Tag Archives: Japanese anemone

The feijoas are falling.

October 3, 2026summer, weatherarbutus, feijoa, Japanese anemone, pineapple guava, strawberry tree, succulentsGretchenJoanna

I had in mind to do a bit of gardening today, but since it is hot, I’d need to do it early. Early came and went, and even the shady places I had planned to work with my little trowel were not shady enough. Typically our shady places are much cooler than in the full sun, but not this week.

So I just went out and wandered a little while eating a popsicle, and saw that dozens of pineapple guavas had dropped on the ground. That means that they are ripe. So I fetched a bowl from the kitchen and crawled around to gather them — four pounds!

The little squash in the photo above is the only and stunted kabocha that resulted from my first attempt. Next year maybe I will try them again, but in the front yard instead of butternuts. I brought in three of the latter whose stems were not green any longer. After I trimmed off the portions of the long squash vines that are not bearing fruits, I can see spaces into which to insert the starts of leafy greens that I’ve had in the greenhouse.

The fruits of the arbutus (Strawberry Tree) have also been falling for some time, but they usually are overripe before that happens. Right now the bush is covered with ripening fruits, flowers for next year, and pine needles that have fallen — currently including a whole stem of them — as they do on everything that grows on that side of the yard. If I were a terribly tidy sort of gardener I’d need to spend an hour every day picking off the needles of the constantly shedding Canary Island Pine.

I showed Bea how I eat the feijoas/pineapple guavas, and she and I stood around for awhile savoring these exotic gift of late summer. It’s 101 degrees as I type, and I’m thinking this fruit would be nice about now blended with coconut water and poured over ice…. But I’m headed to Vespers, so I’m glad to see that as to temperature, tomorrow promises to be a similar day in which to enjoy such a drink!

Sunday afternoon…

August 30, 2026church, friends, my gardencaterpillars, Japanese anemone, leafy greens, Monarch butterflies, Narrow-Leaf Milkweed, seedsGretchenJoanna

At church we had quite a few people received into the catechumenate before Liturgy. Of them, I had only met one family before, and I sat with them at the agape meal afterward. I had mistakenly thought it was my turn to work in the bookstore right off the dining hall; when I found out I had the “day off,” I switched gears, and got in line for a plate of chicken and rice and vegetables.

First I sat with the new family, and another catechumen joined us, and they told stories about how they got to this place in their life where they have committed to follow the Orthodox path. A couple more people stopped by to chat and share news. What is the best news? We suddenly have at least three families expecting babies!

After that conversation broke up, I moved out to the patio and joined another table of friends, and caught up a little bit on their lives. Twenty years ago one of those women and I had been in the same catechumen class together. Last spring she learned through a series of freak events — which could only be considered providential — that she had a serious genetic heart defect, and within a few weeks had open heart surgery to correct the problems that had developed without her being aware. She is on the mend now, and I was grateful to sit there by her as we rejoiced together in her survival, and in our very existence.

When I finally came home, I watered the Italian Silver Rib Chard seeds I’d planted in the ground on Friday evening, in a place where plenty of morning and midday sun will shine on them and give them a good start in the next weeks. Saturday I seeded parsley and other greens into 4-inch pots in the greenhouse. I don’t want to transplant them into the ground until I have cut down the asparagus jungle; right now it would shade that area too much.

I drank tea, and read a few poems, and articles about poetry. I’ve been sitting here just being thankful for poetry, and how happy it makes me to read poems that I like. I really want to memorize more of my favorites, including Psalms, though I find it really challenging these days.

At this point I ought to insert a short poem. Instead, I will show you the new Monarch caterpillar I discovered, ten feet or more away from where the first one disappeared.

We are pretty sure the first one didn’t crawl across the wood mulch that far to find this relatively healthy patch of leaves to munch on. So this is Caterpillar #2, and he was still there ten minutes ago when I went out to check on him; he seems to be making himself into a J shape, which is what they do before forming the chrysalis.

One of the Narrow-Leaf plants has managed to make a few narrow seed pods, in spite of the severe aphid damage. I hope they develop to the point of splitting open to reveal the fluffy white contents.

The Japanese anemones I planted not long ago are starting to bloom. In the front garden I have deep pink ones. They seem very robust, but they are afflicted with powdery mildew, poor things. And many of the flowers have fewer petals than is normal, or they are differently arranged — hmmm.

While I was out checking on the caterpillar, I snacked on a few fruits of the Arbutus unedo, known as the “Strawberry Tree.”

This year I’m not going to the mountains in late summer the way I usually do, so I have more time to enjoy the garden — and pay better attention to it. Figs are starting to ripen, and the basil crop is abundant. Time to make pesto!

Today was a lovely warm day, with sunshine. Now it’s evening, and nearly the eve of September. Good-bye to August!

Rain on zinnias, seeds on crackers.

October 1, 2023bread, food and cooking, my garden, wildflowersapples, Beowulf, crackers, greens, hikes, Japanese anemone, lemon verbena, portulaca, rain, Richard Rohlin, snapdragons, sneezeweed, sourdough, tarweed, Thai basil, tropical sage, zinniasGretchenJoanna

It was hard to keep up with myself last week, and with all the friends, projects and tasks that fill my life to overflowing. I guess I was somewhat playing catch-up after my mountain retreat the previous week. The garden got gently rained on three times that last week of September, which is unusual. Combined with fog on other days, the dampness caused mildew in the planter boxes, but mostly the lower leaves of the tall zinnias have been affected.

When I noticed the Japanese anemones looking better than ever, it occurred to me to plant a few more this fall, maybe some pale pink ones — but I corrected my impulsivity in time, and won’t be taking on one more project, what with so many others unfinished. A more reasonable goal would be to try to take better care of the anemones I have, and see if they can be encouraged to be taller and more robust. It’s a sign of their middling health, that they do not ever spread and multiply, and their flowers are few and small.

The sneezeweed I grow in a pot looks as well as it ever has. I bought it a few years ago at a native plant nursery, because I love the mountain versions of the flower. I put it in a pot so I could be sure to water it enough; the irrigation settings for most of my garden are set for drought-tolerant plants, and sneezeweed is not one of those. My type is pretty plain, or at least monochromatic, compared to the mountain ones.

In search of fancier kinds, a few months ago I browsed sneezeweeds online for quite a while, and ordered seeds for this one, Purple-Headed. When I am looking at seed catalogs or even plants in nurseries, all the options seem so do-able and desirable. But once the time comes to get on with the actual work of planting… well, I literally drag my feet. So who knows what will happen with these seeds…

I used my sourdough starter twice last week, first to make a large pan loaf of seeded wheat-and-spelt bread. This is the recipe I have been trying to perfect, but perfection hasn’t happened yet. I may have to pause the sourdough project while I branch out and reach back, to other breads I have made or have wanted to try, like chocolate bread, Indian flatbreads, and applesauce rye.

Buttery Sourdough Crackers was a satisfying recipe that used a bit of starter. This picture shows the dough as it was resting overnight, along with leaves of the lemon verbena that I am drying, after pruning my plant for the first time ever.

I used this recipe for: Rustic Sourdough Butter Crackers as my jumping off place, substituting half dark rye flour, and adding sesame seeds to one half, and poppy seeds to the other. I baked them a lot longer than the recipe called for. The resulting crackers are nice and crispy and easy to eat. The butter ingredient plus the sourdough tang is a great combination.

My friend Lucy and I took another one of our monthly walks, up in the hills again but to a park she hadn’t been to before. It’s mostly very brown up there now, but the poison oak is making red splashes in the landscape. And my old friend tarweed!

The Seek app tells me this is not either of the species I saw on my way up the mountain last month, but Hayfield Tarweed. And it seems to come in white or yellow versions, in one case growing side by side:

The third online Beowulf class was this week, and I spent more than two happy hours in the company of the most delightful teachers, Richard Rohlin and Jonathan Pageau. They both love the subject, and Richard is definitely a Beowulf scholar from way back. I will have to at least quote a couple of lines from the poem here eventually, though it seems that unlike me, most people I’ve talked to got an introduction to Beowulf in school. So you may already be more familiar with the story than I.

At the end of the week, I remembered: apples! It’s time to make a trip my favorite apple ranch, and see which of their 30+ varieties is available now. I squeezed it in on Saturday afternoon, and added a stop at a nursery out that way, hoping they would have starts of some kind of leafy greens I could tuck into spaces in the planter boxes after I take out zucchini and tomatoes and eggplant. They did!

So here in the back of my car is a mix of apples Empire, Jonathan and Macintosh; and six packs of Swiss chard and collards. I do have chard growing right now, but I think I need more. And I wasn’t able to get collards started from seed in August.

One more glad sighting of late summer I want to share, is this half wine barrel that was unplanted through last winter:

When I put in some snapdragon plants in late spring, I noticed a couple of tiny mystery plants that didn’t look like weeds, so I left them undisturbed. Now everything has filled out and I find that I have beautiful Thai basil and tropical sage complementing the snaps. Gardens are ever surprising.

Happy October!

First Day anemones.

September 1, 2022church, other gardens, waterAkathist of Thanksgiving, Blessing of Water, Japanese anemone, liturgical New YearGretchenJoanna

It is the first day of the liturgical year for many Orthodox Christians. In church we sang the Akathist Hymn of Thanksgiving, “Glory to God for All Things.” Following, because our rector had decided for several reasons to do a water blessing today, we continued to sing the hymns and psalms and prayers of that service. The giant urn such as we also use on Theophany was in the middle of the church; afterward we drank some of the water out of punch cups. All this thanksgiving and praise and infilling made for a very rich morning.