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.

This is another experiment with working dry. I “painted” the surface with composted endpapers by ripping it strategically and hand-stitching it to linen. Then I drew on the paper (ink, pastel, crayon, pencil) and embellished it with embroidery.

I’m still floating in the mist. I think it’s called a brain fog. The signs of life I refer to are (unfortunately) not mine. Not yet. They are outside, here on the coastal homestead among the flora and fauna and wildlife. Spring flowers, mint, oregano, garlic, purslane, parsley, dandelions, sage, spring onions, rhubarb, and asparagus are all peeking up now. My fig tree and wisteria survived the winter and have new buds. There are signs and indications that I will join them soon. Last week began the long slow tease of a spring which never quite arrives. Then it will be summer. We’ll sneak in gardening days whenever the sun miraculously appears or the whip winds of a sudden storm off the Atlantic. I love it though, living and gardening on a cliff by the sea. It’s like resistance training for the spirit.

The compost came out better than I had hoped and there is plenty of it. Rich and black. Nitty gritty down and dirty with the earth is what really wakes me up and gets me going. Solar power also helps. My cozy by the fire evenings and lazy daze of winter woolgathering are over though…until December.

Wild turkey trot through the garden.

Nemo is fascinated.

“Those are the biggest chickens I ever saw!”

Starting the season.

Transplanting seedlings from greenhouse trays to beds and containers.

Daffodils and driftwood.

We created a micro-climate by hollowing out a bowl for a sunken garden and surrounding it with a stone wall, then installing raising beds filled with generous amounts of organic compost. We still need these walls-o-water to plant tomatoes and peppers. Otherwise the season would be too short to yield fruit. Everything else grows fine in the beds with just an occasional frost cover or extra windbreak.

Garlic! Planted last fall and ready to eat soon. Repels vampires too. So very handy.



Dandelions for dinner.

Layer, glaze, layer, glaze, cut apart, reassemble, layer, glaze, layer, glaze, cut apart, reassemble, and repeat indefinitely…usually until the rare moment of lucidity or financial inclination motivates me to stop long enough for something to be released from this eternal cycle of construction and destruction. It hasn’t happened lately. Now if only I could combine composting with art making. That would be heaven. Hmmm…

C.P. found this orange rose bush at a plan nursery for a bargain price. It’s my favorite color. Hopefully, it will grow wildly and climb on the fence.

A teepee made of driftwood for our cucumbers to climb on.

Many of the plants growing on the paths are volunteers, seeded by the birds and the wind. I see what grows here easily and on it’s own and then collect the seeds. Of the vegetables and flowers that I started deliberately, I flag the healthiest looking plants with the earliest flowers and fruit. Then I save the seeds from only those plants. Eventually, I will have a garden full of plants acclimated to this particular climate and soil.

I like the composting structures but the “greenhouse” really functions more as a potting shed. I wasn’t able to start plants as early as I would like. The beds surprised me though. We had mache, lettuce, radishes, and cabbage growing right through the winter. We recycle and reuse everything. C.P. built the gate, bins, beds, bird houses and other structures out of scrap and driftwood. All spent plants, trimmed branches, weeds, leaves, grass clippings, vegetable and fruit scraps, egg cartons, egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, and a lot of paper and cardboard gets recycled back into the compost. Then it serves a dual purpose as mulch and fertilizer. It keeps the soil warm and holds moisture. I am absolutely passionate about compost. It is the secret to a healthy garden and cuts down on waste. I’ve begun using composting methods in my art.

A volunteer tomato plant is growing out of one of our compost bins. I am curious to see how the fruit compares to the tomatoes I planted.

Seaweed collected from the beach. We put it into the compost, use it as mulch, and also leave it in buckets in the sun. The buckets fill up with rain and then warm in the sun. The seaweed water makes an excellent organic fertilizer. I washed it thoroughly to remove most of the salt and sand. Sea shells and beach stones also make an effective and attractive mulch. Our “lawn” is still scrappy. It’s mostly crab grass and clover and I just don’t care. Lawns really do not interest me. The bees love the clover but it’s on pure sand. C.P. keeps seeding it and it just keeps getting washed away.

Healthy tomatoes grown in raised beds and filled with compost.

The steps on the side garden are built of stone that was found on the beach. We brought the rocks up one by one and built them into the hill. My mother designed this project. She is the Queen of DIY masonry. She also built the stone wall on the other side, the one we are extending all around the garden.

Most of the front and side gardens are comprised of perennials and self seeding annuals, wild flowers and herbs that are either local or volunteer. They need a lot less water, attract more birds and beneficial insects, and are more resistant to disease.

We still have a large section of land (not photographed) that is yet to be cultivated. We started out 2 years ago with an empty 3/4 of an acre lot comprised of sand and scrappy weeds. Starting from scratch was actually a blessing. We had the opportunity to have a completely organic garden from seeds to soil to compost that is sustainable and bio-diverse. No chemicals. No tilling. We are now capable of growing most of our own plant foods all year round by eating only what is in season. The garden currently produces blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, wild strawberries, oregeno, parsley, mint, basil, chamomile, dandelion greens, lambs quarter, lettuce, mache, cabbage, radishes, swiss chard, spinach, nasturtium, onions, grapes, scallions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, asparagus, thyme, sage, green beans, a small fig tree and more. It is a peaceful oasis of flowers, butterflies, dragonflies, and birds. There is a cute little chipmunk living behind our compost bins.

Our next project is to build a real greenhouse and two cold frames. We need to level the land on the other side of the back garden and extend the stone wall around it. It will be a combination of wild patches and circular paths as a counter balance to the grid of raised beds. I’d like a spiral path if it will fit. The greenhouse will be in the middle. The combination of the raised beds, compost mulching, strategic wind breaks and stone creates micro-climates and pushes us up a zone. Eventually the stone wall will extend around the entire back garden and will extend the seasons even further.