Hairy Vetch

It sounds unattractive, doesn't it?  Hairy Vetch.  Who names these things anyway?  Although it sounds like a skin condition or a medical ailment, it's actually a cool weather cover crop used in organic gardening.  I'm told that it is a succulent, so when you till it under in the Spring it decomposes rapidly, leaving behind soil rich in nitrogen. It should also prevent weeds from growing where you plant it.

Since I had the rented tiller this weekend for 4 hours and the raspberry patch only took about 2 hours... You can imagine that more tilling was going to happen.  Somewhere.  Perhaps somewhere that didn't even truly need tilling.  Because when you have a tiller ...

I had an area along my carport where grass wasn't growing.  I haven't decided what will be there -- the outdoor dining table, or landscaping... but given the opportunity to enrich the soil in the meantime, it seemed like a good plan.  Here's a tiny photo of what it looks like -- sort of like a fern with blossoms.  Let's hope it takes off.

Fall (Just Say No to Winter)

Fall is here -- mostly I can tell because I am already ankle deep in leaves in my yard.  No pecans yet ... I wonder what type of year for pecans it will be.  I look up at the tree and I don't really see any up there. 

Red got up on my roof this weekend and swept the leaves off for me, and threw down some tree branches that had fallen down.  I must admit that while I have been under my house twice (once without a zoot suit even!) I have not been up on my roof.  It's precarious -- the front pitch in particular is very steep.  I'm really grateful that he was willing to climb up and do a little fall maintenance for me.  And my dog was pleased to get brand new dried sticks to chew on -- they just fell from the sky!  Dreams do come true, Toto.

My lawn doesn't need mowing, but I sure do have leaves that need mulching, so I'll probably run my mower over the front yard tonight.  The leaves will be so good for the lawn.  (And it would be nice to be able to see my sidewalk again too...)

In anticipation of cooler temps and winter winds, I fussed with door weather stripping in the last week.  The front door still needed some attention, and Red attended to that yesterday morning.  I still have a bottom door strip (brush?  I don't know what you call it -- it goes under the door) but I need help taking the door off the hinges to install it.  I've got time... it's not winter quite yet.

I swapped out my jack'o'lanterns for solid pumpkins, and added my wooden pilgrims to the bale of hay.  I don't know if I will get any mums this year or not; they never seem to last long.  They are beautiful, though.  The day after I put the pilgrims out in the yard we got 3.25" of rain in 24 hours.  Poor Grandpa pilgrim couldn't take the weather and he's doing quite the backbend now.  It's really funny.  I'll have to take a photo to post...

UPDATE:  Pilgrim Limbo

Raspberry Canes

You may recall this post
 http://my1929tudor.blogspot.com/2010/04/they-will-be-berry-berry-good.html from back in April wherein I posted about planting raspberry canes.  I'm sad to report that only 4 of those canes appear to have lived.  (I hold out hope that some are dormant and will sprout back to life in the Spring.)  My excuses are that we had summer heat very early this Summer... and I didn't water them enough.  And when I got the new fence I miscalculated the increased amount of sun in that part of the yard -- too much, I think. 

But!  Good news:  I am fortunate enough to have another chance -- my sister visited from Minnesota over Halloween weekend, and for my hostess gift she brought me 18 raspberry canes from her garden.  Awesomeness!  They are the from the same canes that are at mom and dad's, the ones that were brought over from Finland.

When my sister arrived we liberated the canes from the giant Ziploc in her suitcase and put them in a bucket of rain water from my barrel.  They had been in there for a week so this weekend it was time to get them in the ground.   Project time!  (I have so many projects in my head right now it's insane...)

Red and I went to Home Depot and rented a rototiller -- I was positively giddy about it -- frankly nearly purchased one but was able to divert -- and toted it home.  The guy at the rental counter was knowledgeable and helpful but yowser -- he tracked about 2 conversation topics behind the entire time.  

Next I took Red's truck and went to Redenta's to get compost.  I love the Living Earth Technologies organic compost (http://www.livingearth.net/) and Bucky at Redenta's advised that for the square footage I was working with that I would probably need 6 bags.  I added a bag of Bed Prep to that, which includes earth worm castings.  Gold, baby, gold!  Toted all that home.

When I got home, Red had already started tilling.  He'd done the most difficult part, which is making the first passes through ground that had not ever been tilled.  It didn't have grass growing on it  -- bonus -- but it was fairly well packed.  I did a pass through it, and then dragged the tiller aside to start adding soil amendments.

In went the following:
3 bags of LET Organic Compost
2 wheelbarrows worth of my very own compost from my compost tumbler
1 bags of mulched dry leaves (great nitrogen, which raspberries love)

And then we tilled again.  We reminisced about the similar equipment rental at my lake property... laughed...

Then I added the three remaining bags of compost, another batch of mulched leaves, and the bag of bed prep.  Talk about some beautiful soil!

I was so pleased that my home made compost was successful!  I had just said to Red earlier in the weekend that I needed to do a better job on my compost tumbler, and that maybe I would get an earth worm farm for my kitchen scraps instead.  But then I opened it up and found I had some great compost.  I know I could still improve my method for it, but it did look great.  It's also nice to have the older barrel empty going into winter.

I staggered the canes about 2 feet apart, stuck in flags so I wouldn't lose any, and hand watered each plant with rain water, and  topped it all off with 6 bags of cedar mulch.  I vow to do better on the watering, plus the cooler weather will help.  As I was kneeling in the dirt, planting, Red shouted from the driveway, "You look happy."  It was an awesome day.

Bountiful

Aren't they beautiful?  The photo doesn't do them justice... totally organically grown poblano and jalapeno peppers from my garden.   You can almost smell the heat from the photograph, can't you?  The poblanos are the perfect pepper for making chile rellenos -- YUM!  (Too bad I am majorly handicapped in the kitchen at the moment... ahem.  But that is being remedied soon.)  Instead, I shared them with neighbors.  I meant to bring some to work to share here today, but I forgot!  Maybe tomorrow.

The thrill is in the hunt . . .

I've hit a lot of thrift stores recently for Halloween costume items.  After being in several of them I remembered that I wanted to get mis-matched crystal candlesticks for my dining room table.  I'm sure that I missed all kinds of them -- darn it!  But the last 2 stores had these three that I liked:

I'll keep watching for more, although I will always want an odd number of them.  I added the bobeches to catch drips, but unless I want to pay close attention to them while they're lit, I'll probably still want to put something underneath the set to be safe.

I actually had bought a 4th candlestick in another thrift store, only to come home and see that it matched one of the ones I already had!  How random was that?  But, apparently meant to be, because I pushed too hard when I put a candle in one of them, and the crystal cracked and fell apart!  But then, the matching one was in the drawer!  Hmmm... what are the odds?

The mini pumpins are a seasonal addition... I'd like to figure out something non-seasonal that is a mixed texture to have out all the time.  Something rustic to mix with the crystal maybe?  I expect that will be a "I'll know it when I see it" item.