which point they taste like cucumber with a zing of lime.

Out to the garden with me to find one the right size, then gobble down a mouthful of crunchy, tasteless blech.

Well, having a trial & error mind means not stopping at the first hurdle.  Or the second.  Eventually, it occurred to me that, although I'm not petite, I may indeed have a smaller pinky than Fred.

So I waited, like the troll under the bridge, for a bigger billy goats cucumelon & learned that to get that zing, the optimum size is the middle phalanx of my index finger - about 1.25".

Size zingy.

Now that my berries have all dried up, it's cucumelon for brekky.


2.  Hosta trials.

As I've written before, I've never thought hostas worth the ongoing slug war, until I found Big Daddy.  He was fairly slug free in the beginning, I thought because I'd put dried cedar & bramble twigs at his base.  But you can see, the slugs found a way.  When Big Daddy started his 2nd growth of leaves, the slugs threw a keg party.

Big Daddy blues.

About that time, various bloggers were trying out sheep's wool slug pellets.  I had a sheep fleece in the closet that'd gone past its spinning days, so've stuck some of it under BD.

Big Daddy has new leaves.

That's my current trial.  We'll see if it's also an error.  There's a frog quite happy with the new arrangement, so if not the fleece, then maybe the frog will sort those slugs out.


3.  Great Pea Debate of 2018.

Despite other gardeners' distaste of them, we've enjoyed a good season of blauwschokker peas.  Our resident chef has this trick of pouring boiling water over them & letting them sit a few minutes rather than cooking them on the hob.  Sweet as mange tout, tasty as peas.

There were no cooks at home when I decided that was too much palaver.  I tossed peas in with my tortellini & boiled away.  A quick drain, a splash of chili oil, sprinkle some mozzarella, & voila!  I, too, am a chef.

Picture me sitting under the deck umbrella, utterly pleased with myself & surrounded by the sound of bees pollinating my cucumelon vines . . . note the literary device signalling a previous bad dining experience.

Do not boil your blauwschokker.  Ever.  Tough as old boots.  Ptoo Ptoo Ptoo.  Dogs liked them, though.

Last of the blauwschokker.

4.  Seeds, glorious seeds.

I usually toss out last year's seeds at the end of summer, having collected new from the current plants.  This spring, however, I found several small containers of seed I'd collected from 2 gardens ago.

Eventually, I sorted out what still interested me & planted various trays with only a few stragglers germinating.

Except for the hollyhocks.

22 of them bad boys.

The parents were both single & double in pastel colours - yellow, peach, & pink.  Can't wait for next year's blooms!


5.  For the love of trees.

The things I love most in the plant world are trees, which is a shame since I'm rubbish at telling them apart.  That doesn't, however, stop me from gathering seeds at every chance.  In all the years I've done this, I've successfully grown one tree - a motley looking monkey puzzle whom I hold very dear.

So an empress tree growing in the local park dropped these nuggets.

Empress tree seeds & pod.

I left them in the shed over winter.  Thinking nothing would come of this anyway, I did zilcho research into how to grow them, cracked one open & without being precise, dumped half its seeds into a small pot.

What cuckoo nested here?

I've lifted some of the seedlings (thus the bare spot in the pot) & moved them to a trough to give them more leg room.  Although I've image-searched empress seedlings, I don't have a good enough eye to come to any conclusion.  To be honest, I don't believe they're empress.

If they are, I now have a jungle.


6.  Corn angst.

My corn saga started with losing a third of my plug plants during hardening off, followed by the supplier being out of stock, so replacing them with a different strain from another supplier.  Although the new plants were about the same size as the originals, their growth rate was slower, so I ended up with Tall Corn & Short Corn.

Amazingly, the Short Corn tasseled first.  But their tassels didn't open.

Silked, but closed tassel.

Tall Corn gave me brilliant tassels, so pollen all around.  Now, though, even regularly watered, the tassels are brown, yet new silks keep popping up.  I do my feather duster routine & hope great corn sex to be had by both Tall & Short.

Dried tassel.

Expect photos of some funny looking cobs come autumn.

Who splattered paint on Spidey?

There's my Six trials & errors.

If you'd like a gander at other gardens, check out these Six on Saturday Guidelines by The Propagator.  He'll also have a post of his own Six, plus you'll find links from all over the world in his comment section.

Thanks for stopping by.  Look forward to seeing you next week.

Things That Work, Things That Don't

Garden workers.

This is our first summer in this garden, so I'm learning what works & what doesn't.  Let's see what you think of this lot.

Of course, when you're done, go over to The Propagator who is our #SixonSaturday meme host.  Read about his colourful Six, all workers in my mind (even the marigold).

Then scroll down to his comment section where throngs of other SoSers have links to their week's SoS.

So first, a coupla things that work.


1.  Cucumelons.

Not only a new garden, but a new crop.  We had poor luck with our cucumbers last year, so thought these might fare better, as they're reputed to be rampant.  The teeny weeny bloom surprised me.

Cucumelon blossom.  A small chap.

2.  Bed spring trellis.

Remember during the rainy spell earlier this year, when I got cabin fever?  We had an old mattress that we couldn't give away, so I decided to re-purpose its parts.

The inner spring was destined to be a trellis for the berries.  We cut all the little coils down the middle to make 2 trellises.  Separated, the bed spring is quite floppy & could be rolled up like wire fence, so that solved my winter storage question.

The Fence Guy, however, put a wooden trellis above the berry wands, so the bed spring went to the cucumelons.

They seem ready to explore the new trellis.

Because the springs are linked, it loses its floppiness once it's in place & without too much securing.  Two rows of coils are above the wooden fence.  In the afternoon, they catch the sun & the trellis looks a bit like prison razor wire.

In truth, the cut wires can scratch a person, but no worse than roses or brambles.  Even so, I've been mulling over solutions for that.  Maybe some type of tape or fabric plaster on the ends.

Another bad weather project, don't you think?

So now, a coupla things that aren't working.

3.  Droopy smoke.

We lost 3 trees this year, & I haven't a clue as to why.  All three of them - an apple tree, the Asian pear, & the sambucus - survived the winter & started to grow with varying success.  The apple died when the first leaves began to show.  The pear came into full leaf, but no blooms, then died.  Sammy actually had buds but then keeled over.

The smoke bush, thankfully, only has droopy flower buds.

Can't bring myself to full bloom.

Has anyone else had an unlucky tree year?  How about ideas as to why we've taken such a hit?


4.  Calloloo

As I mentioned last week, our front garden gets more sun, so I've put some of my veg there.  When I could, I chose veg of colour in hopes that perhaps the neighbours* wouldn't notice my less than frivolous beds.  The photo of callaloo in the seed catalogue made them seem like a excellently flamboyant candidate for my deception.

But the callaloo isn't reaching the heights advertised.  In fact, it's not reaching heights at all.  Here's a photo of them, potted up after they first arrived, all pretty & sassy.

New baby photo

This is what they look like now, six weeks later. 

Callaloo in June.

Although it's obviously gown, for a plant that's reputed to be a metre tall, this fella has a long way to go by the end of summer.  The foliage has also lost some of its vibrance, but perhaps that's normal.

Interestingly, I've had very odd results in this bed.  As you can see, oxalis & buttercup grow to beat the band, but my bulbs have languished.  I've lost one of my Paris roses in this location, too.  Everything is well fed, but I'm wondering if it's simply too much sun, not enough water, or something a bit more complicated.

Suggestions?

* As to the neighbours, I under estimated these guys.  They're an overly inquisitive bunch, but rather friendly, so my veg has been allowed to stay.  There may or may not've been an offering of produce on my part.


5.  Tonsured mullein.

So let's end with some more things that work.  In my mind, Nature does it best.  Like others of you, I let my favourite weeds self seed somewhat unabated. 

This mullein appeared in the smallest of troughs last year & grew to about 15 inches, which I assume is normal for a first year.  I gave it a bigger trough for this year, though, & here we are, doing what mulleins do.

Monk Mullein.

And here's a close up of his hair cut.  I love the texture & colour of those leaves, especially with the pops of yellow when it blooms.

Bugs like him.

6.  Opium & the creep.

When this poppy first showed itself in my Creeping Jenny, I figured Jenny could take Pops, so left them to it.  They've been quite lovely to watch, the poppy foliage elbowing for space, Jenny running toward the ground.  Then Pops bloomed.

Fleeting beauty.

I'd expected the more subtle purple blossom, but was a bit wowed by the red.  Which of course only stayed with us for the blink of an eye . . .

Shedding petals

. . . then left a bit behind so we know it wasn't imagined.

Both blooms.

The not-workers.

There's my contribution for this week.  Hope to hear some ideas & maybe even some solutions.

For now, I'm off to read your blogs.  Although I've been quiet in your comment sections, I am reading & retweeting as much as possible.  When my energy level returns & I'm my more gregarious self, you'll look back on these quiet days with fondness.

Until next time!