Rose Cottage

  As the fall cool weather and rains arrive, the tea camellia are in bloom - I never tire of seeing their pretty white flowers, and am excited to get the larger plants in the ground and growing on.  In Southern Yunnan province in China, there are wild tea trees  600 to 1800 years old, and 15 meters tall! My last tea camellia, at 15, was about 5×5'  Camellia sinensis, Sochi  And - here in the N, is time to plant garlic! My favorite garlic method (zone 8b, so fall planted, hardneck garlic): Forgotten garlic clump Look for some clumps you missed during harvest (since I plant mine in various beds, I usually miss some!) Ease them out of the earth Gently tease their roots apart Poke holes around the garden, drop in the bulb, add compost or soil, and top with a layer of leaves. Strawberry planter with garlic starts   One clump (seperated) went between plants in the cedar strawberry planter, the second into a long planter with more strawberries, and the last into t...

 It's been getting colder and fall rains have begun.  Matt brought in the summer hanging baskets, and I added some of my tender perennials to the greenhouse.  First plants in the greenhouse After several rainy and blustery days, it cleared up, and I decided today was a good day to rake leaves, and cozy-up the greenhouse.  I watched several videos on using a composter in our by the greenhouse for winter warmth, and decided to give it a try! Lime, Tea tub and bistro I began by moving in the tub of tender perennials, & created a cozy nook with the Bistro table and a chair.  Leaves and compost I raked dogwood leaves - and reflected on how much I enjoyed doing that with my dad each fall. I packed some in the bottom of a 3 gallon pot, then added about a gallon of partly broken down compost from the bin (plus worms and black soldier fly larvae!) & then another layer of leaves. Compost Corner I set the compost pot into the hardware cloth cage Zander and I made ...

 I'm excited about the newest additions to the garden bookshelf!  The first is Edible - illustrated by our local artist/ author and farmer Katie Kulla, with writers Kevin Hobbs (England) and Artur Cisar-Erlach (Austria). We're invited to journey into the world's Botanical larder, and hope for a  sustainable future!  Edible - 70 sustainable plants Katie gave a wonderful talk yesterday on the inspiration and creation of this work at our library, co-sponsored by the wonderful Third Street Books. "More than half of most folks' diet is made up of three grains and a bean (wheat, maize (corn), rice and soy)"  - but there are thousands more that we can use to craft a healthier and more sustainable future.'  Edible highlights 70 of these - from all 7 continents (including seaweed from Antarctica) from baobab and carob to sweet potato leaves and Yangmei (Asian bayberry) Katie and her husband Casey offered produce and meat from their CSA for over a decade, and her ...

 Our Edible landscape festival mid May was a lovely, well attended event, and we gave away most of the 3000+ starts we brought! It was Hot - I was so glad we had an event tent Edible Landscaping booth   A few weeks before, we weeded our beds along Alpine, and covered each with compost from EL founder, Ramsey McPhillips. He also had a booth at the festival, and was giving out coffee sacks with some of his black gold - I was tickled to take one home for my own poteger.  Garden gold - compost We volunteers took home our own curated caches of starts, and I planted some of mine in a galvanized trough I'd picked up from the feed store. I also got a Rosemary and several raspberry starts, which were donated by a local nursery.  We intend to set up a new raspberry patch in the back garden, so this gives us a start.  Salad garden and herbs in pots This week I headed back to the Tea Garden I'm tending on Alpine with a couple of watering cans - and it's growing beautifully...