View From The Balcony Autumn 2020

Our front balcony entrance brings so much enjoyment, and not only to us but also to Eli the Cat who shows his appreciation for the doormat every chance he gets.

I love leaning over the railing to check out the front garden. The flowering shrubs in the upper right corner of the below photo are two abelia, beloved by bees.  When I recently did my afternoon exercise walk around the garden the other day, I got to see a HUGE bee all on his lonesome, probably belonging to the Megachilidae family, thrusting its upper body into one of the tubular flowers. 

The meandering brick path flanks the part of the garden situated between the entrance walk and the driveway. The aucuba was propagated from plants already present when we moved here ten years ago. Its evergreen, shade-loving, glossy, substantial leaves splashed with gold flourish in a spot facing north, brightening up that dark corner.

The balcony wraps itself partially around the eastern side of our home. Access to the balcony from the inside is facilitated by not only the foyer door but also two living-room French doors. Presently asters are the dominant blooms from that perspective.

While on the side balcony if one turns towards the south, the rest of the eastern planting with its ivy-covered wall can be seen as it continues into the back garden. Eli the Cat stands guard at various points along the eastern perimeter, mesmerised by sounds coming from the plants' direction, mostly made by insects and the wind.

Once back on the ground, going around the southeast corner of the house brings you to the south-facing back garden with its patio and ivy-covered pergola. The pergola-facing potting room is in the sous-sol (our home is a pavillon sur sous-sol, that is, the living quarters are on the top floor; downstairs houses the unheated garage, utility/storage room, potting/mud rooms, and cellier). The temperature is now cold enough for all the frost-tender potted plants to spend at least the nights inside the sous-sol, near the potting room's window, including the tuberous begonia which is spending the day on the table under the pergola.

It is still flowering but will start shedding leaves fairly soon, feeding its tuber, hopefully giving us a fifth year of flowers starting in June and going all the way to November.

Other frost-tender potted plants that need to be sheltered at least during the night are calendula . . .

. . . bougainvillea, osteospermum, and lantana. If successfully over-wintered, they will bloom outdoors once again.

When gardening most days, I wear woolen hats to keep my noggin warm. The summer jobbies are in the mud room biding their time.

À la prochaine!

Jogging Toward Summer Solstice 2020

There's about two weeks left before summer officially rolls in. Chez nous, the crop method is the preferred one and not succession planting. There's a push now to get all of the vegetables planted before the longest day arrives. To cheer me up as I sieve compost, wield spades/forks/rakes, and keep recently sowed beds moistened, I recall with great fondness of all the produce already harvested and processed since February such as asparagus, rhubarb, peas, and strawberries waiting to be included in delicious meals for the coming months. Sometimes I take a break just to check out crops getting closer to being picked to ensure I don't miss the best time to harvest, like blueberries. Lovers of acidic soil that blueberries are, they wouldn't flourish in the slightly alkaline earth in our garden. Instead, they do their blue thing in large pots filled with an acidic potting mix. Keeping one of them company is a cobalt blue, hand-blown glass fishing float which most likely made its way from Spain and got put on display at a flea market in France, specifically in Grenoble, where we became happy buyers. One of the highlights of my twilight garden exercise romps started when lockdown first began and which I still do is bending down here and there, sampling a blueberry, a raspberry, and a strawberry.

This berry-festooned branch is just one of many.

Below photo: the green beans are in and covered with horticultural fleece to prevent them from being eaten by birds.  The parterre with bushy plants directly in front of the beans is one of our two potato beds. The two unkept ones in the foreground will eventually be planted with strawberry runners and carrots. The silvery, boxy thing in the lower left hand corner is one-half of the coldframe we got at Lidl just before the Covid-19 lockdown. The splash of vivid red in the lower right are volunteer poppies.

The heat-loving, purple osteospermums were potted up last autumn and brought indoors. Two out of three plants survived the confinement and are flourishing in the front garden. This winter they will go into the coldframe, watched over judiciously, and if needed, brought indoors. But this time, I will put the pot on wooden slats placed over circular trays filled with water to provide humidity. Though they get enough light in our living room, the central heating is a stress. Hopefully these two specimens will continue to over-winter through the years.

Calendula were sowed in flats early spring and kept in the cold frame until it was warm enough for them eventually to embrace the big, wide wonderful world. Their hardening off started when the frame was first propped open during daytime for a week followed by the seedlings being outdoors for a few hours over a period of several days leading to spending an entire day before being transplanted into the big pot where they will spend their time until autumn. Having never grown them before, I wonder if maybe I shouldn't have pinched the young plants in the hope they will be less leggy when mature as I might have ended their flowering capability. I won't relax until I see their wonderful orange blooms!

The beets were sowed the other day. It is such a pleasure to work our veggie beds as the soil has been so much improved over the last ten years with the additions of compost, leaf mulch, wood chippings, grass clippings, and green manure. It's fluffy and a lovely shade of brown. Yes!

Turnips and carrots are the last two vegetables needing to be sown. Carrots have a specific set of challenges which when met will yield a most satisfying crop. Like all homegrown veggies, their taste has a depth of flavour that is incomparable. That paper cone holding up the seed packet in the below photo is a DIY tiny seed sowing device. The seeds being quite small means that too many may get planted hence becoming crowded as they grow in size which requires thinning. As they are thinned their distinctive fragrance will attract a certain species of low-flying, white butterflies who then will deposit eggs which become larvae burrowing down into the edible root completely destroying its comestible value by leaving it riddled with brown tunnels. This destruction is carried on out of sight, therefore it is only when the crop gets pulled out of the ground, the cruel realisation hits, that after all that hard work, there are no carrots to eat.

To ensure that a nice steady stream of seeds are sowed, wet ordinary paper, like from a notebook, rolling it into a cone with a narrow opening. Press the outside edge to seal while still wet so it won't unravel. Moistening the paper and letting it dry roughens up its texture, slowing down the flow of seeds. If any thinning is necessary, the late afternoon is the best time as the butterflies are not around too much at that time. Another approach is to cover the thinned seedlings with horticultural fleece for about a week so their scent would have dissipated. In addition to keeping them free of larvae, they like loose soil which is as stone/pebble free as possible. Our bed is spaded and forked well, but it is not obstruction free so the only variety that I have had any success with is Carentan which has a mid-length and stout top half. If its growth gets forked by a stone, there's still enough carrot for the pot. Keep in mind during the several weeks it takes for the seeds to germinate, the soil must be kept evenly moist. A hose nozzle that makes a fine mist is a way to water without bunching up the carefully spaced seeds. Last year's harvest is still feeding us at the moment; I am guessing that it will supply about eighty percent of our annual needs. Hence just a few months of supermarket buying will suffice to get us to this season's harvest. 

Besides getting all the crops in before the solstice, I also try to get any desired cuttings from existing evergreen stock started. After getting dipped in growth hormone, planted in small pots, and thoroughly watered, they are drapped with clear plastic bags and kept under the pergola. When new growth is detected then they will be placed in the sun. If they do not reach nursery-bed transplantation size before winter, then they will go into the coldframe. All that condensation inside their little plastic homes is a comforting sight because it means until their roots form, they will still receive moisture through their leaves. A ton of laurel and heather cuttings already have been propagated leaving Leyland cypress, ivy, and rosemary to be done. Whew!

À la prochaine!

Gardening in the Time of Covid-19, Part III: Returning Sounds, Sights & Smells of Nature

On the 45th day of lockdown (Confinement Jour 45), I find myself sitting under our urban garden's ivy-covered pergola to rest after completing a garden task, realising though always pleasant, it is even more so. Birdsong has little competition from traffic noise. True now as before, after a rain, petrichor permeates throughout, but at present, before the rain and its fragrant aftermath, the air is already wonderfully fresh.

Looking through the sous sol's potting room's window with its coloured glass bottle collection towards the ivy-covered pergola

Then there are the moles. One of their many dirt volcanoes can be seen in the below photo's upper right corner. Why have they entrenched themselves for the first time in the ten years since our arrival? My guess is the lockdown-related decrease in vibrations caused by street traffic including fewer trucks rumbling down one long side of our garden flanking a refrigeration depot's entrance has attracted these industrious soil diggers. After some research I have concluded there are three perspectives on having garden moles:

1) Get rid of these dangerous, disease-carrying, dirt-dragons/rodents as quickly as possible with poison. (Call our extermination service for an estimate.)

2) Be humane to both these annoying critters and your lawn. Trap and release them. (Where? Regardless of the lockdown, if released they will either come back or bother someone else.)

3) Co-exist. They bring benefits too like aerating the soil (those mounds of theirs are excellent with which to top up veggie beds), eating tons of detrimental grubs, and fertilising the soil. As our 'lawn' is mostly English daises and moss, and their mounds though plentiful are not disturbing the roots of bushes and plants, this perspective has become mine.

Centre: osteospermum; heucheras of varying hues: clockwise, paprika, Georgia peach & tirasmu; lavender pot: lantana

This past late winter, an acquaintance of The Calm One gave us many a potted miniature rose. At that time, the floral donation was leafless. All got a good pruning. Then I had to wait a few months to see what colour blooms they would have. Out of around fifteen, only a couple have not yet set flowers. I do not know the different varieties' names, but they are all beauties soaking up the sun on sous sol window sills facing south. During the growing season, each gets sprayed for blackspot monthly and have a few drops of liquid fertiliser added to the watering can almost daily.

Here's a close up of a deep-pink one.

And of a tiny white rose.

Also of a gorgeous coral-coloured bloom.

A tub of two turned out to have deep red, quartered roses. Such flowers look fantastic against a complementary background of deep green, so it is now fronting a patio cutout's calla lily thicket.

Such a beautifully formed rose!

That diminutive ruby stunner has big competition though. Outside the balcony entrance's front door, curving up high over the weigela, is a robust climber, Étoile de Hollande, fragrant beyond belief, so deeply red it can look almost black, and with a velvet sheen that is mesmerising.

Here's one huge, ruffled bloom.

À la prochaine!

Late Spring Garden 2019, Part Two

It's lovely to have home-grown goodies in the freezer. Here's an ample portion of rhubarb crumble (my recipe) with strawberries fresh from the patch drenched in cream; all which goes well with coffee.

The two beds of peas have been harvested/shelled with most of them parboiled and frozen. The spent plants have been ripped up, put on the compost, and soon the beds will be prepared for carrot and beet sowings. Yup, you are seeing right, that's two peas in a pod!

Despite the weather being more stormy than not, I took the shelling project outside under the pergola.

Partly curious, partly seeking shelter, Eli the Cat jumped up on the table to sniff and inspect more closely.

The pink flowers on the left are penstemon while those feathery, tall plants on the right are asparagus. Many young shoots were harvested back in March, but some were left to develop into what I consider to be a summer hedge. A hedge until . . .

. . . the storm. Their height has been reduced sharply and a good number have snapped at the base of the plant. I am trying to rehabilitate the ones remaining by freeing those trapped under the dead stalks and mounding the soil around them so they have a chance of resuming an upright position. Most importantly, regardless of trying to reclaim a hedge effect, the focus is to keep them alive because without fading autumnal foliage, the roots will not receive required nourishment, threatening the next season's crop.

However, the penstemon so far has weathered the storm perfectly.

The lavender in the front garden is blooming. Bees love it and there are a few in the photo below!

I love to catch a glimpse of lavender haze through other bushes, in this case, through the graceful, mahogany-branched, airy-leaved abelia also beloved by bees.

I have been trying to order this deep-mauve osteospermum for a couple of seasons from my online nursery but they sell-out this item before I can order. Not this time! They will bloom all the way through October/November.

À la prochaine!