Lollygagging

There is a distinct change in the air. I feel it. Don't you? Crisp morning air. The sun a little lower in the afternoon sky.  And grasshoppers popping up from the dry grasses as I pass by.  Nature's signal that summer is on the wane.

 Internally, my heart quickens as I know we have much to do yet to have our home remodel project weather ready, gardening chores attended to, and time, precious time to find for late summer lollygagging. Yes, lollygagging! Glorious mindless wandering, dilly dallying, or shilly shallying about in the late summer sun.  If I am not forth coming with a lollygagging report soon, well, I hope someone will hold me accountable. :D

Repurposing

It's really satisfying when we can repurpose old materials into our home building projects.  So much, the old stuff is far superior to what one will find in today's lumber yards. Not to mention the visual appeal of vintage. Several years ago we stock piled several square footage of tongue and groove boards removed from a friends home remodel project  in Astoria, Oregon.  The cost? One 10" home made apple pie. Booyah!

We planed the old boards, sanded up the rough spots and they are now the underside treatment of our roof overhang.  Ditto on the Booyah.

And in the garden.....

Connectivity.  My maternal great grandmother was a sharecroppers wife who grew fabulous hydrangea in the Arkansas hard pan.  I can only imagine possible by the soil amending courtesy of the family cow.  I don't remember my great grandmother, she passed in my infanthood, but I know her.  I know her everytime I look at my Nikko Blue hydrangea.

The other day, my grand daughter presented me with this mini bouquet picked from my garden.  There is the hydrangea.  And the connectivity. One day, perhaps by instinct, a hydrangea will grace this young ladies garden too.

I hope your end of summer to dos are creative and meaningful with ample time set aside for aimless lollgagging too.  

 I find lollygagging so much nicer with tea.  How bout' you?

Underneath

In 1981Mel Bartholomew wrote a book called Square Foot Gardening, and also had a PBS program too on bio-intensive organic gardening. He showed us that if planted properly even the smallest of gardens could have maximum yield, and every precious inch of garden soil be used to it's greatest potential. 


I can't help but ascribe to that kind of efficiency, and it works beautifully for any size garden. That the atmosphere a few feet above the earth in a garden be comprised of a sea of texture, shapes and shades of green with little or no bare earth in view. The canopy of  dense foliage acts like a living mulch protecting plant roots from moisture loss while squelching out the life of bothersome weeds. 


But silently, the underneath, the carefully concealed, the fertile ground, never escapes my mind. This marvelous underneath world of the soil food web.


Are you enjoying an abundance of fruit for your labors this summer season?  If you're reveling in the satisfaction that comes from picking a juicy heirloom tomato or succulent leafy green that you grew all by yourself, take a few moments to reflect on ways to give back, to nourish the soil that produced all that garden goodness  Here are a few suggestions you might consider to"uppen" your garden's soil food web.

• Plant cover crops (green manure)in areas not occupied with vegetable plants. The cover crop will draw nitrogen deep into the soil. Cut and allow to decay in place or use to feed your compost system.
• Mulch with compost. Create a sustainable circle of compost to garden, garden to compost system.  Here's a look at my composting system and other garden soil love from an earlier post: 
• "Leaving Me Lonely".
• Consider using a broad fork instead of tilling.  It's gentler to your garden's soil food web. Well nurtured garden soil is by far healthier for plants and much less work for the gardener. 
• Red Pig Tools makes a dandy hand forged broad fork.
• Mychorrhizae is the secret old time farmers always knew. That a shovelful of forest soil added to the garden soil helped to grow larger healthier plants. learn more about the benefits of Mychorrhizae. 

"I do some of my best thinking while pulling weeds."

Rosemary

 Rosemary is the honorable lady of my herb garden.  Blessing me with her magical scent each time I brush against her.  Guardian of the medicinal and culinary heritages of the other herbs that grow along the meandering paths that lead to her throne.  And her christened name Rose of Mary transcends the ages of biblical history.  

Rosmarinus Officinalis

My Rosemary has been dutifully keeping a watchful eye over our cottage herb garden some 10 years now, all cozied up to an old Douglas Fir tree stump.  I love the way she has in time managed to gracefully embrace the old stump. She has plentiful blooms that  are a nearly white pale blue.  I have pruned a few aging branches from the old girl from time to time and have found their lightly scented, gnarled and twisted appearance very unique.  I'm planning on using a few as  sturdy handles for my whacky hillbilly baskets.  Rosemary brings an air of dignity to any landscape and would be the perfect herb selection in today's era and ethos of water conscious gardening.

~ Spring Salutations~

There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance.  Pray you, love, remember. 

~ William Shakespeare

Homestead Goodness

The Pacific Northwest's  lovely verdant green landscape is courtesy of it's abundant rainfall.  Bless you Oregon!  But can you stop now!?  I'm anxious and patiently waiting like most folks to feel the soft (dry) earth beneath my feet, but alas, a few more days of drizzle lay ahead. In the meantime, a few tidbits of homestead goodness are floating around in my bean, and in need of escape.  

The setting sun reflecting on my found and upcycled wire gate.  I placed it in my veggie garden and planted bright orangey zinnias.  It is reminder to me of the iconic garden gate of long ago days over which neighbors would exchange hellos.  I often wish for such an idyllic encounter.

A snap of a maple and willow garden bench two industrious gardeners built and brought to a recent gardening seminar I attended. They shared a lovely lunch break perched on their handiwork.  It inspired me to create my own outdoor seating.  Do bales of straw count?

Territorial Seed Company  is one of my all time favorites for interesting seed varieties for the garden.   I not only love their Scarlet Emperor runner bean for it's visual stand out and interest  in the garden but also for it's mottled black and pink bean at maturity that I've decoratively   used indoors as well.  So I have in my itching to go garden hands some new varieties to try, Bingo and Yin Yang.  Bingo look like tiny Orca whale.  Fun. 

Yet in all this wetness, plantings are ripening up for the big show.  Like these plump Peonie buds.  See it in bloom here.  It's hard to deny the power of pink!

But  I 'm not alone as I yearn and stretch for a wee bit more sunshine around here.  If the sun is warming your skin, the fresh addictive scent of rich soil is wafting about your nostrils as you dig in the earth,  If with a dampened brow and soil stained hands you feel gloriously appreciative and alive in your little patch of heaven?  Then craps! Do you think you can box some up and send it yonder way!?

Yours Truly,

Cottage Woman

Your tweetable ~  "So will no man be secure who is not sure of a garden". 

Meanwhile in the garden....

I planted a fall crop of lettuce and it's still thriving all cozy under a hoop house. I'm thankful to have some fresh winter greens in January.

And a nice pile of leaf mulch, the stuff I yearn for, is decomposing nicely under a canopy of fir trees. When ever I poke at the pile, the wonderful earthy aroma delights my senses. It will make a nice spring mulch in my perennial beds. Did I tell you I found the mother load?

Every fall, when I'm in town on errands, I keep my eye open for a nice stash of leaves. Sure enough I found my booty, one city block long of rich mulchy goodness. And just in time as the city was scheduled for collecting leaves to take to their composting facility. The finished compost is then sold back to consumers at a premium.

An hour later, I got it all in the bag!

A stop at Dutch bros, then heading west of town, I traveled and sipped a long and leisurely country road home.

Meanwhile, back home.....

Pomegranates line the mantle. Tell me this isn't peculiar to you cause it makes perfect sense to me.

~Winter greetings from the cottage~

Mish-Mash & Moosh

My thoughts on the happenings around Panther Creek Cottage these days are a bit of a mish-mash of home, garden and life. Be warned, moosh happens!

My first handspun

My lovely daughter and grand- daughter, the dual team of Meilleuereamie have mentored me in my pursuit of spinning and knitting. I am a blessed woman! Peruse their shop and see all the lovelies these two create.

The beginnings of my first ever knitting project. A hat, just in time!

I have no specific purpose right off hand for these dried hops I've harvested other than they are a sensory delight to me. I'm loving their soft green hue, all delicate and light. Taking in their green-y pungent aroma will help lift my spirits when the winter doldrums kick in.

HH rigged up this filter for the spring water that fills the hillbilly hot tub.

It does the job!

Go here to see where our spring water originates.

Hot soaks in my hillbilly hot tub are becoming a bit of routine for me. I crank up the burners and round the time I've finished working in the cool fall air, the greenhouse is all steamy. I grab some tea (or pinot), a book and rejuvenate.

We've eaten the last edible cucumber from the garden making me wince when I think of the ones that got away. But I'm reminded that what doesn't make it to our mouths or to the insides of farm critters, when consumed by the earth, feeds the hidden and miraculous world that resides under it's surface. Feeding and "uppen-ing" the very source that will provide next year's bounty.

Moosh is good!

Maturity (in the garden, not me)

My garden is yielding to maturity. But not me, no sir-ree. Okay, well, maybe a little. Seed heads are drying on their stems. Flower blossoms too. And it's time to start gathering them for an abundance of free spring sowing next year.

Dill is one of my favorites to gather. I love to plant a large grouping each Spring. I touch, sniff and fondle them regularly. Remember, I lack maturity.

Cosmos seeds are a must. Their blooms help bring pollinators to the garden and their dill like appearance so wispy and light is hard to resist.

And marigolds, are good bullies in the garden. Undesirable pests avoid their natural repelling nature. I collect the whole dry heads easily for next years bumper crop of sunny blooms.

Finding ways to bring a little garden to the table? Me too. I try to find ways to bring some to the table by searching out some mini varieties of my favorite herbs and veggies. I planted miniature romaine lettuce among some of my potted plants on our patio to nibble at will. And I'm completely smitten with tiny Basil Pistou. Their lovely herbal fragrance would charm the socks (or pantyhose, maybe girdles. Wait, folks don't wear those anymore do they?) off wedding guests attending summer nuptials! Maturity forth coming, I promise.

I treasure my wire gate. It's a fine sturdy trellis in our garden. It's flanked on one side with light and fruity lemon cucumbers and zinnias on the other. It's rarely in the same place each year but that's what I love about my found wire gate, it's versatility and constant up-cycle-ability.

Whoa, I can't turn my back for one minute!

Way too much maturity happenin' around here!

Outdoor Sink

Let me say how ecstatic I am about my washing station. Some may remember when I got the grand scheme to build myself an outdoor sink. Well here it is in full service. I found a little drain rack that is oh so handy for my freshly washed veggies. No more bending over the water spigot for me. No siree ma'am! Can't recommend enough that you build one for yourself.

And don't you find it true enough too that even the smallest garden yields a bounty sufficient for a family, or two?

I've made one humdinger of a salad today. And I've packed up a few salads to go. I think I'll go up the road a piece to Ruby and Gib's place and then I'll mosey on over to Vern and Mary's too. They'll be having salad tonight.

A view from the window above my indoor sink.

~Summer Blessings~

Summer Blessings

If I could be like those brilliant swallowtail butterflies that embrace the blooms of our scarlet runner beans then I would drift upon the breeze to your neck of the woods, to your lovely garden, and drink it in.

~ summer blessings friend~

The Horta, alive and well

For those of you not familiar with the "Horta". I give you a short clip for history's sake. You might just remember that you actually are familiar with the Horta or at least a close relative. They are prolific I hear. Maybe you've been wondering what has become him. Time to find out.

Psst... He's a She.

Then in her youth as a film star as now the Horta is not very pretty. And okay it's kinda true people are a little skittish about her reputation as a simmering hot blob of matter reputedly devouring anything that crosses her path. But it's her job okay. Things get a little warm when consuming all the garbage folks throw at her. Sheesh, give the gal a break.

Really, her benefits far out weigh her deficiencies in the looks department. Trust me. So I hope you'll encourage her and her offspring to hang around your spread. And if you throw brambly debris, weeds, dirt, manure or even rotten tomatoes and banana peels at her and call her "compost", she won't mind atall'.

NO KILL

The Washing Station

Why the feet you ask? I didn't want to horrify you with what the rest of me looked like after rooting around in the mud all day. Okay maybe not literally rooting, but at times i was on all fours digging like no body's business. Trust me the foot shot is the least offensive and if you just take a looksy at what humdinger (at least to me, but I'll consider your vote) these two little cottage woman hands made you'll understand.

An outdoor sink! Of course you say, everyone knows that you must have an outdoor sink right? I see you shaking your head with the "total dud" bubble floating above. Don't be hasty let me explain.

You know when you spend a long time in the garden carefully harvesting your bounty and realize that you need to wash your fresh tasty vegetables and you really don't like traipsing through the house to your kitchen sink with dirty vegetables and shoes and then clogging your kitchen sink with the dirt. So you kneel on the ground rinsing and sorting with the hose until your kneeling in a pool of muddy water and you can't get up from all that stooping and picking and rinsing? Let's pretend that you do okay? The answer of course the outdoor sink or more eloquently the washing station.

The original idea came from an old issue of Mother Earth News and when I laid eyes on it I knew at once this was at last my ticket to evolving into an upright Homosapien. I gleaned most of my supplies for the project from surplus items left over after the two remodels we did. Here's the low down.

****

~ First let me divulge that the idea was hatched in my noggin last fall. I knew that the sink needed to be not to far from the garden and situated as near as possible to the compost so I could toss refuse into the pile as I cleaned. The area where I wanted to place the sink had a lot crab grass and I could have waited to start the project this Spring and just dug the stuff out, but with a little forethought I saved myself a bushel of tedious work by laying a bunch of cardboard (an awesome mulch and weed suppressing source) on top of the grass in Fall and let it Winter over. Now I had a completely flat and weed free area to start right in on the project.

Next I dug 2 shallow footings and put in a couple inches of gravel heeled in to form a heave free base for the recycled cinder block columns. I turned the center blocks around and found I liked the little architectural flair it gave the columns. Then I topped each column with recycled stepping stones to cover the large holes in the cinder blocks. I positioned the recycled enameled steel dual sink in the center and laid the found rack loosely on top for draining the veggies on. I laid more gravel to cover the entire soggy cardboard and topped that with an inch or so of fresh compost and seeded it. But I couldn't leave it alone because we also have a nice pile of homemade stepping stones we made from extra concrete from a pour a few years earlier. Ta Da, two nice stones to stand on when working at the station. That's it.

You like? I hope so.

Pruning Raspberries

I know I'm risking any ideas of being an authority on gardening because of this post. Pruning raspberries in January? uh-oh.

But if you won't mind bearing with me, I promise to direct you to the proper authorities on Summer and Ever bearing raspberries.

In the meanwhile, this is the why and what for of my madness, and it carries a one-two punch, look out!

This is a partial row of my raspberries right now. They are a pretty healthy mix of Summer and Ever bearing raspberries. Don't ask me why they are mixed, it don't make no sense a'tall!

I trim back the top gangly part of the canes to keep them from whipping around in the winter weather. I also like to portion out some of the gardening chores through out the year instead of being hit with the whole shebang in Spring.

I only whack them down to a bit over knee height and so far with this practice, they haven't incurred any damage, yet. That of course might be largely attributable to our temperate Pacific Northwest climate, and not the commonsense of this cottage woman.

Here is the after photo of those same raspberries.

The double punch is this-

First: My weird pruning timetable helps ease my gardening chores into a manageable size through out the year.

Second: Those top trimmings are a much needed addition to the compost pile at this soggy time of year. And my raspberries aren't any worse for wear!

That's a knock-out in my book.

The trimmings are recycled back into the compost pile, adding a layer of carbon and creating air space within the pile to keep those soil microbes active and happily doing their job of making beautiful rich soil.

Madness or just plum good common sense, I'll let you be the judge.

Or you can find authoritative advice on pruning raspberries at About.Com

Heirloom Brandywine Tomatoes

I just picked the last of the Brandywines, in November. How can that be? When the frost has long been coating the proverbial pumpkin in most other parts of the country and gardens for the most part have been put to their winter beds. This splendid Oregon fall weather with all it's rainy days will have spates of glorious sunshiny weather. It's makes it so difficult to know just when to pull up the remaining tomato greenery and call it quits. But I did. Finally. And not without my doubts that perchance If I wait just a bit longer, I may see a few more blushing beauties to harvest yet. But the deed is done and I think that in a week or so of ripening inside, I might be able to keep them refrigerated for Thanksgiving. One can only hope.

Brandywine for Thanksgiving, now that"s a delicious thought. So I perused the net and found this recipe for Roast Turkey with Pipian Sauce from Country Living magazine. I have never heard of a Pipian Sauce. Evidently it is a tomato-y, spicy concoction that can be used as a marinade for roast turkey. And I could use three of my Brandywine tomatoes. I don't know. Somehow I don't think I could pull that one over the family without a revolt. Anyway, the recipe calls for wrapping the whole dadgum bird in banana leaves too before popping it in the oven. Hmmm..,I'm sorry, I think that would definitely be too much of a departure for the beloved holiday. Anyway, the whole meal preparation thing just wouldn't be complete for me somehow without experiencing the crisp sound of the Reynolds Wrap tearing across it's little metal cutting edge. A fitting canopy for any self respecting bird don't you think? I thought so. Hmm... maybe sliced Brandywines on the side.







The necessary cruelty I inflicted in Great Starts yielded a small but luscious harvest of Heirloom Brandywine tomatoes.



A joyous fall to you.

About the Greenhouse

Here she be in all her glory, well almost glory.
This gal won't be fully dressed without her doors.

With all the gardening and such going on, we have put off installing the doors to our green house for now. But they are lovely, trust me, two very different but vintage doors painted the same
Mark Twain Brick Grey.

The louvered solar shutters are in, and work perfectly. Love it when that happens, amen?

Cottage view

Garden Shed view.

Lots of goodies to plant or pot up.

Not exactly the seating I have in mind, but will do for now. The greenhouse floor needs to have brick. Red reclaimed or gray pavers, I can't decide.


I do know for sure a salvaged claw foot tub will sit in the west corner with a little view of the trees. Our hillbilly version of a hot tub filled with lovely spring water for soaking in after a day in the garden.

I think these garden helpers are gonna enjoy a splash in the tub too.
Bless their pea pickin' hearts!

Push

Remember the Machete and Hand Swather in the hillbilly bag of tricks?
Those tools required swing.
Tool #3?





PUSH!
(Tool # 3 includes a free cardio workout)

This darlin' was a sweet deal. I found her propped up in a corner of the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore amongst the cast off sinks, tubs and other miscellaneous donations. Smith and Hawkin didn't survive our current economy. That's sad for a company that consistently produced high quality garden tools.

But for this frugal hillbilly housewife with 50 bucks in her pocket,

I SCORED!

The whir of the blades gently snipping off delicate blades of lawn grass so neatly seemed a mere whisper in comparison to the roaring sound of my neighbors lawn tractor echoing through our holler.

I heart lawn lines left by the mower, truly I do.

Next post: Tool #4 (the best for last)

The swing of things

In my last post I shared the joys of the Machete', the hillbilly weed whacker.

But how bout' this sweetheart

Ummm,we call it a hand swather, but truly it's proper name I would not know. Proper names are what golfers use for those tools in their golf bags. Iron, wood, putter. They all have a specific purpose for the job at hand. Exactly the same idea around the farm. The hillbilly bag of tricks contains the proper tool for the job at hand too. Only we just don't care (or know?) just what the dadburn tool is called. All I know is when I saw this tool at a farm sale, I imagined the old timey farmer using it, and knew we needed to add it to our cache of nameless but indispensable tools. Whether it's the nine iron or the swather however, they both have this in common,

It's all in the swing.

I hold the swather with two hands much like a golf club. Swinging it back and forth as I move through a grassy area and before you know it. A nice clean swath.

Excuse me, incoming notion.
What if I find a golf bag to put all my weird-named tools in, and then just tote them behind me, pulling out the proper (improperly named)tool for a particular hole, I mean job?

Hey Bud, hand me the nine iron will ya, I mean the whacker er', swather I mean.

Oh,yeah,and I would definitely need a caddy,named Bud.

Like Confetti

Singular little blades of grass twirling and cascading over my shoulder with every swish of the Machete, just like confetti. I kept up this rhythm for a minute or so, took a little breather, and then began again. Before I knew it I was making my way through the jungle. The green, green jungle that aptly describes our little acreage here at Panther Creek Cottage.

Tool #1,The Machete'
(hillybilly weed whacker)

Good rotator cuffs and a gallon of water recommended.
Cleans up those difficult places to make them look like this:

2' grass and weeds whacked down a few pegs.






Wild Oregon Iris
These dainty lovelies escaped the slaughter.