Author: admin

Shot into my eye from the prism of a drop of dew, or melting icicle. Thinking of the radiation of innumerable hues, cascading out, in all directions fireworks of intense colors into the white of all colors. I’m watching the end of the bed with a tented section of the paper, 3 pages thick which sits upon the back of the gray beast, with the heart of the tortoise and the speed of a chicken.  Lupin was having the zoomies and there was only one thing that would slow him down, the newspaper.  He loves to nest under there.  Although he is also able to run a bit balancing it on his back, I suppose and the paper dutifully, and somewhat miraculously, hovers over him for what seems like an inordinate 

I thought of the pleasure I get from watching the newspaper scuttle across the bed and down onto the floor.  Something I will never share with anyone, a vanished moment of joy unnoted and not really worthy of much note except to me.  And, I suspect Lupin.  So most of our lives will vanish with us.  

Not that they should linger, like dry leaves, and damp flattened ones, layered upon whatever bit of mole hill or weed they should land on, shuffled by the wind into intimate contact with each other, pressing each other into and onto the hapless neathlings.  Food that can support or suffocate.  Imagine tending to the wry pleasures of some 13th century person and their sensibility while yet thinking of the 17th century poem that someone was enthralled by dry as dust but which stirred another’s heart?

My first artichoke flower, although the plant that grew it, clearly thought it was on its last legs, being that it’s just a stalk that once held the flower surrounded by 4 leaves. Two others are strong and tall, well 1.5′ tall, and lush with leaves. I expected there to be more red in the opening bud, but red appears gone 2 days later.

Zoë and I want to Home Depot to walk around the parking lot and the outdoor area with rows of bushes. She did get better at not pulling near the end and we went into the garden area without much trouble. I don’t want to stop her from sniffing and leading me but it’s hard to let her do that and also contain her urges to sniff beyond the leash. I stop, which is supposed to frustrate her enough to realize she doesn’t want me to stop her from the most entrancing aroma drifting from juust over there! Nah, she’s happy to turn to another allure in a flash, it’s ALL so alluring. We did encounter, not close, a small barking dog and a very friendly employee who has Aussies. She was remarkably good about not jumping when they met, I was surprised.

We are working on a better recall with cream cheese.

And some pix.

I think I have begun to develop a way to corral the rampant blackberry canes coming over, thru and under the 6’ chain link fence with wooden slots on the western side of my garden partially shaded by wild fruit trees in a rampant old thicket of blackberry canes, all straining to live in comparatively sunny garden.  I’m working with twine and heavy gloves.  I’ve sent it to Mother Earth News to see if they will print it. The berries are just coloring up and I hope to pluck a small sweet harvest while keeping the vines close along the fence but I’m mostly going for restraint of the invading hoards and lack of blood loss..

Half of the fence has an unused (too shady) wire grape trellis at 4 and 6’ high and 1” out from the fence and it was a handy support in that area for winding all the twisted cables of vines onto.

I pruned everything coming over, thru and under  the fence last year so the berries are on year old, shorter canes and this year’s current canes are very different, they can only be considered as wild sun and territory  grabbers, as obnoxiously as possible, eager to claim territory and they look like a spine leafed flood smashing into and thru the fence.  In one area they reach out across the ground, and they also hover right over the tree kale and shade it even when the sun is in the east.  They will carry the berries next year.  

The thorns on leaf and stem are good for keeping the canes twisted together.  I start each section by gathering one or two of the berry free young vines and pull them down and horizontally close along the fence in any available lower density.  Then I take the next vine in the direction opposite to the assigned direction and pull it across  to twine it a few turns around the first.  I move down against the direction I am sending them until I have a thick cable of twisted vines.  I move them under clumps of berries and pull the rest of the clumps out, so they rest on the vine cables and get more sun.

I’ve mostly only needed to use twine to tie the clumps close to the fence.  I will admit that my primary energy went into placing them, not protecting them, and I broke and seriously bent many, twisting them in a cable and then pulling the cable down and working ropes of them pulled underneath the fruit bearing clumps.  They will send out short stems and clusters and next year the young voracious vines can be twisted together and loosely tied to the fence above and below the flowering or fruiting vines coming off the previous cable of vines.  I have no idea what kind of crop I’ll get, but any will be appreciated, and I can already see that the harvest can be a bit less painful.

The strawberry and asparagus bed got lost in the blackberry vines last summer and I just finished cutting them back.  I can’t really dig them out without hurting the fruit and veg. even more than pulling out the vines has.   The asparagus spears are about an inch in diameter and very tall, falling over to the south mostly, but leaning is the operative word.  Now I’m using bamboo stakes and baling twine to fence them in and provide support so they get as much sun as possible..  Much of the bed is devoid of strawberries, overshadowed by asparagus and blackberry leaves, especially in the middle of the bed and I pulled out several, by mistake.  I have  15 Shuksan plants are on the way, and I don’t yet know how many  older strawberries I will be able to transplant. but all the  strawberries I will get this fresh this year are from the Farmer’s Market.  I have 18 pints washed, hulled and in the freezer.  Cherries are also just coming out.  I’m unhappy with my Sam Sweet Cherry, the cherries are small and sour.  Hopefully feeding it will help.  

I plan to use a corner of the stone orchard next to the garden for strawberries given the dog’s love of eating the plants and the stone orchard has a fence around it so I can use aged manure to amend the soil which is dense dark clay.  The plants in the garden are doing ok, in spite of the clay, but we’ll see how big they are able to get or if the clay inhibits their routs.  Certainly, the folks living here before said the garden grew well, so we shall see.

6/20, we had some lovely hard rain, unfortunately only for a brief time, not enough to move the rain gauge at all and only enough to get maybe 1/2″ in the bird bath.  Raining again on and off 6/21, only the 4th time it’s rained since the end of Feb.

I have 2 pineapple guava plants, neither pineapple nor guava, the fruit has an interesting complicated taste.  Neither of my plants, which are 3 years old, have flowered or produced fruit.  With all the pruning recommendations I’ve read regarding fruit trees, I have just let the PGs grow slowly, on their own but when I looked it up, I read in more than one place, that pruning can enhance growth and flowering, and by G˚, it worked.  These flowers are beautiful with pink and white petals which are thick like a succulent’s leaves and sweet.  The stamens are a deep Chinese red.

I am thrilled to learn that the feijoas don’t need to have their fruit thinned, which I was afraid I would need to do this, the first year they are blooming and hopefully fruiting. The flowers small, but spectacular, 

I’ll need to prune out the lower branches of the 2 plants, or I’ll never find the fruit should it form, and fall.  There is grass and buttercups growing around their bases.

How fleeting are most of the delightful spring changes, 48 hours later this sweet cherry was almost entirely green, and the different bees had moved on to other flowering blooms.

The Pearl, watching bees.

I keep taking pictures of a dog having a wonderful time “bathing” in the grass, but most of the pictures just look like the poor thing has been shot. Looking at this one, please think joie de vivre rather than dead bug position in yoga..