Sylvia'sBeautifulHandsMakingTartThanksgiving

Walking in Branford

Front Yard Landscaping and Fence Weaving

April 11, 2009 We had a fence weaving party today where friends came to help, bringing their prunings (mostly willows) from their properties and we wove them into our wire skeleton fence. Beautiful day today (no rain!) and very meditative process once we settled down and figured out what we were doing. We started weaving from the top down and kept the weaving in a vertical direction. Still more to do to add density to the fence and help abate the street noise. The fence encloses our new entry which has as its main feature a rock waterfall and Japanese maple.

Week before Thanksgiving

Here it is a week before Thanksgiving 2007. Today was the most magnificent day. High 50's and beautiful crisp air and SUN! B and I took a ride to Indianola to view some paintings by I, T's girlfriend. Such a splurge for me I rationalized it as a birthday present. I'll try and post a photo of the painting we bought. With our new acquisition in tow and reluctant to go back indoors, we then took a hike through the Grand Forest here on Bainbridge. B took some photos you can view here. How lucky indeed to have this place so close to home. I'm thinking about the differences between forests and gardens. This forest, so raw and unkempt but amazingly beautiful as only untouched nature can be. The leaves falling where they may and decomposing in place. The mushrooms growing willy nilly and ferns popping out of moss covered tree trunks every which way.
The forest smells are amazing. I don't think our garden has any smell, except when there happens to be a fragrant bloom in summer or when we stick our heads in the composter. The forest air seems more oxygen laden and the street noises are absent. Hard to lose other people though. We met several people out with dogs or friends reminding us this was not our private reserve. The forest's lesson for me is that nature thrives if left alone. A benign neglect works best. The garden is the place where we try to control our universe. Fussing and fidgeting with nature's elements attempting to "create" something out of the expanse of lawn that we discovered on moving in 17 years ago. How many years ago was it that our place was a forest? Our friend P has gardened longer than anyone I know here. She now has so many "volunteer" plants that turn up year after year that she no longer "gardens" in the traditional sense of cultivating and planting. She just moves around the garden pulling weeds here and there and clearing spaces for plants that just pop up every year, seemingly hellbent on reproducing themselves. She does not pore over seed catalogues looking for the latest variety but has given in to the nature that has taken over and helps give the plants that emerge a fighting chance. She has evolved into nature's steward. A park ranger in her own garden!

Cooking for the Crew

Farewell Dinner for H

OurPond

Wondy/CirstenPaintingStage

WondimuWheelbarrowing

HelenMakingEthiopianDinner

JoycePickingGarlic

Nanny At S&B's

Looking back at summer

Looking back at the summer '07 - it was a busy one here on Bainbridge. We had many special people stay with us and of course, most people got roped into working on this or that. The pictures are the reminders of the endless sunny days and we'll need to look back on them in the months to come to stay warm. Looking at these pictures I'm reminded that the place isn't the thing, but rather the people that come together in the place. I'm confident that Barry and I et al can recreate this garden space almost anywhere. That's a bit counter-intuitive since all the work that's gone into the property you'd think we could never leave. For me, it's been about the belief in growing good food and the process we followed to get there. The icing on the cake has been the product of a beautiful space. The process is the thing that has brought people together in the space, not vice-versa. Funny how that works. That's why, I guess, I feel that this particular place is not the point. We can take the values and process with us wherever we may go.

autumn garden clean up

G & B "planting" Shitakes

hammering the fungi plugs in

Mushrooms on purpose

Here in the wet northwest climate we're used to mowing up strange "mushrooms" that pop up at will on the lawn this time of year. In years past, never quite sure what species they were, I would hurry out and make sure I destroyed them before they might tempt the boys to pick them and try them out. Another potential disaster averted by mom! Fast forward 20 years and here are Gabe and Barry planting Shitake mushrooms for harvest next year. Shitakes are new to us but I'm sure Will will come up with some great new recipes for us to try. Shitakes grow in logs. Holes are drilled in the log, fungi "plugs" are pushed in the holes, then the holes are covered with wax and left out in the rain! Word is that these logs will continue to produce Shitakes for 3 years. Mushrooms are very nutritious also-lots of minerals. A great complement to a summer vegetable garden since they are harvested in the autumn. .

Let's start with autumn

We're used to thinking of the start of a garden in the spring but the true beginning for us is autumn. We're preparing the beds this time of year with green manures for adding both tilth to the soil and nutrients. So-in October we've planted crimson clover, fava beans, winter wheat and barley which will grow in the beds till spring, when they will be turned under and composted and voila, our soil will be rich enough to grow veggies!
Also, this month we've planted both white onion and yellow onion bulbs and our favorite crop, garlic. This year we're trying several varieties of both hardneck and softneck garlics. These will be ready for harvest in early summer. Hopefully, we've planted enough this year-there never seems to be enough to last the year plus give away.
What we've got growing now for eating through the winter are : lettuce, kale, arugula, chinese cabbage, swiss chard, carrots. We've managed this past summer to preserve lots of tomato sauce,vegetable soup, green beans, green peppers, squash and herbs and potatoes.