Dandelions in winter?

Gardening has gone into hibernation. The gardens are mulched, flowers are cut back, and the mulch pile is full and cooking away.

The weird thing is the dandelions. They just won't quit! Normally I keep an eye on them, and email Mom whenever I see the first yearly bloom, and first one gone to seed. Well I saw both during Christmas break, and also on New Year's Day. So I guess this year will be a tough fight against dandelions.

We're trying not to use pesticides, since the Neuss River is where the run-off goes. We might try the citrus spray since digging hasn't done month lately.

I've transplanted a lot of indoor plants, and have already started a few basil seeds to see if I can get some plants going for spring. I'm ready for Spring!!

First Freeze!!

When we returned from the beach the weather report looked like the first real freeze would be before the weekend. But there was frost on my car windows this morning! It was 37 degrees when I got up at 6 am.

So this afternoon was the rush to pull everything from the garden. I got a few batches of basil from what's left of the 4 scraggly basil bushes. They were almost 4 feet tall, but I'd pinched off the buds religiously to keep them from getting too woody. Hopefully the leaves won't be too bitter. It'll be fresh pesto this weekend!

I gathered two more odd items. I squat little zuchini, and a HUGE cucumber. This cuke climbed in back of the lillies and I lost track of it. It's 16 inches long! (Photo will be added...I promise!)

The small potted herbs are inside, and we'll shred the leftover plant stubs for the compost pile. Now that things are quiet, we'll build the 3 remaining garden beds and get ready for spring.

GetReady for the Day of the Dead!

Halloween is my favorite holiday, but Raleigh doesn't do it up. I've got the usual for this area: lights, fake spider webbing on the boxwoods, and we've got rubber rats around the front porch. But I miss the sugar skulls, marigolds, lots of paper mache skeletons. So I dug around and gathered as much as I dared (some is too precious, like the skeleton cyclist). I found some tin skeletons that I taped to the small window above the front door. We bought a tacky purple skull that lights up, and I'll do my usual little altar with favorite beverages and snacks for my ancestors. Yes, I put up a gin and tonic for my Buddist/Episcopalian Gramma. I also put an African Violet on the altar, to help her find her way here.

It may sound strange, but el Dia de los Muertos is a very special time!

Mulching for Fall

The week at North Topsail is one of my excuses for not much gardening, but the truth is winding down for Fall has been a bit of work. We bought a chipper/shredder and cleaned out some branches, plus ground up the 7 foot tall tomato plants.

We carved pumpkins with the kids two weekends ago, but they weren't cleaned out real well, and after a week away they were pretty gross. I chopped up two for the compost when we got back. Dan tried to run the last pumpkin through the chipper/shredder, unfortunately it was the soggiest, moldiest one. It made a mess, and Dan had to clean the innards of the shredder manually.

We've fertilized and mulched, and things are ready for cool weather. My neighbor Ann gave me a ton of lillies that she split up. They're planted in every garden, all scattered about.

I'm bummed that we didn't get more gardens built. The fall would have been the perfect time to plant the shrubs.

Plants for Butterfly Garden

I went to Logan's last weekend and bought several plants for the butterfly garden. So far it has a blue Butterfly bush, a yellow/orange Lantana, red gaillardia, and yellow coreopsis.

They're small plants now, and they need a little extra topsoil and some mulch or other soil conditioner.

The second photo has a monarch on the butterfly bush in the back, hard to see. It's just wonderful to see the bumble bees and butterflies all over the plants that have been there only a few days.

The new garden has dirt!

I know I sound abnormally excited about dirt, but you can't plant without it, well, not without a pond. I put down 6 bags of top soil, 5 large bags of Black Kow, and another 6 bags of top soil. My back ached before I started so it's pretty sore now. I raked the rich brown over, but didn't mix it well. It's glorious stuff. Anything would grow in it.

My dear neighbor Ann is digging up some extra plants from her flower garden for me. She has a lot of what I was planning to plant, and more lillies than any normal person could handle. Dan loves lillies, and we're making room for some and will probably move them to other gardens later.

It's so nice to have a little strip of dirt in the yard dedicated just to flowers. The vegetable garden is going strong. The bell peppers are weak but sweet and jalapenos are doing beautifully! A cucumber that was scrawny before Hannah blew through is now the size of my forearm! The zuchini's aren't doing as strongly as I thought. Two small fruit started to rot due to too much moisture. I should have mulched as my friend Rah told me to do!

Hopefully I'll have photos of blooming flowers soon.

New Garden!

Our flower garden is well on it's way. By "garden" I really mean "a row of bricks." But we've done the hardest part. Dan got out the mattock and broke up the dirt. We trenched a space for the first row of bricks. We made sure the curves we wanted would fit, and the flat side would line up with the side of the house. Of course, we had to make adjustments....

After packing paving sand in the trench we laid the first row of bricks, and I went through and leveled each brick. We had to level each one with the brick next to it, and test each individual bricks with a 3 way level.

The next steps are quite easy in comparison. I'll slap on a few more layers of bricks, using adhesive on the top layer. I'll empty many bags of top soil and composted manure and mix them in. Finally, I'll plant some plants that'll attract flowers and butterflies.

It has been an exhausting day, but it's nice to make some serious garden progress for a change!