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!

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!

In Only A Week

Acer leaves the colours of a Van Gogh.

At this time of year, posting Six on Saturday highlights how much change happens in a lil ole week.  Bees are hand jiving in the fatsia japonica while the acer leaves that were golden only three weeks ago, are now shrivelling into a burnished copper.





1.  At the beginning of the week, I had to accept that the lawn needed one last mow.  CFS keeps me on a strict energy budget & mowing sends me into serious, angry-letter-from-the-bank overdraft.  I bit the bullet & bought an electric mower as my hoped-for solution.  No petrol smell, no petrol weight, no metal parts.  For the moment, a great & inexpensive solution to the year's last (anticipated) mow.  We'll see how long this light weight baby lasts, come next year.

My new mower.

2.  No surprise that bulb planting gobbled up a good portion of the week.  None of these bad boys were mad purchases of exotic new residents, unfortunately.  Rather, a clutch of brown bags containing bulbs that'd grown in pots - narcissus, tulips, daffs & some Can't Remembers (i.e., bulbs I didn't label so can't remember what the heck they are). 

Planting last year's bulbs is like getting a card from a really good friend who's moved away.  Except for the Can't Remembers.  That's more like reading what people wrote in my year book all those long years ago, wondering who they were & what they were talking about.

Old friends & forgotten favourites.

3.  Planting bulbs got me close & personal with what's already setting the stage for next summer.  My daisies bloom in late spring/early summer, so they didn't surprise me so much.

Daisy in waiting.

4.  But the Michaelmas daisies did surprise me.  On the other hand, this fella bloomed in mid-summer for the first time, so perhaps it's changing its game.

Aster getting an early start.

5.  I came across a little green stranger snuggling next to the purple sage.  Obviously not a weed, but what the heck . . . oh my goodness, how did I forget that I'd planted a sedum there this year?  Probably because after a short struggle, it'd withered away.  I'm very glad to see it didn't succumb.  This may've been a Purple Emperor, although here, it looks quite green.

The sedum lives!

6.  The last 10 years've been fairly nomadic for me, with a new garden every few years.  My current one is the first I've had with no pond.  But since there's a Doodle at our house, we must have water to splash in.  This week, the pool got drained for winter, with some help from said Doodle.

I think all the water's out now.

While I love the blousy look of late summer & early autumn, everything happening this week tidies the garden for next year.  The sudden neatness gives the whole place a feeling of anticipation.  I guess every week in the garden is a good week after all.

Once again, thanks so much for stopping by my little patch of the world.  Do check out the gardener behind Six on Saturday for his own six & links to all the other great Six gardeners.