Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
Every day I look out toward the garden, I see little change. All of the plants and the grounds seem suspended in time. The growing season is over and the napping season has begun. The dominant color is brown, with the occasional sound of a dried-up leaf scraping against the patio slates, pushed by the […]
It is slim pickings in the vegetable garden. After a few frosts we have a couple of crops left: sorrel, herbs, leeks, greens and radishes. The greens will last through Christmas, hopefully, but the radishes are fewer in number. Juana asked me to pull a couple the other day for a dish she was preparing. […]
One of the last things I remove from the garden in Fall are asparagus leaves. They look more like ferns but that would be to confuse them with their ornamental relative. They tower over the neighboring rhubarb and strawberry plants in one of my many perennial beds. This morning in the early sun, they glisten […]
The first frost is expected in the next few days. With that event, more leaves will fall and the tender perennials with shrivel. But some of the plants I tend come into their own as others fade with the season. This year’s Japanese beautyberry is the most spectacular of the group as its long, pendulous […]
Though most of our harvests are past, we are still working the soil. It is now time to plant garlic. I enlist Juana and Olivia to help me today. It is a bright crisp day with only a few clouds painting the sky and a slight breeze rustling the trees. The trees are still holding […]
Juana and I take the opportunity to harvest saffron from the crocuses. It has been a miserable few days with rain and a chill keeping both of us close to the warm, yellow and red fire blazing in the stove. Still, we both are happy waking to clear skies this morning progressing to a sunny, […]
The morning air is crisp and the sun is rising just a bit later and a tad to the east each morning. The equinox is but a few days away signaling the coming of Fall and the shutting down of garden growth. Yet each day, I find new signs of life. The morning glories have […]
With Labor Day approaching, I am starting to feel a bit like the sentinel-like sunflowers in the front yard. A month ago they were tall and erect, holding their heads high, soaking in rays. Now, each weighed down with hundreds of seeds, they are bent over appearing to have a vegetative osteoporosis. Their petals are […]
The most common butterfly we have seen this year is the yellow swallowtail. Its distinctive yellow and black pattern is a constant in the garden flittering between the many flowers we have. But as the season wanes so will they. Now I see that a great many caterpillars have emerged, first on my celery plant […]
It is harvest time in the garden with vegetables, fruits and flowers ready to be picked. This is the Summer of tomatoes as 5 pounds of these fruits are ready for consumption each day. Beyond stuffing our faces with cherry tomatoes, the sauce tomatoes are bubbling on the stove and the large slicing tomatoes are […]