A good day to stay inside

The weather has been just crazy lately. During a normal winter, the temperature in the garage stays just above freezing, good for storing potatoes, onions, and garlic, and keeping perennial herb plants like rosemary, oregano, and thyme. This winter is not normal. The garlic is showing signs of sprouting and the rosemary is blooming. It has been too warm.

On the nicer days, I have been wheeling the wagon full of herbs out to the driveway, where they can get some light. Today is not a nice day at all - freezing rain is pelting the windows, blown about by gusty winds. I am so happy there is nowhere I need to go. Hopefully, the power will not fail.

The seed catalogs have been trickling in, but I have not paid them much attention yet. Instead, I'm contemplating reducing the vegetable garden a bit. One crop that is on the chopping block is tomatoes, which sounds sacrilegious to this backyard gardener. But hear me out. Tomatoes usually produce more fruit than I or mine can consume. Since I have cut back on carbs (and consequently pasta), I rarely have reason to make marinara or tomato sauce. I'd like to sample more varieties, like heirlooms, which is easily done by visiting local farmers markets. So I think I can forego growing my own.

I have also been staring out at the backyard, wondering how I can make it more charming. I'm not very creative, nor am I artistic. I don't have an eye for design or for color. I know what I like when I see it - native plants, lots of color - but how to translate ideas into something that will work in my backyard is something that eludes me. Currently, my efforts look more experimental than I would like. Fortunately, I have tolerant neighbors.

Some days I have even contemplated giving up the yard and moving into an apartment, but I'm not quite ready for that.

Suddenly it's summer

You go away for a few days, it rains a few inches, and the garden goes from this...

... to this.

Plans, I has 'em

All year round, I find myself thinking about what I want to do next in the yard and garden, but never more than at the end of the season. With successes and failures fresh in my mind, I contemplate what to repeat, what to do better, what to abandon, what new thing to try. These daydreams always chase away any gardener blues I may succumb to now and then.

Before fall cleanup

Something I would really like to improve is weed control in the vegetable garden, especially between beds. I've tried mulching with this, that, and the other, with minimal success. For my next method, I will try mowing. Toward that end, my SO helped me shift the raised beds to make the paths wide enough to accommodate the Toro.

After fall cleanup (more or less)

Next year's big "something new" will be the mini orchard, starting with apples and cherries. I think. I get a little overwhelmed with the choices of fruit trees available, but am narrowing my first choices to varieties that are naturally resistant to pests and diseases, the better to ensure some success.

It's not just the backyard that receives my scrutiny. The bed by the front walk is filling in nicely, but I am discovering the arrangement of the plants is not the best. Specifically, some taller things need to switch places with shorter ones, and some varieties would benefit from clustering together rather than standing in isolation.

This summer I filled in a few blanks with marigolds, simply because I started more seedlings than the vegetable garden could accommodate. Next year I would like to use its cousin calendula instead, which should self seed. I hope that does not turn out to be a mistake.

I'm done with the old fashioned (i.e. mildewed) lilac by the driveway, so whacked it down; an almond tree may grow in its place. The burning bush will get a severe pruning, to give the gold mop a chance to fill in all around.

I'm also done with most of the ornamental grasses in front of the house - just too floppy - and plan to move them to the backyard. I think a maple leaf viburnum would be a nice replacement by the front porch.

This 'Hameln', however, gets prettier every day in the autumn. I think I'll keep it.

I visited a tree nursery several years ago in search of a tulip poplar. The owner shamelessly flirted while extolling the virtues of the sugar maple over a tulip tree. Yes, sugar maples are striking this time of year, but I like the tulip poplar I eventually planted. So much so, I want to plant another, to someday shade the deck.

The observant will notice some big blue stem in the photo above. It and its neighbors, a little blue stem and two varieties of asters, are destined to move to the back corner where they can spread out to their natural size. The plants I moved to the south side of the house this past summer will probably join them. Then I get to decide what to do with the newly vacated location. I get excited just considering the possibilities!

A mighty fortress is my garden

It appears (KNOCK ON WOOD) that we have forestalled further incursions by the woodchuck. A friend of mine suggested violence (he is a gun-owner), but I like to think I'm smarter than a groundhog. Meanwhile, other attempts to protect my food-producing plants have been less successful.

The strawberry bed cover didn't quite do the job, apparently. There was a small gap between the cover and the side of the raised bed, enough for this juvenile robin (and the next day, a slim adult) to squeeze through. That issue has been resolved.

Now I just need to figure out a way to keep the sparrows and finches from chewing on the pea plants. I don't know if the birds are after the plants themselves or aphids on the plants or what. They (the plants) look raggedy and are not blooming as they should.

And then there is the raspberry patch. The branches are laden with incipient fruit, a tempting prelude to what could become an avian feeding frenzy. I'm thinking a net of some sort is in order here.

One of these days, I will just build a cage over the whole garden.

What is where (more or less)

This photo gives you an idea of where I have planted (or plan to plant) what. If you click the pic, it should enlarge.

The cukes should climb that white trellis. The containers in the back are for the sweet potatoes. Corn, beans, and pumpkin are known as the three sisters - we'll see how well they get along.