Rescue A Pet

Four years ago I adopted my beagle/mutt Chloe from the Homeless Animal Rescue Team - or HART - here in Northern Virginia. But my dog family always felt incomplete to me. Being married put a cramp in that style since the only reason Chloe was even in our home because of me. If it had been up to HIM there would be nary a furry creature in our home. However, without all that baggage to weigh me down, I now have the freedom to complete my family the way I see fit.

So recently I adopted another dog, Champ, from HART. Champ is an 8 year old beagle/mutt that had been abused for years. Turns out he's as sweet as can be and doesn't hold any grudges for his foul treatment. I discovered that the rescue's shorthand for "likes to chew everything in sight" is "enjoys his chew toys." Champ has torn apart many slippers, magazines, bags, a box of cereal and numerous other things. But he is loving and just adorable. And to be honest, at the end of the day even after he's made a huge mess, I feel lucky to have him. The fate of dogs like this is not happy but I think Champ, and my family, got pretty lucky.

Now my family feels complete to me. Two kids, two dogs, one me!

Let's Say Thanks

Say Thanks to our Troops

Fall Energy

Recently, I read an article about overwintering the garden. To my way of thinking, all those dead sticks poking out from the exhausted plants and flowers were an eyesore that needed snipping. Lo and behold, apparently it's better to leave those things on there! Who knew? Well, apparently lots of people must know this, but this 40 year old former city-dweller had no earthly idea.

The best, most exciting part of this discovery is it now gives me a good reason to be a lazy gardener. I don't have to go out with the clippers and trim all that stuff, nor do I need to rake out the leaves from the garden. You'd think I'd be a little more with the "organic" program and realize that the leaves, for instance, will decompose and improve the soil. DUH!
But leaving the dead heads on the plants are good for the plants, too. The nutrients from the dying stems goes back into the roots for the next year. Almost everything I have in my garden is a perennial because I am, if nothing else, a lazy gardener. But another thing I learned about leaving the stems and dead flowers on is that some flowers provide winter food for birds, for instance Purple Coneflower. I have LOTS of that in my garden! It makes me happy to think that in addition to sparing my back an afternoon of cramped, bent clipping, it will also make for a yummy bird buffet.

In the meantime, I'm looking for more pots of bright red mums. I've read that placing them around your home's doorway brings good energy and I sure could use some of that!

Crap Fest!

I love my dog, but GODDAMMIT! She apparently smelled something yummy in the compost pile, you know the one I've spent two years cultivating and preparing and turning and cooking to make organic soil for my garden. The one I actually had the audacity to put in a moving van and bring from my old house to my new one when I moved. Yes, that compost pile.

It seems even after all that, the compost could not withstand the enthusiasm of a small dog. Granted, she's not THAT small, she's about 50 pounds of quivering Beagle. Something in that pile caught her attention so much so that she tore off the plastic fencing surrounding it and dove in head first. Needless to say, there is compost strewn across the yard, not to mention banana peels, egg shells and other fruits and vegetable pieces in random states of decay. I'm sure I could put it back into a pile if only I would get a rake and a bucket. Do you see this city girl reaching for the rake and bucket? I think not.

Okay, okay, I acknowledge that the aftermath is my responsibility. I could get out there and clean it up and really I probably should. But it's far enough away from the house that it doesn't matter at all and honestly, I don't want to see what's in there. I know there are LOTS of worms in it, and I shall lament their loss. I mean, I'm sure they survived, just went underground. I'm lamenting losing them from the compost because getting that many worms to show up for work takes a lot of time.

***SIGH***

Well, tomorrow is another day....

Bolts of Arugula Insight

The arugula has bolted. All of it. When a plant bolts, I discovered that it does not mean that it has grown legs and run out of the garden. It means that it has prematurely shot up flowers, and in the case of my arugula it's because it's been so damn hot outside.

On the upside, the arugula flowers have two things going for them: 1) they attract pollinators to the garden, and I'm a BIG fan of natural pollinators (especially since my neighbor has 5 hives of honeybees) 2) the arugula flowers are also edible and taste good in salads. They're also kind of pretty.

Admittedly, I planted WAY too much arugula at one time. There is no conceivable way I could eat all that I had grown so if the bees and other pollinators can benefit from what's bolted, I suppose that is just fine. Note to self: it doesn't all have to go in the ground at once. It can be staggered throughout the season. Hmmm.....another new concept for me.

The things which seem so self-evident to most gardeners are like giant flashes of insight to me!

That's IT???

Seriously. All the work that's gone into the potatoes and this it the yield so far...

Is it me? This is a picture of just one area of potato plants which apparently has turned into a vining-type of thing. I had no idea potatoes did that...

Country Boys

Here's to remembering why I love country boys....

That connection to the earth is so appealing. Their lives are so tied to the rhythm of growth, of seasonal change. A country boy has charm, has a sparkle in the eyes, a little devil in the soul, exuberance and passion.

Tell me, what's not to love?

The Glimpse Outside

There are several potato plants and onions ready to come out!!!

I feel so gratified by my garden. It really didn't take THAT much work and now I will have enough fresh food to last for most of the summer. Perhaps if I were smarter or more dedicated or something, I would be able to grow food all year round. I'll do that someday but for now I'm happy to have arugula salad with some onions. And baked potatoes for everyone!

Besides providing food for me and my family, the garden is the place I go when everything else in life seems too much. We get so caught up in our little lives, yet so much LIFE is teeming all around us at any given moment. Lift a rock and you'll see the depth of life occurring beyond your own mind. Just within the confines of my small garden is an entire universe of life; the plants, insects, microbes, everything working together in symbiosis, millions of lives all changing and growing, living and dying. How's that for getting a glimpse outside yourself?

Garden Sanctuary
You who walk
With troubled thoughts
Come, enter here and rest
And may the sweet serenity of growing things
And the heavenly peace
Be mirrored in your soul
-Doxis M. Palmer

Time to Get Serious

June is coming quickly to a close and I have been beyond CLUELESS this growing season. For a woman whose ultimate goal is to home-grow all my own food, I have been relentlessly lazy. Preoccupied is probably a better word, and not only can you tell by the garden, you can tell by my blog. It has been sadly neglected.

On the upside, I harvested some yummy arugula already and I'm thrilled that it seems I'll be up to my eyeballs in it all season long. The carrots I planted seem to have magically disappeard from the garden....I choose to attribute that to the family of rabbits that have moved in nearby. The phlox in my perennial garden has already been munched to near-extinction by Mama Rabbit, so I'm guessing the carrots have been expertly removed from the ground. What amazes me is that they left no evidence behind...hmmm.....

I planted what survived of my corn seedlings, which was about 15 plants. For a small, home garden such as mine, in an uptight neighborhood of Northern Virginia, that is probably just as well. I'm sure if I dug up my front lawn and replanted it with nothing but corn, the neighbors would have something to say, nevermind what the HOA would do to me. Probably death by firing squad. Anyway, of those 15 corn plants, only THREE have survived. This is a huge disappointment to me. There really need to be more than that because in order for corn to grow (this is something I learned this winter so hang on for enlightenment) there needs to be multiple plants and they need to be planted in a grid. Corn is wind-pollenated so if there is only one plant, it cannot pollenate itself. If they are planted in one straight row, the wind will blow the pollen away and it cuts the chance that any corn will develop. But if they are planted in grids, they stand a much better chance of pollenating one another so that corn will grow. Otherwise, you just end up with tall, gangly green stalks and no corn.
In any event, with only three corn plants, it'll just be a gamble as to what happens. I don't have room in the existing garden for much corn and I fear I put the plants in a bad location. Live and learn! That's what clueless gardening is all about!

Something amazing did happen in my perennial garden. Last summer, I planted marigolds in all my gardens, mainly to help with pest control but also because I just like the way they look. In any case, this year the marigolds GREW BACK! From my understanding marigolds are annuals, but clearly I need to look into this more. I was so surprised to see them, almost like old friends. I guess what happened was they reseeded themselves, not "grew back" per se, but still....it amazed me. That's one thing I love about being in the garden....it never fails to provoke my sense of awe and wonder.

Off We GO!

The seeds from Seeds of Change organic arrived over the weekend, two hundred dollars worth of them! This is going to be one gigantic garden this year. Either because I was giddy off a quiet, inactive winter, or oblivious to the failings of last year's garden, I ordered about four times as many seeds as I did last year. The kids have been fighting over who gets to plant what, which is basically a moot point since once they actually got into the garden, they were distracted by other things. So who do you think actually planted the seeds?