The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

There's nothing going on in the garden at this point -- except Mr. Mulch attempting to coax the remaining fallen leaves into loosening their grip on the foliage where they're hiding. It's an odious task that I help him with until we're deep enough into the cold season so that long underwear is required while raking.  That's my signal to retreat indoors.  I'm at peace with being called a lightweight.

It's also a good time to take a moment and review the triumphs and defeats of this year's garden.  That way, maybe I'll be able to avoid repeating the latter, although it does seem there are some lessons I will never learn.  For example, that the ideal spot for that gorgeous new plant will always involve digging a hole where there are the most -- and largest -- stones.

Or this one:  The minute you leave on vacation, the critters who've been coveting your veggies will descend upon the garden, waging a battle of wits with your unfortunate house-sitter, in this case, our oldest daughter.  She did a masterful job of preserving some of the tomatoes, but not without suffering serious losses.

Or this: I should make a note somewhere of every plant I add to the garden during the course of the season so that I don't wind up scratching my head in puzzlement when, in the early spring, we get corn-like stalks of some unknown vegetation where I know I planted something but can't remember what.  I am urged by Mr. Mulch to rip it out, since the alium-like fronds have yellowed without flowering.  I resist, and you can see them in the lower left of the photo below.

It wasn't until the following September that I discovered... er, remembered what these were: Colchicum!  One of the few plants whose leaves and flowers grow at different times during the season.  The early spring leaves soak up the sun that nourishes fall flowers.  And thankfully, I didn't pull them out and was instead rewarded with a carpet of pink blooms in mid-September when most everything else has faded.

There were some great triumphs.  

For one, I didn't ruin the hydrangea this year, and we had a glorious display for most of the summer.

 
Both pinks and blues, as well as bushes and standards.  For the first time in many years, I had bouquets of these indoors all season long.




This season, we also had some interesting visitors in the garden.  We had ducks who nested, mantises that prayed, bugs that noshed, and chipmunks that cavorted.  Perhaps our biggest victory was the wildlife we kept out.  For the first time in years, we had no deer incursions; no defenses were breached.  I can live with giving a few tomatoes to a raccoon as long as we did without the scorched earth impact of a deer getting into the raised beds, trampling anything uneaten, leaving only footprints and piles of raisinettes behind.

We had some losses too, courtesy of a rather vicious mother nature.  The tall weeping cherry tree which flowered so beautifully outside my younger daughter's window in early spring...

... took a direct hit from a freak early October blizzard.  The 14" snowfall totally flattened it...

And though it was resilient enough to return to an upright position once the snow melted, sadly it was without about 2/3 of its branches.  We're hoping it survives to bloom again next year.

We also lost most of the two standard lilacs that flank the entrance to the front garden.  I'm pretty sure those are goners.  But I'm also grateful that Mr. Mulch and I are not -- goners, that is.  We narrowly escaped the top half of an oak tree that literally stabbed itself into the macadam of our driveway moments after we came inside.  Our cars also escaped a premature demise, since we uncharacteristically had the foresight to move them into the garage.

But back to happier recollections...


There was the Hosta.  In fact, there will always be the Hosta, since it seems to survive just about every depradation.  It's usually the first target of any deer that does find its way into our gardens.  And though every single plant has been gnawed to the ground at least once (and several more vulnerably located, repeatedly) by hooved trespassers, the hosta always come back.  I'm not sure when you're supposed to divide them, but inevitably, you must.  Particularly if you have the poor judgment to plant some Sum and Substance or Blue Mammoth (gee, why do you suppose it's called "Mammoth") in a narrow border.  They may look cute and delicate in year 1, but by year 3, they're roughly the size of a large beach umbrella, and if you don't divide them, they hire real estate agents to find them a roomier home.


So late in the Fall of 2010, we hacked a bunch of them apart, and I do mean "hacked."  We were quite ruthless about uprooting them and slicing their impressive roots apart with a serrated-edged shovel.  We found them a nice home in the middle of a grove of hemlocks, and threw them in there, figuring we'd either have a hosta nursery or we'd simply have made more room for the one or two remaining hosta down below.


To my amazement, every single one emerged in early spring, working hard to breach the dense layer of mulch left by you-know-who...

By mid-summer, we had a jungle-like carpet of yellow- and blue-green...

... plus the assurance that we'll never have to buy a hosta plant ever again since we can now raid the nursery if we have any more shady spots to cover.


Then there was the surprise starburst tulip variety, which I of course can no longer identify.  But happily, I planted them at the edge of our lowest terrace, so I got to look at them daily during the entire time of their bloom.

And finally, the tomatoes.  We fought off blight and critters and found an ally in the wasp world (who knew?!), and even though our crop was diminished, we ate our own tomatoes far into the fall.  We harvested all the green ones before the first frost, and put them in paper bags with a couple of apples to ripen -- and it worked.  We ate the last of our very own fruit on November 7th.  They may not have been the best tomatoes we had all season, but they were ours.  And on a bed of our own arugula with a few drops of fresh lemon juice, a dash of truffle salt, and a dollop of good olive oil, they were more than just fine.

As we hunker down for the winter, we're not entirely finished with taming the fruits of nature.  I'm helping Mr. Mulch's with his winter project -- (Which he's pursuing in partnership with his good friend Andy) -- making wine.  So right now, we have some peach wine and several different kinds of raspberry wine happily fermenting in our basement.  

The first batch has been bottled and is a deliciously beautiful clear, rich red...

It's still a bit young and raw -- as is this new year.  But we have high hopes for both.  

So while I put this blog to bed for the deepest, darkest part of winter, I do so with the hope and optimism that I believe characterizes all gardeners.  Even in the bleakest, grayest parts of February, we know that those green shoots are coiled just below the surface, waiting for the warm kiss of the early Spring sun.  So we organize the kitchen cabinets and clean closets for a while, but our eyes are really on the calendar, waiting for the right moment to start those seeds indoors and get a jump on the next season.  And when we do, I'll also get this blog started again.

Now, if I could only remember where I stacked all those seed catalogs...

Not Dead Yet!

In the wake of the snowstorm's destruction and the subsequent cleanup, it's been too depressing to spend much time either writing about or working in the garden.  So I've missed a post or two.  But this is the second consecutive weekend where we've had unusually warm weather and even though I know this is a tease, and another snowstorm is just around the corner, I've succumbed to the garden's siren song.  

I ventured out with pruning shears to do some winter prep and discovered that the garden has been more resilient than I of late.  The premature snow is gone, and in its place are signs that there is still life there.


The arugula we planted in the late summer has, in fact survived -- though spinach of the same vintage did not -- and looks as though we might be available for salads this weekend.

Arugula -- survivor of the big snowstorm!

The cold frame seems to have done its job in protecting the radicchio under its supervision.  It seems to be heading nicely and might soon join the arugula in the salad bowl... or perhaps sauteed with red onions to serve as a bed for seared scallops (if that sounds appealing, check out the delicious recipe here)! 

Radicchio heading nicely -- if slowly -- in the cold frame

I even found some hardy kale standing sentry alongside the cold frame.  It outlasted whatever cold-vulnerable insect was gnawing on it, and seems to  be thriving in this mini-warm spell.  A little garlic and olive oil, and this, too, will make a tasty side dish.

The kale outlasted bugs and snow

But even the plants that have not survived have their own austere beauty.  And once I stopped sulking about the fallen limbs and leaf debris everywhere even I -- grouchy though I was -- was able to appreciate some of these starker pre-winter tableaux.

Lacy hydrangea panicles still look regal when petrified!

The last bloom on a rose bush shutting down for the winter

And then there's the compost pile we started in a cage at the top of the hill last year around this time.  We began it with leaf clippings and fed it all year long with kitchen scraps and garden detritus.  Mr. Mulch built a second cage into which we he shoveled the first turning.  Then last weekend he built a third to hold the ready to use compost from the second cage.  And as he shoveled #2 into #3, there was the final discovery: in yet another of nature's miracles, all that garbage had decomposed into thick, dark nutrient-rich compost ready to feed next year's garden. 

Mr. Mulch shoveling from bin #2 to bin #3

Fully composted -- black gold!

And so, even though the garden has come full circle and is almost as barren as it was at the beginning of this blog last March, in that moist pile of disintegrated debris lies the hope for the next successful growing season.  

The hill has come full circle, plants done, hunkering down for the winter

And for that, on this holiday weekend, we are inded very, very thankful.

Not With a Whimper, but a Bang

So last weekend we, like everyone else in the Northeast, were laid low by the freak October snowstorm that ate the last of the gardening season.  No gentle fading into late fall this year.  No, Mother Nature brought the season to an abrupt and violent conclusion.  Smothered it in fact, in a thick blanket of heavy cement-like snow, weighing down the still-leafy trees until their trunks snapped, reverberating like shotgun blasts throughout the afternoon. 

The storm rolled in earlier than expected and stayed longer and behaved much worse than our usual meteorological visitors. Even our earliest snowstorms in the past have had the good manners to wait til the leaves fall from the trees, but not this time. And our poor Kousa dogwoods paid the price.  

Here's the dogwood I see from our kitchen window.  It's about noon last Saturday, October 29th.  The storm has just started arrived.  If you enlarge this photo, you can see how heavily the snow is falling.  At this point, the Kousa and it's neighboring rhododendron and hydrangea are still proudly upright.

Noon -- the storm starts to get serious

By about 1:30 PM, there are a couple of inches on the ground -- still not too much -- but it's clear that this snow is sticking like velcro.  Very. Heavy. Velcro.  The Kousa is already bowed, as are it's friends.

1:30 -- this is not going to be pretty

It's at this point that we feel compelled to venture out to shake some snow off the branches before they give way entirely.  But it takes only 10-15 minutes before we're totally spooked by the sounds of cracking tree branches and the unmistakable slow motion crashes of enormous trees keeling over so we retreat through the garage into our mudroom to shed our way-too-soon winter garb and head upstairs.  We pause on the landing to look out at the driveway and hear an awfully close gunshot and the swish, crash bang of a huge falling limb which makes us both duck reflexively even though we're inside.  We look out at the place on the driveway where we usually park the cars we'd moved just two hours earlier and see this:

 ... which used to be attached to this:

... which is a good 60 feet up in the air.  Which means that a) had we come in 5 minutes later, we would have been flattened, and b) it was a really, really good idea to move the cars!  We also were extremely lucky because the limbs missed both the generator and the propane tank that powers it, straddling both without doing any damage.  As if to punctuate our good fortune, it was right about then that the power went out.  For 5 days.  But the generator worked, and we were able to keep the house warm and flush toilets, so we were in relatively good shape.  As I write this, there are areas in my own and neighboring towns that still don't have power, so believe me, I'm not complaining.


Meanwhile, back on the other side of the house, the Kousa went completely prostrate.  Or perhaps, given what had just happened down below, maybe it was just ducking for cover.

Kousa flattened, along with its neighbors

By Sunday morning things had calmed down enough to take stock of the damage. It was impressive.  We'll start with a full foot (maybe a bit more) of soggy snow.  Too heavy to shovel; too wet to plow, so it's going to be with us for quite a while.  Behind what used to be our seating area, you can see a standard Rose of Sharon bent all the way to the ground, festooned with sticky flakes.

Poor Rose of Sharon in the background; it's supposed to stand straight up!

No hope for fall crops.  Somewhere under the blanket below is spinach, arugula, and lettuce.  Poor defenseless sprouts!

No arugula today!

Then there's the hydrangea -- the proud subject of a post just a week before, now also bowed down to the ground.

Snowbound Hydrangea

A week later I can report that, happily, the Hydrangea, Kousa, and Rose of Sharon have bounced back in testament to the resilience of growing plants.  Sadly though, we did lose a weeping cherry tree in the front yard, and plenty of big branches from those oaks that stand sentinel all around our hill.

Oak limbs down on the hill

Cleanup has taken quite some time -- and an awful lot of chainsawing.  That's Mr. Mulch's job.  It's my job to stack the wood, and we both haul away branches and leaves.  Lots and lots of branches and leaves.  It's a real mess.  After three full days of sawing and stacking, here's what used to be the half an oak tree that shaded our driveway until it decided to become one with it...

A full cord of wood

There is a positive side to all of this:  at least we won't need any firewood for about five years!

Coda, and The Case for Global Climate Change

Here's a quick coda to the last post.  

I'm not very good with either cut flowers or houseplants.  One touch from me and they wither and die.  Of course, if I ever remembered to water them, the outcome would surely be different, but that never seems to happen.  

This is the one time of the year where even my black thumb can't really do too much damage, because hydrangea are one of the few cuttable flowers left in the garden and by this time of year they're already pretty close to being petrified.  So I defied fate after writing about those and the anemones, and now our dining room table is graced with a vase full of both.  I don't have to worry about keeping the hydrangea alive, but the anemones have been put on notice that they may be in peril.  I can't claim to be any more adept at arranging indoor blossoms than I am at keeping them alive, but this is about as good as it gets.

Can't kill the Hydrangeas, because they're already past their prime; the anemones are on their own, however!

Now, on to the next topic.

We've lived in the same area for the past 30 years.  And in all that time, one of the few things we have been able to count on is a killing frost the first week of October.  The last weeks of September have always been a flurry of picking, freezing, pickling, and canning in advance of that merciless deadline.  Last fall was the first time this timing slipped, and we got our first hard frost in the second week.  Chalk that one up to margin of error.

This year, however, it's now three weeks into October, and we're still ripening tomatoes on the vine!  Here are the ones we plucked just hours before dinner on Friday -- plump, juicy sun kissed fruit, delicately dressed with a bit of olive oil and white balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, plus some scallions from the next bed, all arranged on a bed of arugula dressed only in a drizzle of fresh lemon juice.

Yellow Beefsteak and Prudens Purple with fresh-picked scallions

I close my eyes and I'm tasting August.

October 22 and we're still harvesting: as convincing a case for global climate change as I'll ever see in my own back yard.

Last Bloom Standing

At this point in the season, while most folks are putting their gardens to bed, we're usually feeling smug because we have plenty of cold-tolerant crops like brussel sprouts, broccoli romanescu, and maybe an odd-colored cauliflower or two to carry us for another month or so.  But this year, gloom has replaced our typical lack of humility. The wet weather brought the bugs and the bugs got all those crops, so we're left with prematurely empty beds, one healthy looking stand of chard, and some withering tomato vines with a few fruit we're trying to coax into late ripening.  

Sad, empty beds

C'mon, you can ripen before the frost!

Chard making it's last stand

The one bright spot is some very perky looking radicchio starting to head up in the cold frame.

Radicchio head-to-head in the cold frame

But for the most part this is the point where the garden "... is "fall'n into the sere," to borrow from Shakespeare (Macbeth Act V, Scene III). Unlike Macbeth, however, we can console ourselves with happier things than the curses "not loud, but deep" that await him later in the act.  


We find our solace among the late blooming anemones.  As everything else in the garden becomes one with the mulch, the anemones rise, statuesque above their leaves, to deliver a welcome burst of color that will last into November.  Their brilliance comes just as the spectre of winter starts to chill the heart, and helps ease that brutal transition.

Anemone light up the hill in mid-October

We have several varieties -- Queen Charlotte, Prince Henry, and several without pedigrees that seem to have just shown up.  If they weren't so gorgeous, I'd have to call them invasive, because they spread enthusiastically with total disregard for barriers  -- even stone walls.  They are also capable of flight.  I found a renegade anemone this fall clear on the other side of the house in the front garden.  Since they propagate by tentacle-like roots, I can't quite figure out how that one migrated.  But I've granted it a reprieve because it's as lovely as its disconnected relatives.

These plants have rather delicate blooms, so they're best when they're massed, and when they're placed where you can get up close to admire them.

A mass of white anemones -- I think these may be "Prince Henry"

I think this is "Queen Charlotte" -- the flowers can be up to 4" across!

Anemones have many different blossom types -- here's a delicate pink single bloom

... and another semi-double white one

Anemone pile!

We also get one last gasp of beauty from our standard hydrangea located halfway up the hill.  It was filled with beautiful white panicles just a month ago, but the cooler nights have brought a blush to its petals.  It's a perfect complement to the mixed pinks and whites of the anemones that flank it both above and below.
 

Hydrangea showing off on the hill

 

Of course, this is good reason to show off

Finally, there's always somebody who doesn't get the word.  In this case, it's another hydrangea -- one of the big macrophyllas above the shed on the right side of the backyard.  It's got one last big blue pompom that just opened last week.  Just a wee bit late!

There it is on top!

Clearly, that plant get points for enthusiasm in the contest for for "Last Bloom Standing!"