Category Archives: nature

Leeks and Pollinators

August 22, 2016my garden, naturecalendula, insects, landscaping, leeks, pollinators, rudbeckiaGretchenJoanna

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I love to have a day like today, when I stayed home and worked, mostly in the garden. I planted seeds in the greenhouse on Wednesday, and today I wanted to sow others directly into the planting boxes. But I hadn’t realized how little space is currently unused by other plants. So I decided to take out a few leeks to make room for carrots. gl IMG_3034

I haven’t been sure about those leeks, if they are growing properly, or are a complete loss. Maybe they didn’t get enough water and are spongy as well as spindly? So I pulled up a few of the largest, and discovered that they are perfectly fine. This was comforting; my fennel had indeed been almost a complete loss, because I let it go too long. And one doesn’t want to have that experience often, of using a chunk of precious space for several months with not much to show for it.

(So I made some Leek Confit this evening.)

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At one point in my back-and-forth around the garden, I stopped raking pine needles or preparing seed beds and just watched all of the insects that are incredibly busy feeding off the flowers. It’s become the pollinator garden that I planned for, and there are many kinds of bees, wasps, flies, moths and butterflies to be seen working.

These two seemed to be taking a break from their job, to play tag on a zinnia.
After I took several pictures of them they escaped from my spying and continued their game on the underside of the flower.
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I also noticed a hummingbird at the Bachelor’s Buttons, when he made the branches shake, but he didn’t hang around very long after that. gl IMG_3042

The arugula seeds came up in only three days, in the warm and humid greenhouse, and in four days the hollyhocks began to emerge! This is a newborn hollyhock for you.

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While I was doing my work in the back, the landscapers were doing theirs out front.

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I was quite pleased to see how they made use of the clods of adobe clay to make a sort of wall by the drain that slopes down the grade and will carry off any extra water from heavy rains.

A lovely and restful day. Only my feet hurt. So I wrote this blog post instead of taking an evening walk.

Good night!

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My pink and minty view.

August 18, 2016my garden, natureevening, hummingbird mintGretchenJoanna

I’ve been taking evening walks, and have been loving the way the light catches different aspects of the plants from what I see in the morning, even the very early morning. It’s been a wonderful week, with lots of time for me to catch up on a hundred different things, but in an unhurried way. More on all that, and the creekside views, to come.

Tonight I just want to show you a view that I have out my kitchen window for much of the day. The pink-orange hummingbird mint in the sun, me in the shade, I see it across the garden as a delicate curtain, with other flower heads also floating off to the side. I need to remember not to plant anything that will block it out of my sight when I’m standing at that counter. The picture was taken this evening.

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little goldfinch

August 15, 2016birds, my garden, natureLesser GoldfinchGretchenJoanna

This morning a goldfinch flew with a thud into the glass of the sliding door, and lay still on the patio with one wing splayed out. I waited for her to recover herself and fly off, worried that a cat would wander through while she was vulnerable. When she didn’t move, I went out and talked to her, to ask if her wing was broken. Should I touch my wounded bird friend? It was the natural thing to do, to stroke her small body. After a while I tried tucking the wonky wing back in place, and it seemed to line right up with the other one. The bird was looking a little more alert after fifteen minutes or so, but when I tried to lift her on to her feet she stumbled.

I texted my friend Mrs. Bread, who I guessed had experience with wild animals like this – and also daughter Pippin, whose first animal-related job was working for the bird rescue center. Mrs. Bread said I should fix up a shoebox with soft materials and put the victim in it; that would help her to calm down.

So I prepared a box with a towel and some fine rice straw from my bale of mulch, and carefully set the finch in it, and on the patio table temporarily, while I went inside for a minute. From the window I saw that right away she hopped on to the edge of the box, and when I took my eyes off her to go back out the door, she had vanished. My box worked like magic!

This is the last picture I took, before I prepared the box. I am amazed at the details of her feathers, which I didn’t take in when I was with the real bird. I hope she is okay, and that she will be back taking a bath at the fountain tomorrow!

How gardens are made – or not.

August 13, 2016my garden, nature, quotesbees, echinacea, landscaping, milkweed, Prairie Moon Nursery, rosemary, Rudyard KiplingGretchenJoanna

In a way, my gardens have been too successful. I planted tomatoes where they didn’t have gl berries P1040889 room to grow, and have had to drastically prune them back so that I could get in there to pick them as they ripen. No pretty picture to show you there.

The fennel grew so lovely – now I realize it was overgrown and woody before I picked it. I’m eating it anyway, and the edible parts are yummy. Next year will be my third growing fennel and it should be the charm.

Rudyard Kipling said,

“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.”

That goes for harvesting, too! But the making I need to do today and next week concerns seeds…. Before my next trip to see grandchildren, I have a few weeks to get seeds planted in flats in the greenhouse, and to water them once or more daily until they are big enough to set out in the garden where they will get automatic watering from then on. P1050162

What seeds? I don’t even know yet. But perhaps these that I received from Prairie Moon. I saw a picture on a blog post, of unidentified coneflowers growing wild on the prairie, and researched to find out what variety it might be, and where to buy seeds. It turns out they are Echinacea pallida. The company sent me milkweed seeds also, as a gift, and I dug out my own milkweed I had collected a couple of years ago. P1050165 I’m not even sure that I can successfully plant them now to have plants to set out in the spring. Probably I should be reading up on that instead of writing and speculating!

My front yard is taking a lot of attention. In July we laid cardboard and mulch thickly all over the lawn (this is called “sheet mulching”) to kill it, and now that that has been done stonemasons are beginning work on a walkway and a wall. gl P1050150

Later we’ll landscape with some plants about which I am still deciding. I had two rosemary bushes in the front, one of which was about 25 years old. Landscape Lady said it looked like a Bristlecone Pine, and at first we were going to keep it around for its venerableness. But it wasn’t that worthy, and would scratch and poke me twice a year when I took the pruners to it, over the years shaping it into its crotchety self. I didn’t want to go through that one more time….so I took parting pictures.

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Now that I have great soil and many options for growing various things, I don’t know if I will ever have a chance of “keeping up” with my garden. But I plan to go on enjoying it, and reporting about it here. Perhaps even while sitting in the shade.