Category Archives: In The Garden

garden photographs, wild nature, permaculture

Plenty of Thyme

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Built 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.

Greenhouse Shed (window side)

Greenhouse Shed (door side)

The view from the hillside garden.

The view from the hill. (hillside garden)

Opening Soon (front garden)

Flowering Chicks and Hens

Chicks and Hens flowering (front garden)

Chicks and Hens flowering (front garden)

The Spiral Path

Abundance (spiral garden)

Plenty of Thyme

Plenty of Time (spiral garden)

Under Construction (spiral garden)

Bachelor Buttons

Bachelor Buttons (front garden)

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.

 

The one eyed garden gnome and other scenes.

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I feel as old as dirt now but that’s okay because I really like dirt. I’ve been spending all of my free time playing in it. This has been an unusually cold spring and is turning out to be a ridiculously cold wet summer. I’ve been constructing a spiral garden. Stone creatures meet live critters for fun and mischief. Th garden is over-run with cheeky chipmunks. They tear through my compost, dig up my plants, steal shells, make holes in the stone wall, and torment Little Nemo. Who need TV?

New Friends

He shows his true face in this one.

Double Trouble

Post Sedum

Peeking Out

Berries

Spiral Garden

Clematis

Chives and Pinks

Poppies and Tulips

Iris

The  compost bins C.P. made for me out of our old deck wood.

Re-Cycling

Wading in a Winter Wonderland

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Such an amazing amount of snow for the coastline. It usually doesn’t start to accumulate until 200 feet from the cliff and never more than an inch or two. Now here we are at 50 feet and buried in snow. I think there is nothing quite as lovely and peaceful as walking on the shoreline in winter. It is especially enjoyable and surreal in all this snow. I can see this easily becoming too much of a good thing so I’ll enjoy it for now and hope it isn’t a trend. We’ve been fortunate (so far) and haven’t lost power for more than a few hours at a time.

The garden has completely disappeared. I haven’t see another living soul walk down our beach road for weeks. Little Nemo desperately wants to go out and investigate this strange new landscape. Freya is hibernating. I’m either in the crow’s nest working or in the cave learning the piano on the new Christmas keyboard. C.P. McDill is learning to play the guitar. Perhaps we’ll be real musicians one day.

There are seals sunbathing on the big rocks at the point. I bare the cold (literally) and follow their lead whenever there’s a break in these cold snaps. Otherwise, it’s the tanning salon for me. I prefer the rocks and the sound of seagulls to the humming slab and Britney blasting overhead but I do need my UV fix or I become cranky and my skin itches.

There is a garden under there somewhere.

Nemo looks out.

C.P. McDill looks in.

Come First of May

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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. Moss lends such a lovely patina to the landscape or garden unlike the osessively trimmed blandscapes where moss is banned. 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.