Category Archives: my garden

Fresh crackers and paint.

family, food and cooking, my garden, work, , , ,
March 2017

It’s an exciting week for me, because many dinged-up walls and doors in my house are being painted, along with the black metal stair railings. These were set to be done several years ago, before the workers were interrupted by wildfires, then by covid. When normality returned, I didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to get started again. But now my new handyman James, a friend from church, is doing the work. During son Pathfinder’s visit over the weekend I was encouraged just to have him to talk with about colors. Now things will be so lovely and clean.

Pathfinder and I did a satisfying amount of work in 24 hours, including a big tidying-up of my utility yard and all the scraps of wood I keep there, which I turn into kindling. There are always pieces that are too long for my stove and need sawing up, and I don’t want to use a power saw; he took care of those fast. He even cut my old manzanita stump into a few pieces to take home for his own wood stove, because he heard that it burns nice and hot, and wants to find out.

We cleaned the fountain together, and Pathfinder leveled it perfectly afterward. The easy way to drain the green water from it is by siphoning it out with a garden hose, but that takes two people to manage.

It’s has been wanting a good clean-up for months, and I had been hoping for this family assist. We managed to do all the tasks before the rain began, which was the morning that he left.

Today it poured, then the sun came out, then the wind blew rain in again. Between downpours I was able to go out twice and gather fallen pine needles enough to fill the big green bin for trash pickup tomorrow. The zinnias watched me with their bright faces as I walked by, so I came back and picked another bouquet of them. These wet blooms don’t last as long as the sun-washed ones, but they are cheery as long as they do. My fingers were all wrinkly when I finally came indoors again, because everything I’d been handling was sopping.

While picking up blankets of pine needles off my plants, I discovered that the Sweet Box, Sarcococca, has shiny red berries on it. I haven’t been impressed with the scent of that shrub’s flowers — it isn’t very potent. But these berries are lovely.

The flax crackers I was working on last week turned out pretty good. I had to leave them in the dehydrator about 28 hours. They need more salt and fewer pumpkin seeds, in my opinion, but I’m enjoying them, and gave some away. I’ll make a new batch soon, with improvements, and eventually will share the recipe here.

Today I made two kinds of soup with various leftovers in the fridge, and I like them both as well. Soup and crackers are just the thing for rainy November days.

To the creek and back home.

my garden, nature, , ,

Four days in a row I’ve taken a walk along the creek path. During the two or three months previous, while I was working hard in the garden, traveling, or concentrating on other various things, I could not seem to do this most leisurely and beneficial thing for  myself. Well, I’m starting again. Autumn seems to be good for new beginnings, in my case.

The top photo shows you how green and grassy and leafy much of the creekside scenery is, but leaves are turning in a few places, such as on this grapevine coming through the fence from someone’s backyard:

And a few trees with yellow leaves are letting them fall now, too. Some are silver maples, I found that out from my Seek app.

When I get back to my place at the end of these walks, I now have several new plantings to look over as I go up the front walk, like the Swiss chard and other greens, which I’ve gotten smart and planted in the front yard, because that’s where all the sun is:

In the back garden I did get the new manzanita planted, and the succulents replaced around it. I cleaned up the pine needles that had been making a thicker and thicker blanket on the plants in that area, and finished just before dark, when it was not good lighting for a picture. The wind came that night and brought down more pine needles, which I have yet to clean up. So I’ll show you McMinn (my name for the new bush, a “Howard McMinn” subspecies) another time. Here is one of the darling new succulents that I added there. I did pull the needles off of that one.

The weather has been unusually warm even for California. It was 80 degrees yesterday. But rain is coming again and will cool things off. It remains to be seen whether I will venture forth in the rain the way I did last year. Every day’s a new day… Will I find new ways to keep good habits? Maybe, with God’s help.

In my happy places.

bees, church, my garden, saints, , , , , , ,

First there was the mega mega gardening week, when I dug chicken manure into 23 little holes and dropped in starts of four different leafy greens; I wrestled with juniper roots to reclaim space; and put back into the ground eleven iris rhizomes of the dozens I’d lifted a month before — and hours upon hours of other such work. It was thoroughly happy-making.

The yard worker had brought in and spread 1.5 yards of soil during my last absence, so that I would be ready to plant when I got home. This neighbor cat thinks its for her potty purposes:

Rosemary and Pomegranate

It must have been extra grace and strength God bestowed on me for the week, because every day I was at it again; the nights gave sound sleep, and that surely helped. I moved heuchera that were languishing in deep shade, to be near my umbrella table corner, where they will likely do better in partial shade.

In that area where I like to sit with guests it’s been hard to find flowers that do well, but since I’ve realized that the increased shadiness of the back garden is the problem, I hope to improve the situation by using more appropriate species. I set out pansies along there, too, for the winter, and in the spring I plan to add Japanese anemones. The goal is to have something blooming most of the year.

Salvia
Abelia with comfrey.
Nodding Violet

Propagation is a joy! I finally dug out at least some of the comfrey that has been shooting up from under the abelia, and put three pieces in nursery pots; if they grow I will stick them against a fence somewhere. I know they do fine in deep shade; when I first brought a start from my former garden in 1990 it grew for years under the osmanthus. But since the osmanthus is gone the comfrey has planted itself in undesirable places nearby.

A friend told me that her Christmas cactus and aloe vera had died, and I happened to have a small Christmas cactus that I had propagated a year or two ago to give her. Also I have three aloe vera plants in pots and they all have babies right now, so I potted one up for her.  When I trimmed the apple mint and rose geranium and nodding violet I stuck a few stems in water, where they are likely to send out roots.

Aloe Vera offering her child.

It’s been fun visiting nurseries at this time of year, though I do have pangs of (I hope false) guilt that I am tempting myself to plant gluttony. I always forget about Iceland poppies until I see them in the nurseries… and let’s see, what else did I find that I wasn’t expecting? English daisies. They do well in part-shade, also. At the moment I haven’t figured out where to put those daisies.

Above is one of my work tables, showing another of my finds at the nursery: stock. I put three plants in a pot to have ready when the asters stop blooming: then I can remove their pot and put this one by the front door.

The gardening spree hasn’t ended, and probably won’t for another few weeks. In the meantime the garden as a whole is a paradise to walk around in, and just look at. In the middle of the afternoon when the sun is shining, the bees are busy still, but they get up late and go to bed early now. The multitude of plants that don’t need attention of any kind at the moment appear especially lovely; they are contented in their slowing down. The atmosphere is quieter and less bright, more meditative.

Pineapple guavas are still tiny, but growing.

In the rain.

Last week I was racing the rain, which arrived Friday night. I could hardly walk Saturday morning anyway, so that marked the end of the most strenuous week, and ushered in the glorious weekend. From Saturday evening to Monday morning it was again and again granted to me to be in my other happy place, the Orthodox church temple where I worship. First the feast of St. Demetrios, the first celebration of that event since I visited Thessaloniki in June, at which time I had became better acquainted with the saint. He is wonderful.

The next day was the first commemoration since her canonization, of our 20th century American saint Olga of Alaska, Mother Olga Michael. It was especially significant for me, because our parish is suffering alongside a family whose wife and mother is in the hospital; we all are needing extra mothering of the consoling and encouraging sort Saint Olga is famous for.

“Her name in the Yup’ik language was Arrsamquq, a name meaning lowly, hidden, or unadorned—like the seed sown quietly in the earth. It was a name that would prophetically mark her life, for she lived not in boastfulness or acclaim, but in humility, reverence, and love.” 

Stories abound of Mother Olga’s loving midwifery, how she helped women sufferers of abuse, and was overall a calming and motherly presence to her own children and everyone around her. You can read the source of these quotes and more about her here: “Righteous Mother Olga of Kwethluk.”

“As she matured, she married Nicolai Michael, the village storekeeper and postmaster, who would later be ordained to the holy priesthood. In time, she would become known not only as Olga, but as Matushka Olga—a mother to thirteen children of her own, and a spiritual mother to an entire village. Quiet, gentle, and strong, she became a pillar of warmth and grace in Kwethluk.”

“The Yup’ik elders say: ‘A real person does not disappear, but remains in the hearts of those they have loved.’ In the Church, we say more: A real person in Christ becomes a saint, and the hearts they have loved, in communion with the Lord, become the Church, the living body of Christ in the world.”

The presence of Mother Olga was a Happy Place for many people.

May we all lean into the Lord,
and into becoming our real, personal selves.
Let us seek and find and live in
the Kingdom of God.