Magic shovel

Strawberries are easily my favorite plant to grow, and one of my garden goals for this year was to increase my already-substantial empire. The problem was that the place where I planned to put the new strawberries had hard-as-a-rock clay beat down all summer by our landscaper’s skid-steer. I literally couldn’t get a shovel into it. 

Then—because Instagram ads know everything about you—I heard about a magic shovel designed by an 85-year-old who wanted to be able to keep gardening.

It’s really expensive, looks like this…

…and works like a dream.

I could not believe how much easier it was for me to dig planting holes, and anyway I finally moved all my strawberry starts from one side of the house to the other. 

In other strawberry news:

Still growing on November 11

The weird backyard vortex where neighborhood leaves congregate

I am starting to wonder if it’s ever going to snow here, or even freeze, really.

New raised beds and Ironman thoughts

I wanted to show you a picture of what I got for my “swampy” area (although it hasn’t really rained in weeks, so):

There are not technically raised beds but “fire rings” (meant to contain a campfire). They were less expensive than raised beds—although not by much, because the manufacturers of fire rings have obviously figured out that people will also buy them to use as raised beds, which by law must be absurdly expensive.

Anyway, they look pretty nice from my kitchen window, which was the main goal. The setup process actually involved me running back in forth into the house several times to look out the window and make sure they looked right before they got their final placement and filling. 

This spot is wet because of the drainage situation but gets FULL sun, like 14 hours a day in the midsummer. So I am thinking that in each one of these I will put a pepper plant, a watermelon plant to spill over the sides (maybe one in each direction) and then some annual flowers to fill in the gaps and make them super-cute.

Unrelated note: Blogging more often got me curious about what the rest of this blog actually says, and I went back recently to read about the year leading up to my Ironman (2011). No huge surprise that I was training a lot, but the part that shocked me was how much I was also working at the time. Some days I was working 11 hours and training 4. (Other days I was training 8 hours and basically eating and sleeping the rest of the time.) I know I’m older, but these days I consider a day where I work 4 hours and also go to yoga more than enough activity. Just…interesting.

Wisteria research

 I got all my seeds organized but just found one more gift from Dexter:

Ingenious packaging and labeling.

Research and logic tell me that this is an American wisteria, probably the cold-hardy Betty Matthews cultivar. They also tell me it’s a huge, high-maintenance plant that could take 15 years to flower when grown from seed, so I probably should not get into the wisteria business.

Bunny wars

I have had a cute little bunny hopping around my garden all year. I made some halfhearted attempts to chase it away at first, but it is faster and cleverer than me—for example, running me in circles around the greenhouse. I never even managed to chase it out of the yard. 

Eventually I decided that a bunny calmly nibbling at this and that wasn’t going to hurt anything, and eventually we got to a point of mutual understanding. Meaning that it was always hanging around and not even slightly afraid of me.

But yesterday I looked out the window and there were TWO bunnies. Right away I’m thinking potential garden disaster if they start breeding, but they were actually battling for dominance! They look similar so I couldn’t immediately tell who was who, but one was chasing the other all over the place and eventually Scared Bunny performed an acrobatic leap over Mean Bunny and left the yard. I got a better look at Victorious Bunny, and it was NOT Regular Bunny.

(M.H. asked, “How can you possibly tell?” I said, “My bunny is cuter.”)

Looked out the window today, and there is Evil Bunny again. I can tell for sure because it’s super twitchy and on high alert—patrolling its new turf rather than merrily nibbling in the style of an animated movie critter.

Bad Bunny

Am I comfortable with this new bunny? No I am not.

The seed hoard

In much the same way that I’m both a crocheter and a yarn hoarder*, I’ve become both a gardener and a seed hoarder. Our library has several seed exchange events every year and a seed library, and I’ve done a ton of collecting there. I’ve also gotten seeds online from Prairie Moon Nursery, American Meadows, and Etsy. I’ve done some seed saving from my yard. And my boy Dexter sometimes brings me random—or specially requested—seeds that he encounters in his job as a landscaper.

Today I spent a couple of hours making an Excel spreadsheet to try to start getting a grip on exactly what I own and making a plan for what to do with them. I don’t know if it will help me get all these seeds put to use next year, but it’s nice to get it organized.

The “organization”:

Here are some seed statistics gleaned from my spreadsheet: 

• Total number of seed varieties (I didn’t inventory the vegetable seeds): 57
• Most common type: Perennial flowers (38)
• Most common source: Library/seed swaps (26)
• Seeds types I saved myself: 12
• Most repeats of same type of flower: Zinnia (7 packets/baggies)
• Seed types I hope to overwinter in the raised beds: 17
• Seed types I’m getting rid of: Blanket flower (the weird tall one) and lemon balm (have enough)
• Flower I can’t believe I haven’t tried to grow yet: Lilac Pompom poppy (look)
• How much work this is all going to be: lol

* There are actually a few other examples of this behavior. I make things out of T-shirt yarn and also hoard T-shirts. I paint and also hoard art supplies. I read and also hoard books.

Love my lav

 We’ve had several frosts and freezes, but look which flower is still going strong (even the baby plants):

The past few years I wasn’t 100% sold on lavender but enjoyed it for its whimsy and purpleness. But now I have a much greater appreciation. My established plants have bloomed three or four times since spring and basically never looked bad. It is pretty easy to propagate. The pollinators loved it. It barely needs water. It’s an amazing addition to a vase. The flowers make a nice tea when combined with lemon balm. It is going to last into NOVEMBER. And theoretically I could learn how to make potpourri or something with it.

One of my plans for next year is to propagate much, MUCH more of this delightful plant, and make sure I get some in the front yard as well.

First frost

 I enjoyed the sight of frost on the clover lawn this morning:

The various garden beds didn’t enjoy it as much, and neither did some of the plants in the greenhouse, because I accidentally left a big window open. Oops.

But to be fair, I am mentally OVER vegetable gardening for the year anyway. I’ve had “harvest kale and make kale chips” on my to-do list for two weeks and I just don’t feel like it.