Much better pictures of the new abode. There are a few glimpses of the house. It is buried into a hillside and camouflaged in greenery.

We inherited a peach tree that is awesome so we planted a fruit trees all around it to make a small orchard. Peaches, cherries, pears, blueberries, and fig.

Refugees from the old beach road. They are all planted now.

So I guess it’s obvious why I haven’t been around.

So I have moved from a garden by the sea to a garden in the woods not far from the sea. It’s another hobbit-like house built into a hill with a half acre of cleared land for gardens and about 2 acres of forest and brambles. There are wild berries and herbs hiding in there somewhere and I’ll find them eventually. C.P. and I have made a small dent in setting up new gardens just in time to put them to bed. Freya loves it here. I’ve never seen her so relaxed. Nemo is still pouting. I think he misses his ocean view. I don’t. When I look out of any window, all I see are trees. It’s so peaceful and much warmer. The ocean is a 20 minute walk instead of a 20 second walk. This beach has more rocks which also means that there are fewer people. Not bad at all.

The old shed has electricity and running water so with a little patience and labor I’ll have a new studio by next summer.

Needs work.

There are water pipes everywhere and a well.

The view from the front and Freya’s favorite new spot.

My flying carpet. Mine!

The entire contents of my studio and library, old book pages, works in progress, and art supplies, are still in boxes and bins waiting to be moved and reorganized. I’ll have to content myself with garden photographs, beginning with the ridiculous amount of allotment pictures from a recent trip to Boston. The light, the sky, the weather, and the scarcity of other wandering bodies made it a perfect day for taking photographs. There are a few more in my previous post and a full set on Flickr.

A collection of well tended allotments is a magical place. Although I would never again wish to live in a city, I have a fascination with small urban gardens and allotments. There is such an abundance of charm in small gardens with their clever use of structures and strategic plantings. The victory gardens on the Fenway create an oasis in the midst of crowds, cars, and chaos.

I love the rusty nails and thorny branches all over the posts and gates. I know they are there to discourage vandals and thieves but I find them so beautiful and sculptural in this context.

I’ve been completely lost in the limbo land between buying and selling a home. It seems as if all we’ve done this spring and summer is work on one or the other house or garden and move objects between them. Cats are confused. I am exhausted. My blog has been neglected. I’ve been painting walls and longing to paint again from a palette rather than a can. I am excited to move into my new home though and I love it madly even though it’s stolen all of my time. The most challenging and emotional part of all this has been moving the gardens, deciding which plants to keep and which to leave and where they go and all that jazz. These photos were taken last week at the beach house garden. Everything has changed dramatically again. Faded irises have given way to an explosion of daisies, coreopsis, and foxglove. So much inspiration. So little time.

While sorting through the old books at the Horticultural Center, I picked up a musty old tome which I thought was a history of gardening. It turned out to be a book about alchemy and the construction of various types of stills. Most chapters focus on use of plants by the Puritans of New England for herbal medicines and tonics. However, it does occasionally veer off into herbal lore and “the chemical art” of the early alchemists. The book was in rough shape, water damaged and falling apart so the scans are not so nice. Of course, I had to offer up a few bits of it, since this blog threads together the subjects of my fascination – art, old books, gardening, and alchemy. Included among these tattered pages, is a hand drawn map from the 1600s of the area where I now live and work. Sadly, it was too faded and ink smeared to scan well.

“The fifth chapter deals with the sum total of background knowledge applied by the settlers to their task of growing, distilling, and preserving all they would need for both meate and medicine. The sixth deals with ‘the meate’ and the seventh with ‘the medicine’ for which they felt sure so many plants were intended”. – Anne Leighton

“A satirical portrait of the vain Englishman of the time, Henry VIII, so keen on being in the latest style that he strides along with a length of woolen cloth over his arm, unable to decide what rayment to wear”.

In William Lawson’s ‘New Orchard and Garden’ the "falling gardens" are shown below 2 large squares devoted to fruit trees, one for an elaborate design of garden knots, and two for the kitchen gardens.

Never say never. I proclaimed the last rose of autumn and suddenly my garden exploded with new flowers late into the season surviving two nor’easters. They did not, however, all survive the rabbits who indulged in a rose petal feast early this morning. I can’t complain. The garden is beautiful even as it fades and ah…comes back and then fades again.

Sometimes we have to say goodbye though. I said farewell and all that to one of my favorite works titled Rabbit, pictured in a new frame chosen to match a lovely new home. This has been a running theme for the past few weeks. I wonder if the “rabbits” are trying to tell me something.

The fiery flowers of pineapple sage, young radishes in a driftwood bed, one last rose before winter, the sun shed at sunset, and an alchemical androgyne.

The Divine Hermaphrodite

A near perfect day this All Souls. Morning in the garden, afternoon in the cave, and evening by the firelight in the night around a lovingly prepared feast in honor of the ancestors and all loved ones who have passed over. The weather was perfect, cool crisp dry air and not too windy, with a bright almost full moon shining in a clear sky. C.P. McDill worked on the timber wall along our property’s edge. I gathered leaves and spent plants for the compost, planted more garlic and lettuces, took apart the outside plant nursery and moved all the potted thingies within to the sun shed for over wintering. For All Hallow’s Eve, we did a little beneficent mischief and settled by the fire to watch a spooky movie. Alas, no little tricksters made their way to the cottage so C.P. had to eat all the treats.

Gnome and nastursiums…

…and bees

Potted thingies inside the sun shed.

Lovingly bundled sage waiting to be hung up.

The spiral path is overgrown and bursting with color.

Alpine strawberries, wild celery, and parsley are in their prime time. The hot peppers show no signs of stopping. They are still producing generous bounty in spite of the much cooler weather and early frosts. The combination of hoop houses, raised beds, and lots of compost is like a small season extending miracle.

Lettuce beds

Newly planted garlic beds and my mum foraging for lettuce in the background. :)

This is the stone path we are building in the new section of front garden. It was an ugly asphalt drive that we tore up with a pick axe. Hopefully there will be low growing thyme inbetween the stones by next spring and those scrappy looking arborvitae with their little pointy heads chopped off will eventually be an evergreen hedge.

The head mason is my mother who is 70 years old and loves to build walls and paths out of stone. She doesn’t just design and supervise. She does the actual lugging and building. Crazy woman. Now you know where I get half of it. My father was crazy too so there is the other half explained. The stone path leads out to the sandy beach road and we’ve left the entrance open. No gate. There is an enclosed fence around the main garden in the back so I’d like to leave the front open if possible. It’s friendlier. We’ll see how well the neighborhood dogs behave.

I’ve also photographed our medicinal plants since it’s harvest time. I’m about to take most of them out of the garden to dry or otherwise store for the winter. Many will last through the fall a few will live through the winter in cold frames. This is my kind of health insurance. Build your own and grow your own. Self sufficiency and simplicity. I learned this from my parents. Hopefully, if I follow this path, I’ll be lugging big rocks around and planting trees when I am 70. Hmm. That didn’t come out quite right but I think you know what I mean. I’d like to keep that option.

Sage

Mint

Wild Strawberries. They look homely but they are so good.

Echinacea

Dandelion Greens.

Oregeno

Cat Mint!

Raspberry Leaves.

Lavender

Comfrey

Rhubarb

Heavenly Blue Morning Glories. ;)

Purslane

Chamomile

Basil

Jalapenos & Cayenne

Parsley, Rosemary, Chives, Heather, Lavender, Garlic, Dill, Mullein…

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This is our new breakfast nook. It’s right outside the kitchen door. C.P. built the deck all by himself and did a beautiful job. I’ll plant an herb garden all around it next spring for easy access when cooking. The leaves are already falling.

I love these little orange “sungold” tomatoes. They taste like candy.

Pesto!

Bees love sunflowers.

The new front garden planted with evergreens, heather, and mums for fall.

Hibiscus flowers as big your face. Kids love these.

Foxglove

Marigolds and clover.

Hot hot hot peppers. Cayenne, jalapeno, chili, and banana peppers. We do so love our peppers.

We haven’t had to purchase herbs or produce all summer with the exception of limes, lemons and avocados. We’ve had parsley, basil, mint, chives, onions, garlic, lettuces, wild celery, raspberries, strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, hot peppers, grapes, dandelion greens, radishes, nasturtium, purslane, and rhubarb in abundance. We may get a few eggplants and figs in the fall. Blueberries and sunflower seeds are a possibility if the birds will allow. We’ve planted pear trees and I have one little avocado tree that may survive in a cold frame. I’ve been saving up all the excess for winter like a good little squirrel. Canning, drying, and pickling. C.P.’s next project is the cold frame. Between that and the new shed, I’m fascinated to see what I will be able to grow and harvest through the winter. Last year, we harvest mache, beets, radishes, and parsley through the winter in open beds with nothing but a frost cover so I think we will squeeze quite a nice harvest of fresh food out of a cold frame.

A long awaited orchid blooms on the front porch, explosions of color, heat, rain, crazy big waves, whoopie pies, silliness, drama, pfft, lots and lots of cucumbers, and no further comment…

We finally got around to putting up a greenhouse (of a kind) after all these years of indecision on the matter. Since we are on a cliff by the sea and the wind can be ferocious, we decided on a well insulated cedar shed that doubles as a greenhouse. The plan is to build a large sunken cold frame up against the front of it. This should be all we need for winter gardening and starting plants in the spring. I’m completely in love with my new combined greenhouse and potting shed. It’s roomy in there, enough room for a plant table, a potting bench, a wall of shelves, and two chairs. It makes a nice little hide-away too.

The view from the hillside garden.

Flowering Chicks and Hens

The Spiral Path

Plenty of Thyme

Bachelor Buttons

There was been no sun for the entire month of June and temperatures never rose above the 60s during the day and much colder at night. The June weather was like April with no sunny days. July is like May with a few sunny nice days in the 70s and still too much rain. The garden is doing surprisingly well considering the bizarre weather. We are currently feasting on an abundance of cucumbers, raspberries, parsley, garlic, basil, onions, mache, lettuces, purslane, dandelion leaves, nasturtium flowers, strawberries, radishes, beets, chicory, chives, and more. The rhubarb was ridiculously productive this year and is now finished up. Tomatoes, squash, and hot peppers coming up soon! We may or may not get figs and blueberries this year. It’s too soon to tell. The beans look less than promising. Avocados, lemons, and limes are the only produce I have purchased in the last four months.