Rose Cottage

   This week I took the grands to their volunteer training at our Public Library. While there, i picked up several seed packets from the Seed Library!  My granddaughter's middle school gardening class packages and restocks the seed supply, and she asked,  "Grammie, have you visited the seed library?" ... Seed Library - 'take up to 5 packets' I also checked out a couple of books - on gardens and gardening. In an essay on the lovely blue Poppy,  Meconopsis betonicifolia in Jamaica Kincaid's  My Favorite Plant , gardener Wayne Winterrowd writes of being given a start of M. betonicifolia.  The 'very good gardener' who gifted the start told him,  "Divide it into single crowns, with a bit of root when you get home. Plant then firmly just at the crown, like strawberries, in rich decayed leaf mold. Bright dappled light. Maybe some morning sun. But pinch out the first flower bud.  You MUST pick out the first flower bud."   Tibetan Blue Poppy Sin...

  It's exciting to watch the garden emerge and take shape!   I seeded more of my Homesteaders Kaleidoscopic Perennial kale Grex (Experimental Farm Network) - always fun to see the variety of plants which emerge.  Tomatoes, basil, kale seedlings on right I sketched various plans for each bed, then, go out to the garden and fine tune with the Devas, for the layout! We still don't have fences to the N or S, so the deer roam through.... tulle and binder clips provide night time protection!  Tomatillos and Monarda I enjoy planting a mix of old favorites and less standard greens - orach, new Zealand spinach, doucette (summer relative of corn salad/ maché) red celery, Alexanders, Magentaspreen, shiso ... and purslane transplanted from the lot.  Varieties of beans include Dragons Tongue, Red Swan, Edamame, runner beans, and Trail of Tears. There are Dragons egg and Persian cucumbers, bitter melon and okra ... a box divided into 4 sections for burdock... Morning vi...

  This spring my son came with his small tractor to till the back lot while the fence to the S is open. While I prefer no-dig methods, and minimal soil disturbance, Mary wanted the lot evened out. Garden shed, greenhouse, artichoke and Rosemary - and on the right, the row of blueberries.  Freshly Tilled Garden I'd already put together several garden beds, and Mary helped me assemble another. Two were in the garden with chard and perennial kale - so I moved those plants out weeks before Josh came to till. Two beds with branches and straw Ideally, I'd cover the whole back with tarps and cardboard ... I had saved enough cardboard to cover the bottom of each bed.  Matt took out the grape in back, and saved the branches for my beds.  The black bag has goat bedding from Michael's house - two bags was enough for  a good layer in 1 1/2 beds. I harvested some of our compost for another layer. The mound of our native dirt to the left of the back bed it's loose enough to d...