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Saturday: finished distributing manure (fie, mainly water, they ripped my sister off). This does not look like a layer of manure on top of the beds but little dollops raked around with the other amendments. I dunno, maybe i should have just picked a few beds to add it to. I have saved out a few bags for the pepper bed.
I moved some tussocks of my favorite grass and hopefully some Elephantopus tomentosus, a fascinating native wildflower that has great seedpods. I hope that the temporary relocation was sufficient to keep them alive until the installation in the garden bed: their stems will be pretty in the winter if they can make it through the weedy summer.
Then i walked through the woods with a pocket knife and poison and tried to kill the stands of Tree of Heaven i could find. Apparently, it's the wrong time of year. Walking through the woods -- think jungle -- thick canopy, the stilt grass knee high so you can't see your feet and the deep holes made by rotten pine stumps, the thorny autumn olive, the ticks, the copperheads.... MEH. I would love to make progress back into there, but the front is a little less thick and forbidding. Plenty of work to choose from.
Christine and i then walked Carrie over at Fearrington, and i could observe all the plantings around the little homes. Plenty of hellebore planted up close to Acanthus spinosus (Bear's Breeches) -- non-natives that thrive in this climate. It's tempting. The blooming periwinkle is not.
Sunday i very much missed the hour lost to the coming fall weekend. We had a gap in the overcast weather, bright blue skies to highlight how some cherry tree leaves have burst forth and the lilacs leaf buds have broken. So has the autumn olive -- a haze of green in the woods.
I did not do the Quaker work i really needed to then, so i must do it today. I hosted Meeting then after lunch i assembled the cross pieces for the king bed spring trellis. Christine came out to help with holding things up and level, and it looks OK: not like garbage in the yard. That was my fear given the reuse of "trash." Assuming i can reinforce the support posts as needed, it is a success.
I mowed, hitting the annoying clumps of wild onions that the deer and rabbits leave alone and hopefully getting most of the bittercress before it sets too much seed. I think i am making peace with the bitter cress, though -- a non native with tiny white flowers. The patch of yard that was the fenced area when we bought the house was covered with chickweed and tiny tiny little white flowers. I suppose it will all be Indian strawberry this summer. At least neither of those are currently a threat to wild areas. I ponder the futility of trying to choose which wildflowers grow.
I did not get to sleep well. I'm sure some of it is time change, then anxiety about insomnia.
The weather is crazy dry, despite the blanket of clouds that came in midday yesterday. Rain is forecast, which is needed. I don't understand rain when it's in the 50s with a dewpoint of 13°F, but hey, OK.
Off to buy lumber (i hope as the carpenter is free this weekend), do the Quaker work i've put off, and maybe get more gardening in before going back to work tomorrow. Very productive time off: i hope i can keep the momentum in the coming long evenings.
I moved some tussocks of my favorite grass and hopefully some Elephantopus tomentosus, a fascinating native wildflower that has great seedpods. I hope that the temporary relocation was sufficient to keep them alive until the installation in the garden bed: their stems will be pretty in the winter if they can make it through the weedy summer.
Then i walked through the woods with a pocket knife and poison and tried to kill the stands of Tree of Heaven i could find. Apparently, it's the wrong time of year. Walking through the woods -- think jungle -- thick canopy, the stilt grass knee high so you can't see your feet and the deep holes made by rotten pine stumps, the thorny autumn olive, the ticks, the copperheads.... MEH. I would love to make progress back into there, but the front is a little less thick and forbidding. Plenty of work to choose from.
Christine and i then walked Carrie over at Fearrington, and i could observe all the plantings around the little homes. Plenty of hellebore planted up close to Acanthus spinosus (Bear's Breeches) -- non-natives that thrive in this climate. It's tempting. The blooming periwinkle is not.
Sunday i very much missed the hour lost to the coming fall weekend. We had a gap in the overcast weather, bright blue skies to highlight how some cherry tree leaves have burst forth and the lilacs leaf buds have broken. So has the autumn olive -- a haze of green in the woods.
I did not do the Quaker work i really needed to then, so i must do it today. I hosted Meeting then after lunch i assembled the cross pieces for the king bed spring trellis. Christine came out to help with holding things up and level, and it looks OK: not like garbage in the yard. That was my fear given the reuse of "trash." Assuming i can reinforce the support posts as needed, it is a success.
I mowed, hitting the annoying clumps of wild onions that the deer and rabbits leave alone and hopefully getting most of the bittercress before it sets too much seed. I think i am making peace with the bitter cress, though -- a non native with tiny white flowers. The patch of yard that was the fenced area when we bought the house was covered with chickweed and tiny tiny little white flowers. I suppose it will all be Indian strawberry this summer. At least neither of those are currently a threat to wild areas. I ponder the futility of trying to choose which wildflowers grow.
I did not get to sleep well. I'm sure some of it is time change, then anxiety about insomnia.
The weather is crazy dry, despite the blanket of clouds that came in midday yesterday. Rain is forecast, which is needed. I don't understand rain when it's in the 50s with a dewpoint of 13°F, but hey, OK.
Off to buy lumber (i hope as the carpenter is free this weekend), do the Quaker work i've put off, and maybe get more gardening in before going back to work tomorrow. Very productive time off: i hope i can keep the momentum in the coming long evenings.
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