The Butterfly Garden

There's not much I feel good about in the garden by the time mid-August arrives. But in early spring, I put in the vague beginnings of a butterfly garden directly in front of our big living room window, including a last minute blitz of zinnia seed scatterings. The other plants in place include two butterfly bushes, a caryopteris, a Russian sage and a few roses.

When the unrelenting heat left us wilting and needing some midday shade, I set up an indoor viewing spot for our butterfly garden. I tracked down a photo identification chart of Virginia butterflies and we now spend our time looking up who visits and learning the new names. A hummingbird also regularly visits, but strangely enough, Corey is the only one who sees it. I tease him that it must be his soul animal.

It looks like the butterflies love the really, really huge varieties of zinnias. Smaller butterflies, like fritillaries, appreciate the Thumbelina zinnias - but they can handle the smaller landing pads.

Thrift store butterfly wings were a well-timed, completely unplanned score. I'm unsure of the variety of this butterfly, but have learned that it likes chocolate and Dr. Seuss.

Food Production in the Garden

I have to say, I am on the fence lately about vegetable gardening. Maybe because it tends to be peppered with a robust bit of frustration. And, it is a lot of sweaty work. I like gardening, but I don't like sweating. And getting all itchy. And being attacked by biting ants. And strategizing on how to foil the deer and the bunnies and the groundhog.

You see, I rarely have harvests that leave me speechless. I grow more along the lines of grazing opportunities. Our small cold frame has actually been the most productive part of our growing food endeavors. Along with the rhubarb. And a lot of rhubarb, as much as I love it, is, well, A LOT of rhubarb.

But, I remain hard-wired to continue and try. And so, a quick inventory of this year's efforts.

Garlic - So close to harvest time. Garlic scapes are happening right now.
Broccoli - I hate it. Willa loves it. So I grow it. But I missed its fleeting harvesting moment this year and it bolted within a day.
Asparagus - Entering its second year. Slow progress there, but progress just the same.
Collards from seed (*new to our garden*)
Okra from seed (*new to our garden*)
Beets from seed (*new to our garden*)
Swiss chard from seed (*new to our garden*) - The beet seedlings look exactly like the swiss chard seedlings. And I didn't mark them. This should be interesting.
Sugar Baby watermelon - A favorite that grows easily under the walnut tree.
Tomatoes - Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Cherokee Purple and Sungold and Yellow Pear cherries
Strawberries - Presently residing in two containers on the deck.
Connecticut Field pumpkins - A Willa request.
Green beans
Radishes
Sprinklings of Red Russian kale, shelling English peas and sugar snap peas (The peas were discovered by the deer a few weeks ago and were decimated rather quickly - a few survivors are keeping the faith and sending out new flowers and pods. The garden is now wrapped within rebar posts and deer netting.)

Just as I question the labor, I'll then watch Willa gobble down something - straight from the garden - and it sends me back out there. To do battle with the brier patches, quack grass, evil-looking spiders and the bald sun. I want her to know what these things taste like, fresh from the earth, warm from the sun and grown from a seed that she planted all by herself. Turns out, life experiences involve a little sweat equity. I think I can live with that - and plan to garden from 8 - 9 p.m. during the summer months.

Toss or Be Tossed

Just a few photos from life as of late. Although, I have to admit, these are highly selective - other life stuff tossed us around earlier in the week. There's the way I handle stress and the way I would like to handle stress. Grrrrr. Any increments in between make me hopeful for future challenges. Chocolate seems to help sustain those small moments of clarity, too. But all is well and I (literally) now know that I have my health.

Too tired to really cook dinner last night, I knew I could at least chop some vegetables and roast them (top photo). The butternut squash went with pasta, the beets will become a salad and the okra. Gah! Well, the okra never made it to a plate - I snacked on it all while cleaning the kitchen. Yes - it was that good. I just tossed everything with olive oil, salt and pepper. 400 degrees for 35 minutes.

The Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello (middle photos). Tomato tastings and TJ's vegetable garden. My trusty, adorable and curious side-kick, Willa, and I went last Saturday. I am writing more about it over at Virginia Living Magazine.

Our tomato patch seems to like September as much as I do. The bottom photo is of Cherokee Purples. The Sungolds are going gangbusters with a second harvest, too.

P.S. A comfort meal for the tired soul - Alisa's Basil BLT. With a basil-mayonnaise. My husband hates bread (one of life's great mysteries) and mayonnaise (more understandable) and loved this sammich.

Gardening With Children :: Light-Hearted Beginnings

Zinnias can be started easily from seed and are great cutting flowers.

When my friend Katie wrote me, telling me that her little girl is itching to garden but needs more details on where to start, my heart jumped. So stinkin' sweet! Here are a few ideas.

Soil :: If you live where the soil is already dark and loamy, lucky you. (Katie, I have a feeling you have kick-ass soil where you are living.) If not, buy a bag or two of compost and work it into the soil (you can do this with a hoe pretty quickly).

Super shortcut for busy mamas :: Buy bags of organic topsoil. Place them where you want to start gardening, cut open the bag and start planting directly into the pile of soil (you can trim off the plastic flaps that are a result of cutting open the bag or mulch over them). Only do this with flowers.

Satisfyingly Simple Flowers, Herbs and Veggies :: Start these flowers from seed - sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, calendula, love-in-a-mist, bachelor's buttons, nasturtiums. Veggies - summer squash and pole beans. Buy tomatoes (cherry tomatoes are simplest to cultivate and most satisfying for children to harvest) as starter plants. Easy peasy, I promise!

Use terracotta pots as a base for your fencing. Feed bamboo stakes through and deep into the soil. Sometimes, I jam additional, smaller pieces of the bamboo in the opening of the terracotta pot, to really stabilize it.
For fencing: Thread some deer fencing in.
For trellis: Create horizontal supports with additional bamboo and florist wire wrapped around at meeting points.

Foil Unwanted Garden Guests :: I have been busy constructing very simple "fences" to foil our ever-so-cute, yet pesky border collie/basset hound Otis (see photo caption above). Buy a roll of deer netting and thread it around and through the bamboo stakes. This fencing can be made in less than five minutes, on the fly and on the cheap. Oh, yes. The winds howl through Sugar Hollow and these remain steadfast.

Give Them Something To Climb Up :: No, no, no - not your little ones. The beans and the tomatoes. Same theory/structure as my ad-hoc fences. But add a few horizontal pieces and secure with florist wire to create your trellis.

Watering :: Try to water in the evenings or the early morning (mid-day stresses the plants). This can be a fun time for you and your children to notice each and every new thing that is happening in the garden. Also, mulching around the plants with compost or bark mulch will keep things tidy and cut back on how much you need to water.

Feed Them :: If you can, offer your new plants compost tea or some organic fertilizer every two weeks or so.

Did I miss something? Questions, anyone?

Tasha Tudor and Her Gardens

In a parallel universe, I would be an apprentice to Tasha Tudor. Learning all about cottage gardens. Tending to hollyhocks, forget-me-nots, foxgloves. Baking bread and hand-dipping candles and wearing old-fashioned smocks and bonnets while sitting next to the fire with some knitting.

Tasha died earlier this year, at the age of 92, and I imagine she is somewhere - curled up with a corgi or two and sewing, painting, creating.

What she left behind are treasures upon treasures. In the gardening world, she has written books about gardening with children and her own gardening endeavors. You can buy cottage garden seeds from her garden descendants, as well. The prints above are her own watercolors of her gardens.

Tasha's world is also big on the cozy, simple celebrations around wintertime and Christmas. I just put two videos on hold at our local library - on the holidays with Tasha Tudor and The Magical World of Tasha Tudor. With the long Thanksgiving weekend coming up - I'm hoping I can curl up with Willa for a bit and visit Tasha's Vermont house for a half hour or so.

I know that I would look silly in a bonnet, but Willa is always a willing model.

The Container Garden :: Before the Heat of August

A glimpse into our container garden.

From the top:

Willa plucks petunias in her favorite garden spot. The container garden is the perfect, eye-level, sensory experience for her in the little Bumbo seat.

An asparagus fern a-top a makeshift side table/upside-down terracotta pot.

Globe amaranths against a rustic trellis.

Purple hyacinth bean vines thrive in the humidity next to our birdbath.

Petunias, fan flowers and succulents.

********

I hope to be tucked among the greenery of our porch garden in the mornings and in the evenings . . . with a cup of tea, with a Willa, with a book, with a grin.

Yay - weekends. Hope yours includes a little chill time among your greenery. 'Cause isn't that what August is for . . . ?

Baby In The Garden

A delightful gift from a client of Corey's sent us out to the garden last evening for a picnic. Willa is happiest laying on her back, on a blanket, looking up at the sky and listening to the sounds of Sugar Hollow.

A Baby's Garden has chapters on grass, dirt, wind, shadows, leaves, herbs. And how you can introduce your wee one to these sensory extravaganzas. There are pages where you can capture your baby's muddy hand prints at different stages. Leaves can be pressed and saved in another section. Journal entries can be made on their reactions to different flowers and herbs.

So there's a new pace in the garden. Quiet. Thought provoking. Gleefully simple. Willa's pace. She's already taught me so much.

Books: Gardening: A New World For Children

When I first read about this book find on Zoe's blog - I immediately tracked down a copy for myself. More and more, I am pulled into antique gardening books and any other written record that sheds lights on old-school gardening ideas that have been lost to time. Gardening: A New World for Children by Sally Wright totally fits the bill.

The chapter names suck me in right away. Even at 37 years old, I want a Lilliputian Garden. The English called them "sink gardens" - old stone sinks held the miniature landscapes - complete with dwarf alpines and conifers and small-scale garden structures such as pergolas, bridges and trellises. Often, these little gardens would be placed on balconies or window ledges.


Then there is the Odd Behavior Garden chapter. Unusual plants that exhibit unusual behavior - that any child would find curious. It also includes a list of insect-eating plants. And a blooming timetable for certain plants throughout the day. From the early-rising morning glories to the night owls - night-scented stock and moonflowers. Magic!

The Pocket Money Garden chapter encourages industrious young farmers to sell their homegrown goodies. With a 1950's sensibility.

Even the more traditional garden ideas become enchanting - through the possibilities within a child's imagination. The Nose Garden. The Bouquet Garden. Winter Gardening.

I have more research to do - now that my eyes have been opened. Stay tuned for more details on lilliputian gardens, dish gardens, button gardens and the like!