November 2020: Slowly Relaxing Back into the Earth

At the start of November, my garden had yet to be touched by frost, although we had had several chilly nights where the temperature flirted with freezing and below. So, most of my plants, even the more cold sensitive ones, were still growing though with plenty of touches of fall color in their leaves.

My elephant ears, which are quite cold sensitive, have had a very good year and got very large. They just barely survive in the ground here from year to year, and only then it’s because they’re in a very protected spot. I was amazed that they are so well protected that they lasted all the way through the month of November with their big, showy leaves still on display.

Another remarkable bright spot for the month was the hearty geranium plant in the garden on the east side of the house. I’ve thought about planting one for several years, and now I’m sad I didn’t do it sooner. It produced beautiful, brilliant purple flowers all the way through November. They glowed against the brown leaves.

My garden began November with golden leaves still on the trees, but by the end of the month the trees were all bare, the leaves were on the ground, and I’d blown them over my garden beds like a blanket. You’ll notice that process slowly taking place in the photos from the month. Also across all the photos below, you’ll notice more and more yellows and reds creep into the leaves before browns start to join them. You’ll notice one pretty hosta leaf that began with a nice variegated green color before its outer margins slowly turned deeper and deeper shades of caramel and then the leaf began to completely collapse in on itself.

By the month’s end, things had mostly begun to collapse into the ground, even though the month came and went without a deep, killing freeze. At the start of the last full week of November, my sweet potatoes finally got a frost that killed most of their leaves, so at that point I harvested the potatoes.

The kids at Patchwork always get super excited when they harvest sweet potatoes there, and I thought understood that: it’s fun to dig around and find buried treasure! Last year was my first one growing sweet potatoes in my garden, but I got them in late and they didn’t have a chance to make many potatoes. I was happy enough with them that I planted more sweet potatoes this year. However, this year’s harvest was something different: there were so many! I’d think I’d found them all, but then they just kept going! I’d move over just a little bit and there were even more! I got the shovel out to help me, but immediately it sliced through two potatoes and destroyed them, so I put it away and knelt on the ground and dug around with my hands. It was like some reality TV show challenge, but in the end I got a bunch of sweet potatoes. They just finished curing, so now I need to figure out what to make.

In other culinary highlights from the month, my birthday came early on and John and I celebrated with steaks with a side of fresh lima beans from my garden. Later in the month I cut up the first of the butternut squash from my garden and made mac ‘n cheese using a great recipe that includes lots of squash in the cheese sauce. Later in the month I got really daring and used the second squash to make filled pasta from scratch. I made the pasta dough and then a filling of roasted squash with sage and cheese, and then I rolled the dough, stuffed the filling into it, cooked the pasta, and made a browned butter and sage sauce with toasted walnuts. It was a very long process, but the food turned out to be amazing. I only started experimenting with homemade pasta this summer, but I’m really liking the results! And for Thanksgiving, we had locally sourced turkey and some sweet potatoes from Patchwork’s garden (since my sweet potatoes still needed to cure for a few more days).

Oh, and as you look through the photos you’ll see a very large building going up across the alley from us. It will be an affordable housing complex. Hopefully it turns out ok. It’s really big and really imposing as you walk down the alley. Apparently the lot behind us wasn’t the top pick for locations for this apartment block, but several other options didn’t work out so they went with this one. It seems like a lot crammed onto not a lot of space, but Evansville desperately needs more affordable housing so apparently it came down to either building in this location or the project wasn’t going to happen at all.

The Temperature Roller Coaster

The end of January through the beginning of February has included a little bit of everything weather-wise. We’ve had snow accumulations, ice, ice and snow, frigid temperatures, and sunny days in the 60’s!

All of this has led to interesting arrangements of snow and ice to observe on the ground. Below is a gallery of photos I took on January 20 during a walk from my back yard to Patchwork Central and back. It includes the brick-edged streets in between both places. If you click on a photo, you’ll get a description of what you are looking at. Perhaps I should have taken a few pictures that show the bigger picture, but things were much, much prettier and more interesting when I could crop out the surroundings.

John and I had contemplated going somewhere for the long Martin Luther King weekend, but with the bad weather predicted we decided to stay home and enjoy quiet time there. On one of the cold days, we fixed ourselves some fancy cinnamon French toast with bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup and bacon. It was fantastic.

Then last week we had dangerously cold temperatures with some snow. That was followed by a morning of freezing rain. It was not fun weather, but I took some additional photos in the brick alley behind Patchwork and in Patchwork’s garden. With the wild swings in temperature, there is a ring of daffodils that have begun to emerge.

Through all this, my orchids have provided bright cheer indoors. Several of them always bloom at this time of year.

Meanwhile: the cats. Last week we celebrated two years since we brought the Ladies home from the Humane Society. They continue to be lovely. Morgaine is a champion napper, always finding new configurations to sleep in. She also loves to burrow under the covers on our beds so she can nap there. Ygraine remains regal. Perry remains a troublemaker, but he’s very compelling, too, and continues to work very hard to be a better cat. I used an online app to make him a trading card for the Puppy Bowl, which is held in conjunction with the Super Bowl.

Part of Perry’s problem continues to be McBalls, the stray male cat outdoors. McBalls seems to taunt Perry by doing things like sitting on the porch railing a few inches (and a pane of glass) from Perry’s face and then ignoring Perry banging on the window behind him. Perry gets upset, then lashes out at his human friends if we happen to be nearby. McBalls can sit there for a half hour, so it doesn’t stop quickly. The nickname we’ve given him is a little crass, but it summarizes his unfortunate life. I need to get him neutered, but he’s really skittish so I know it will be traumatic.

Last week, the Ladies were super interested in something going on next door. I looked and saw McBalls grooming himself in a pile of leaves on our neighbor’s roof. He’s quite the tomcat.

 

A Little of This and a Little of That

It’s mid-December, and I’ve been to a variety of places in the past several weeks. At home, my garden has slowly been going further and further into dormancy. The previously frozen flowers and leaves are drying, their color fading further to brown.

I got my final harvest mid-November. I’d attempted some fall greens and a few came up. I needed the space to plant my garlic, though, so I picked the greens and some small garlic shoots that had been growing all summer from discarded garlic cloves. The greens and garlic leaves made a delicious fried rice. The garlic that I planted in the space they vacated will grow all winter and spring and will be ready to harvest sometime around next June.

 

The day after Thanksgiving, I ended up in my hometown of Archbold, Ohio for their 20th annual Festival of Lights Parade. In case you have never seen a parade in a small Midwestern town, they usually include a wide array of farm implements plus fire, rescue, and police vehicles from as many surrounding areas as possible. Archbold puts a twist on it by holding their parade after dark and requiring everything to be coated in lights.

The last time I saw a Festival of Lights Parade, someone had even covered the village’s septic sucker in lights. I was disappointed that there was only a minimally lighted garbage truck this year, but the Archbold Fire Department did go all out by installing a smoking chimney on the back of their big ladder truck. Of course, there was also the Sterlina the Cow with a nicely lit wreath around her neck.

It was good to be back for the parade after many years. Nothing rings in the Holidays like some lighted farm implements.

 

After Thanksgiving with my family, I traveled to Columbus, Ohio to do an arts residency. I’ll write more about that on my art blog, but here I’ll say that I need to remember to schedule residencies only when the days are longer. By the time I was finished teaching at the school every day, I only had about an hour of daylight left, so I didn’t get to see much of the city.

I did fit in a visit to the Franklin Part Conservatory, however. Their interior had some special plants and lighting for the holidays and they had special light displays in their exterior gardens. I could appreciate some of the exterior lights, but the display I most wanted to see was not turned on yet. It was in the Japanese garden, and the printed descriptions made it sound like there would be projections on the white fabric banners I saw suspended in the space. They were still interesting to look at, though. I was sad that I was just a couple days too early for the Conservatory’s evening hours.

 

After I got home from my art residency, John and I made sure to go out and get a Christmas tree. As is the tradition at Patchwork Central, we drove out to some reclaimed strip mine land and cut an Eastern red cedar. In the past, someone from our group would get the proper permits and training, but now it’s just John and I getting a tree, so we simply dash in and grab one before anyone notices.

The scarred land is beautiful with scattered cedars everywhere, brown grasses, and small ponds. Over the years, John and I have learned that trees look a lot smaller while growing in a field than they do when indoors. In the past we’ve come home with some giants that needed every inch of our 12′ ceiling heights.

The first tree John found looked great…until I realized that it was at least twice his height. We kept searching and found another very pretty specimen that wasn’t much taller than John. Perfect!

Once home, we soon had it decorated. It’s the first time the Ladies have been around a Christmas tree, so we weren’t sure what to expect. The only time they showed any interest was when I first brought out the lights. Once Lady Ygraine completed her lighting investigation, both Ladies went back to pretty much ignoring the tree.

I was a little puzzled by some hanging clumps among the branches. At first, I thought they were insect related, but I couldn’t pull them off so I thought they were part of the tree. They looked great as part of the decorations, but I decided I’d better do a little Googling. Turns out they are cocoons for moth larva. Ick. They’re gone now.

 

And speaking of the cats, they are all enjoying their warm and cozy life indoors and they are repaying us in cuteness. The outdoor interloper who John and I have nicknamed McBalls continues to stir things up for our three indoors. Lady Morgaine continues to love her heated cat bed. And, Perry is still a huggy, bitey mess.

 

 

A Time of Fairies

It’s the most beautiful time of year in my garden! Everything is green and fresh. Some things are newly planted. Some things are newly sprouted. Bright flowers are in bloom. The heat has not had an opportunity to dry things out too much. And, best of all, the honeysuckle is in bloom! It’s a wall of fragrance.

Now I have three varieties. One native variety on the shed (red, below), one unidentified variety in front (orange, below), and the invasive but oh-so-sweet variety on the back fence (white/yellow, below).

The honeysuckle on the back fence and its blossoms add a beautiful and magical backdrop to everything else going on in my garden. It’s a particularly enchanting. Every year at this time I feel like I should look for fairies.

It’s the time of year when it’s hard for me to stop taking pictures of everything. So here is my yard from all (or mostly all) the angles. I’d recommend flipping through them as a slideshow instead of simply looking at the gallery as a whole:

And here are some closer looks at everything in and around my house:

I’ve started on my garden art projects for the year. I’ve got plenty of plans. The first one I tackled was changing an old chandelier into an outdoor solar light. A friend of mine gifted me the perfect light fixture for the project. It was kind of wonky and bent up, so it wasn’t the best for indoor use, but it has a flower theme that’s perfect for a garden. I glued solar lights on in place of light bulbs and voila!

The other project that I’ve started is to invite some actual fairies into my garden. Last summer, I sculpted one of the two apple tree stumps in our side yard, turning it into a bottle tree with a raccoon on top.

This summer I plan to work on the second stump. So far, I’ve added the two apple pickers that came with the house for use in harvesting the trees’ apples. I thought it was fitting to work them into my apple tree trunk sculpture. I started adding bottles (including an apple brandy bottle to add to the theme) and will put plenty more on. Last fall, I’d begun carving a few little niches in the trunk and now I’ve painted the niches and added ceramic fairies created by the children in Patchwork Central’s children’s program. I’ll work on the tree all summer, but I like where it’s gone so far.

I’ve got a few more little fairy vignettes scattered around my garden.

A Round of Robins Eating

We’ve seen them before but from inside the building. There’s one day every winter when we look out the main office window and comment, “Wow. There are a bunch of robins out there. The holly berries must be ready to eat.” It’s impressive, with robins filling the trees and bumping into the windows. I thought I’d truly appreciated the spectacle, but last week I experienced it from the center of a robin tornado. It was pretty intense.

I was walking back to work after lunch when I realized that the holly tree in front of Patchwork was flapping and fluttering. It looked like a monster. It was full of hundreds of robins and hundreds more were waiting in the trees. They’d dive in, flap their way to some berries, and then they would explode out again whenever a car drove by or they were otherwise startled. I wouldn’t say I was afraid of birds, but it was creepy getting close to the tree.

Holly berries have to go through a series of freezes and thaws before birds can eat them, and apparently they were finally ready to eat. Just prior to that, they’d made really lovely photos in the snow! As the birds ate, holly leaves fell all over the ground. Eventually there was a thick blanket of them that other birds picked through to make sure no valuable nutrition was left behind. When the birds were gone, so were all the berries.

Updates and Visitors

I’ve been working hard to get several updates made to my garden and yard before a couple groups of friends were scheduled to visit. On top of the usual cleaning, weeding, organizing, and planting, this spring I started on a new raised bed, a new set of perennials on a new side of the house, and a new piece of garden art.

It was a lot of work and things aren’t finished yet, but some new vegetables are already coming up in the raised bed and I’m  enjoying the way it all looks. The highlight is the new bottle tree taking shape on the stump of the apple tree at the front of the side yard. I’ve been thinking about this sculpture for a little while, and I’ve been on the lookout for the perfect piece to go atop it. I found a fantastic concrete raccoon holding an apple. I shaped the stump somewhat so it would look less stumpy, I carved space on top for plants to grow, and I started adding bottles. It’s still a work in progress, but here’s what it looks like now:

I was so excited to find such a trashy good raccoon sculpture. I found it and the rotary hoe blade under it at a local architectural salvage store. The paint job when I found it was pretty uninspiring, so I repainted it. It has such a perfectly gleeful raccoon look on its face that reminds me of the meme:

It’s always great to have garden visitors in real life in addition to my virtual garden visitors, even though I always pressure myself to try to make everything look perfect. If you’re ever in my neighborhood, feel free to stop by, too! Among the things my guests brought was this photogenic magnolia bloom:

For those unable to visit my garden in person, here’s a quick tour of many of my garden beds and plants. The overview: my other concrete raccoon now looks classy in comparison, I added more tree jewelry, the hostas are happy, a hollyhock is blooming, I added a little flapping wind spinner, I’m trying to grow Alpine strawberries, the red hydrangea is blooming, and I picked the garlic scapes. (As always, click on any photo to see the larger version.)

Another bit of art that’s now out is my collection of goofy garden markers created by the kids at Patchwork as part of Art & Company. They learn how to make art and then sell it and get a “company” dividend based on their investment of time and good behavior. I love the misspellings.

Here’s a collection, along with some ceramic fairies and a real fairy from my garden:

And finally, the cats. The back door is their happy, happy place. Lady Ygraine has been enjoying it for well over a month, but it’s been less than two weeks since Lady Morgaine decided to join her. They are very sweet together and even had their tails entwined the other day. Not pictured: the occasional times Ygraine puts her arm around Morgaine, growls, and pushes her daughter off the chair so mommy can have some “me time”. In Ygraine’s defense, Morgaine does tend to get a little too excited sometimes. Twice she’s been so engrossed in what was going on outside that she attempted to jump with all four feet onto the 0.5″ strip of wood framing the window and then fell off it with a bang that scared everyone.

2016 Christmas Tree Procurement

I’ve struggled to be in the Christmas spirit, so it was tempting to skip a Christmas tree and any other kind of decorations. This year has been tough and next year promises to be more so. However, there have been one or two other Christmas tree-less years, and those years I’ve felt regret after the holidays were over. So a few weeks ago John and I went on a tree poaching expedition.

Our friends at Patchwork used to organize tree gathering, get permits, form a convoy. As everyone grew older, John and I were the only ones who still went. Now he and I still go to “The Spot,” but it’s spur-of-the-moment, permit-less, and just the two of us. The red truck with a bright evergreen bouncing along in its bed is the same as always, though.

We were committed to avoiding the usual tree gathering mistake: choosing something that requires every inch of our 12′ ceilings. The trees always look so much smaller outdoors!

We drove by several and stopped at one that was right on the road and a perfect size. Unfortunately, it was composed of 4-6 trunks all bound together into one tree.

We moved on, not seeing anything sufficiently small.

We stopped again. On closer inspection, that tree was not very attractive.

We stopped again. John walked over to a possible option and stood next to it for reference. He thought it looked good. I thought it was too tall.

Finally, we sighted something up and over a rise.

Maybe?

Up a bank filled with tall thorns and suddenly we beheld: the land of the little trees.

We found one we liked and John stood next to it to confirm that our eyes weren’t playing tricks on us. We cut it, hopped in the truck (Hooray! It actually fit all the way into the truck bed this time!), and drove away before anyone knew we were there (though I doubt that anyone cared).

We set the tree up, and it looks lovely, as usual. Out cat helped John assemble the new tree stand (I’m not sure why. He’s getting a little weird in his old age). Then the decorations. I’m starting to get a great collection of handmade raccoon ornaments. John put one at the back of the tree so it looks like it’s being sneaky. This year I added a squirrel, too. On the tree, the squirrel has an owl watching him from behind.

Moving Ever Onward while Staying in One Place

Every year it is the truth: April through June are kind to my garden. The colors are never brighter. The leaves never fresher or fuller. Plants bloom one after another. Everything is new and energetic.

The last of the daffodils have finally faded, their dying greenery now covered by the expanding mounds of hostas, heucheras, and tiarellas. There are wonderful little vignettes happening across my garden–wonderful color and textural combinations.

There’s the section of orange and yellow heucheras mixed with white hostas and pink tiarella flower spikes. It’s the section of my garden that was included in the book The Perennial Matchmaker by garden blogger Nancy Ondra (Yay! It was super cool to have one of my photos included in a gardening book! With a photo credit!).

Then there’s the woodland vignette of Solomon’s seal, sweet woodruff, wild ginger, and astrilbe at the base of the maple tree. And the cluster of iris, astrilbe, coral bells, tiarella, and alums only halfway through its blooms.

Mix in some heart-shaped redbud leaves, blazing azaleas, dewdrops, and awesome garden markers by the kids at Patchwork, and I’m a happy gardener.

We almost got through the month of April without a tornado warning, but then last week a severe storm hit. A tornado touched down in the north part of Evansville and there were 60 mile an hour winds all around. It was too much for the frontmost of our two apple trees. I came home from work to find its branches very definitely in the wrong place.

We called the tree removal people right away and they were out to take care of it a day and a half later. Since the tree was resting on our house, they brought a truck with a crane on it so they could lift straight up. It was very interesting watching them work.

Here’s the before photo of the side yard as they assessed the situation:

And then the guy way up in the tree connecting straps to use for lifting:

And then before my eyes, the entire tree being hoisted over my house. It was a very impressive sight:

I asked them to cut down the second apple tree, as well. In the time we’ve lived here, the second tree’s apples have never been large and it was equally old, so it was a good time to remove it. Maybe now that we won’t have heaps of apples on the ground our house will be less attractive to raccoons and other critters. Maybe.

Here’s the final piece of trunk being readied to be lifted away:

And the empty space left behind:

There are plenty of new possibilities here now. It’s sunny, so I’m hoping to build a raised bed to expand my vegetable gardening space. I had the tree guys leave stumps so I can transform them into garden art. Happily, the house seems to be OK.

I’ll miss these trees. They were yellow transparent apples. Their shade was wonderful, and I’d discovered years ago that that they were the secret to making deliciously tart, green applesauce that was just like mom used to make. Luckily, a few years ago I discovered a local source for applesauce apples.

They were old trees, planted almost 40 years ago in an effort by the early folks involved at Patchwork Central to be modern day Johnny Appleseeds. Trying to bring healthy, local food to the residents of inner-city Evansville, everyone planted fruit trees and berries in their yards. These trees thrived where apricots and blueberries failed.

Calvin and Nelia, previous residents of our house who are two of the founders of Patchwork and the trees’ planters, had this tribute to the trees: “They produced lots of apples! We would pick as many as we could & then take bags of them up & down the street asking our neighbors to ‘adopt’ some apples. We made lots & lots of applesauce, fried apples & other inspired concoctions. I still remember the sound of the overly ripe fruit crashing down for the too high top branches with a great ‘splash’. The bees loved the squishy, sweet nectar of these rotten apples! We give thanks for the faithful produce of these determined trees.”

Here’s a photo from Calvin and Nelia that shows the trees just after they were planted:

In the last 2-3 years, the trees have been too tall for me to pick any apples, so I just let the apples fall to the ground. They were so fragile that they would turn brown and shatter with the smallest impact, so the ones that fell never tempted me. I thought they had a horrible, sour flavor when raw, anyway. It always astounded me that many, many people passing by would stop and pick one up to eat. From time to time, I’d hear the clink of the gate latch dropping as someone quietly let themself into the yard to get a particularly large and (relatively) unblemished apple.

So the apple trees really have provided local fruit to hundreds of neighbors for decades. They were a wonderful thing.

The Season’s Feast Begins

I have a very small garden, but it can still pump out way more produce than John and I can possibly eat. Already this summer I’ve treated my friends to salad after salad at potlucks and gatherings. I’ve made pots and pots of spring soup with sausage, cream, and any kind of green that was growing in excess. And yet the arugula, cilantro, and greens are still growing so fast they’re going to seed. The garlic is almost ready and the first tomatoes aren’t far off.

Meanwhile, my favorite fruits will be coming into season in quick succession. Cherries are ripe now, blueberries are imminent, and then there will be lodi apples and peaches. I’ll be traveling for the next couple weeks, so I’m worried I won’t be able to get enough of the good stuff stored up in my freezer for the winter! There is so much to harvest, so much to cook, and so much to eat!

I’ve created a new piece of garden art. It’s inspired by some that I’ve seen online. I love the piles of kitsch and glitter. I realized that I could make my own and decided to put it in a corner of the garden where it can add color all year long. It’s made from odds and ends, a metal vegetable steamer, Mardi Gras beads, rally bells from an Evansville Otters baseball game, and a suet feeder that the woodpeckers didn’t seem to like.

I’ve discovered some tiny leaves unfurling from the fig trees that I thought were dead, and that the tunnel of blackberry leaves is inviting.

My cat has enjoyed watching it all and even got to feel the earth under his paws when he “escaped” for some supervised time in the great big outdoors.

And I’ve begun on a new and ambitious garden art piece that will probably take me all summer. Can you see what’s different in the photo below?

I’ve been eyeing the back yard for a few years and wondering what additional art I could add. I thought perhaps a mural on the little shed, but I like the way its dark brown is a nice canvas on which to showcase the plants. Finally I realized that I’ve been pretending that the ugly grey of the metal fence doesn’t exist. I knew it would be perfect for some art. Phase one is to paint it all yellow (after sanding and priming–argh!). Phase two will be to add some more colors. I love it already!

My newest plants are blooming at the front of the house. I’m enjoying seeing them for the first time. As an added bonus, they should do a good job attracting butterflies, which is the theme for the summer at Patchwork where I work.

There is yarrow:

Coneflower:

Veronica:

And coreopsis:

And that’s not all! Here’s just a sampling of the other things happening around my garden in the last couple weeks:

 

 

Happy Garden of Rainbow Unicorn Dreams

This time of year is perfect. My garden looks beautiful, in part because everything in it is so fresh and new and excited to be alive. I bought several new plants at the annual Master Gardener Plant Sale a few weeks ago (held, funnily enough, on World Naked Gardening Day (no one was naked)) and I shoehorned them into my stuffed perennial bed so it’s an even bigger and fuller mass of colors and textures. The whole garden is a chartreuse land of rainbows and unicorns, and I’ve been spending all my spare minutes in it.

There are no death zones where plants have decided that I pushed them a little too far and they really don’t like where they’ve been planted. The raccoons haven’t held a kegger in the middle of the perennial bed. Nothing is deflated in the summer heat. No bug or slug infestation has wrecked the place. No single plant has decided to crowd out its neighbors until they die. The neighbor hasn’t lobbed bottle rockets into the yard. The next door landlord hasn’t killed my honeysuckle with Round-Up just because he blames the world for his shortcomings.

It’s a paradise that will fall soon enough. I’m just trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

The plants have all emerged from the ground and most are nearing their full size. You can click through the slide show below to see what’s going on in more detail. See if you can spot my cat surveying his domain!