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.

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.

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…

This entry has also been posted to http://arianadii.livejournal.com/285078.html

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…

Two families are living in the scrap wood birdhouses made by C.P.McDill

Clematis and strawberries.

Tomatoes are setting fruit. Broccoli hiding in it’s own shade house in the background.

A wee arborvitae. C.P.’s plantings are all tiny evergreen trees. I’m beginning to think he really likes them.

My favorite dianthus pinks that smell like cinnamon, fading phlox, and a homely azalea that I inherited and don’t want. What the hell color is that?

The tulips have fades but the irises have bloomed.

The first delphinium to open in the seaside garden.

A lovely way to start the first morning of May is with a reminder of Lord Whimsy’s post about David Brenner’s moss garden. I love moss and don’t care much obsessively trimmed blandscapes. There is a small cottage up the road with a moss path to the door with a big stone at the end in front of the door. It’s like an anti-welcome mat. I love that. C.P. McDill and I turned up every stone with moss attached and tucked them under shaded places.

Lack of mossiness aside, the rest of our garden is thriving and the micro-climate we created has held up well to the elements. We are still working on the dry laid stone wall that will go all the way around the garden and up the hill. Last night we had an unexpected frost. It’s an ironic May Eve gift for gardeners, a sort of literal “May Day” for the seedlings and bulbs just beginning to bloom. I put tomatoes, peppers, and basil in the potting shed and lit all of the votive candles I could find.

The mossy path and spring tulips in the front garden.

The dry laid wall in progress.

The beginnings of a strawberry patch and phlox with rocks.

Pesto and salsa hiding in the potting shed.

We live on sand. The bare space is 24 x 24 feet with nothing planted on it. Purslane grows there every spring and every summer we eat it and then the patch is bare again. My plan is to lay out a spiral path with flagstones that I’ve been collecting and then to see what will grow there other than purslane.

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…

Take a walk down the stone steps into my garden.

Quietly sneak past the guard and under the driftwood arch.

Hot peppers galore.

Abundance

A field of cosmos 10 feet tall.

A fig tree grew out of the compost. Surprise!

C.P. made these birdhouses out of the mahogany scraps from our new front porch.

ucumbers gone wild.

Another volunteer. This basil planted itself on the brick path outside of the parsley bed.

The garden will be fading soon. The lush late summer and early fall glory is captured here. I think I have a few more months but who can tell? This is the New England coast and the weather has been so unpredictable everywhere else. I had a dream last night that I woke up and looked out the window and it was snowing. When I really did wake up, I thought it would be snowing. I jumped out of the bed and planned to go outside and grab everything I could harvest. C.P. McDill is thinking of building a studio in the garden since that is where I spend most of my time for almost half of the year. I always feel split down the middle as to where I want to be.