Not much, but something

Well, the sweary one and I finally did deal with the garden. I think it was on October 4 that we went out and dug up the multitudinous weeds. What an improvement!

We had prepped the plot for the plot party the previous day. That meant pulling up lots of bits and bobs. We got rid of a good amount of rotting and bolted lettuce (but left in a few towering flowering lettuce plants ... they're awfully pretty) and we pulled up the last of the beans and we chucked a bunch of still-producing broccoli. Too bad it tasted so bloody awful, that broccoli. It grew nicely this year when other things sort of struggled. We threw away in the trash bins any tomato plants. They're all dreadfully blighted, but we got a good crop. Nothing ripe on the vine, though. The last of the tomato plants are still in the plot, but they're just nasty skeletons. They'll have to go into the trash cans when we have a few minutes.

We left the onions in to see what they turn into next year. We never thinned them, so probably this won't work, but they're looking healthy enough on top. I guess we can pull out what there is next spring and thin them a bit. It'll be like planting sets, right?

The side and front yards had been attracting bad things (notably, garbage) and when we finally tackled the mess, they were more weed than deliberate plantings. The weeds went crazy in the bit north of the chimney, and there were not that many in the front (even the new bit of the front) and the far south end. This presumably tells me something about the quality of the soil and the sunshine those parts receive. Unfortunately, I have nothing to do with the info because I am just not here on weekends. That's the main problem. I'm either travelling, prepping for travel, recovering from travel, or treasuring a day off in which I'm not travelling, prepping, or recovering. Hopefully December won't be so bad. But by then the ground and air will be too cold for gardening.

For next year: I really should carry out my scheme to plant mints where I need greenery but can't believe in flowers. They're so aggressive that no weed can survive the onslaught and wouldn't it be nice to have planted plants all around instead of weeds?

If you think the BLOG looks bad ...

.... you should see the garden.

What with one thing and another (and another and another) this has been a lousy summer for the my poor garden. After a really spectacular spring things just fell to pieces and I haven't been able to bring myself to confess it to the blog. Hence the long periods of silence.

There's really nothing to report. There are plenty of weeds which will make it very difficult to grow things from seed next year. Some of the herbs need separating, but since they're the thing doing well (the daylilies did a good job, too, but they're over now) I can't even begin to imagine hacking into them right now.

We got some raspberries. That's happy.

Microclimates

I know that my garden has patches that are hotter or cooler than others.  I have been thinking of them as being "earlier" or "later" as I see the emergence of the spring bulbs.  Obviously, the patch with the Zwanenburg Bronze crocus is the warmest.  Very little is blooming at all in the city, let alone in my garden, at the time that those little lovelies come out.  

The next to spring forth are the pickwicks, in a bunch up the yard from the Zwanenburgs, but a rogue pickwick this year sprouted not far from the zwb's.  Interestingly, that particular flower came out with his compatriots up the yard.  However, even though I would say that the pickwicks are through now, I do have a couple just starting.  They're rogues who got dumped in the front.  I have to be honest and say that I can't be sure their lateness isn't due to the depth the bulbs got planted, but I suspect it has to do with how much longer winter lingers in the front than in the side.  They started on April 17, compared to the patch on the side, which started four weeks earlier on March 26.  

I have some confidence that it's not just a random effect of bulb depth because there is also a hyacinth in the front.   Even though the side yard hyacinths are in glorious full bloom right now, the one in front is just starting to muster up a flower spear.  Now, maybe it won't actually bloom this summer ... I shouldn't count my chickens.  Or, maybe the thing I think is a hyacinth will turn out to be something else that I've mis-identified at this early stage.  But I think it's because the climate in my tiny garden ranges quite a bit.  

That's useful information.  I need to mull it over, but I think I can squeeze even more wonderful flowering out of those few square feet.  Of course, the front, which gets spring later, will be shady for the summer, so I can't rely too much on the long spring.  Still, I think it's worth considering for next year.  Maybe I should put little patches of snowdrops (of exactly the same kind) in the various different places in the yard.  Then I might be able to get a purer sense of the timing of spring.  Plus, it's experimenting, and I like experimenting.  

Hosting hostas

I am not the greatest of hosta hosts, as one might guess from my inability to tell what it looks like before it looks deliberate.  But I did a modicum of searching on the web and found a picture of something that looked much more like these little guys than my previous best guess.

The baby hosta plants look like little horns coming up out of the ground.  Or so I've been given to believe.

Looking at that picture, I am amazed by how tiny the thing is.  When I noticed it, I thought it was absurdly obvious and I kicked myself for not seeing it earlier.  But the photographic evidence says that the little horns are just about the same size as a maple key, which is not very big at all, especially given that these are wayy back in the front yard right near the house.  

Survey South Side II

Ok, really the last set of snaps for the mapping exercise.  I think I should take these pictures often, but not post them to the blog, eh?  That would a) be dull and b) use up all of my picture space in a very short time.  

There's the window and daffodils.

And more daffodils on the far side

Blank space with lone tulip. 

There's blank space where annuals were last year, followed by another tulip and some irises.

It ends with the delphinium, some tulips and the last of the irises.

(Phew!)

Survey South Side I

The last set of pictures to help me map covers the side yard south of the furnace flue.  It's a long strip, so I'm dividing it into north of the basement window and south of it.  Here are the images of the strip south of the flue and north of the window.  

There is a tulip and grape hyacinths.

There are hyacinths, grape and regular.

There are daylilies and more tulips.

There's the oregano, tulip, daffs and more tulips.  

There is lavender, grape hyacinths and tulips.

There are the walking thyme, grape hyacinths, zwanenburg bronze crocuses and daffodils.

Then there is the window.

Survey North Side

Here are the photos of the north side to help me map.

First up (farthest north) there are the satin-purple crocuses.  They're followed by a little bunch of tulips.

The tulips are basically crammed between the satin and the pickwicks.  In front of the pickwicks are my new favourite Joyce Iris.  

Beyond the Joyce Iris is another tulip ...

Followed by another tulip in the middle of the other bulb irises.

They're hemmed in by daffodils on the south side.

Finally, there are daylilies.  

Then there's the flue.

Survey Front

Here are the photos of the front to help me map. 

First there is the front step and the white-lined shrub.  The red astilbe is in front of it somewhere and there is a (sadly probably killed by me) smaller white-lined shrub in front of that.  There's another (different) shrub next to the white-lined one.

There is some more astilbe in there somewhere, some yellow flowers (I don't know what) and then the rhododendron.  In front of those, there are the golden yellow crocuses, purple crocuses, blue pearl crocuses.  The snowdrops and star-like crocus are in front of the rhododendron.  The lily of the valley are somewhere in this mix, too.

Beyond the rhododendron there is a really bedraggled shrub and then farther on there are the Peter Pan crocuses and second set of snowdrops.  Some daffs coming in.  Stray tulips, hyacinth, Pickwicks.  

Maps

One thing I really need to do is to make a map of my garden.  It shouldn't be difficult; it's tiny.  The side yard is all of 1 foot deep (40 feet along, though).  Even the less-manageable front is still small.  

In aid of that, I took a set of survey photographs this morning.  They're not actually inspiring images, but hopefully they'll help me remember just where everyone is.  

Friend or Foe?

Although it is something I'm getting better at, I still struggle with the early identification of plants I want vs. plants I don't want.  I spent a whole year encouraging a choking weed because somehow I decided it was alyssum.    I think it still does better in my garden than in anyone else's because of that poor decision.

So yesterday, when I was yanking out a baby maple and I found this fellow, I didn't know what to do.  It's not like other things coming up at the moment.  It's in a place I might, indeed, have planted something.  It's also in a place I might, indeed, have left a choking weed.  It's got a sort of funny growth pattern ... lots of leaves growing as though they are a stalk, not as though they're springing from a stalk.  I don't know.  At the moment, I suspect it of being the hosta.  I've left him in place until he's identifiably friend or foe.

Edited later to say that more of these are popping up in that general neighbourhood, but I think I know it's not a hosta.   Maybe it's the mystery yellow plant which flowered so nicely and so persistently last year.

Sneaking Snowdrops

This year, I have been admiring the way that the snowdrops grow.  The bloom hides itself in a leaf until its ready to admit that actually it's a lovely little flower.

This goes some way towards explaining why I never identify them as they come up.  But perhaps now that I've sussed it, I'll be able to spot them next year.  The new snowdrops are very pretty, indeed.  

Maybe next year, I'll schlep some snowdrops into the part of the garden where the Zwanenburg Bronze crocus are.  It must be warm and sunny for them to start so early.  Maybe a snowdrop would beat the crocus (as they do in my mother's garden).  

Wrong again!

As long as I am being upfront about how I misjudged my marigolds and gazanias, why don't we address the other flower I put in at the same time?  I believe I've gone on the record saying that they're no good.

Guess what!  They're good.  Most of them (but not all) have made it through the torrential rains AND whatever it was that munched so merrily on them.  Some of them have even started to spread out a bit.  Like they really meant it when the packet said to leave a foot around each plant. 

Also, they've got pleasant blooms.  The little white spots are cheerful, yes.  However, it's the middle that wins me over. I love the little tiny flowers-within-a-flower that reside within.  

So, I eat my words once more.  I'd like zinnias next year.  Yes, indeedy.  Best of all, they're looking good now when most other things that I plant are over and/or tired.  Good stuff.

MORE zucchinis

Actually, I am not complaining all that much about the proliferation of zukes.  They're very good.  We picked 3 more today.  I don't think I mentioned that last week the sweary one took some hungry-looking students down to the plot to gather some healthy harvest for themselves.  

The beans are done now.  After the enormous picking last week, nothing much was left.  We pulled up some of the plants this afternoon.  I stopped pulling up plants when I pulled out one that still had some baby beans on it.  Next year, we need to follow the excellent lead of our co-plotters and put in some proper bean infrastructure.  There are a number of very nice bean screens around.  

We also pulled up a whole potato plant.  It had been knocked over by the zukes, beans, and incessant rains.  There were about a dozen potatoes underneath.  After our first taste the other night, I can't wait to eat these.  Nothing is like a fresh potato.  We really don't get them in any way other than eating them, either.  It's unfair; why can't we get such delicious beasts at the farmers' market?  We can get nice peas.  Why not nice potatoes?  

Our haul included some (increasingly mis-named) spring onions and some herbs from the communal garden.  I brought home some egyptian walking onion babies to plant in the backyard.  

I think next year we'll get rid of the walking onions.  I like using the space we have for things we can eat.  

Flowering

This stuff is flowering nicely in many gardens across the city (including the public gardens).  I don't know what it is, but clearly I should try to grow it next year so I can have something flowering after the tulips are done.  

In other "news" the fruit trees are blooming now.  It's pretty.  We should get down to the valley and look at the apple blossoms, I think.