Garden Report: November 28
I guess posting once a month is going to be our new thing? OK, maybe not, but we spent many weekends this month either traveling or otherwise occupied, rather than working on the house.
This week, we had a freeze, which for those of you who live in other parts of the country seems normal, but for us was nearly a record low temperature for this time of year. That well and truly killed the tomato plants, which had already been suffering the trampling of the dogs.
We got hardly any tomatoes this year. First we had a miserably cold summer where the green tomatoes rotted on the vine. Then we went to Turkey for a month, which was when everything ripened and the dogs gorged themselves (we left it open, figuring somebody better enjoy the tomatoes). Then cold and rain and freezing weather. Almost makes you wonder if it is worth it.
My next task is to take down the old vines and throw them in the compost bins with the chickens.
Today I sowed fava beans in the side bed. I went for the lazy method: I spread the seeds on the top of the soil.
Then I spread a few inches of compost over the top of them, emptying out one of the bins in the chicken yard for future use.
Then, because I had it, I spread the wet rotting straw from my last straw bale over the top of that. At the close end there are some Japanese irises, divisions from my larger plant. They like boggy soil and that corner is where the water from the yard runs off, so they have been thriving.
While I did that, Noel added the two trellises to the sides of the pergola. The trellises I bought from the local nursery were not perfectly symmetrical, so he had to trim some bits to fit.
We mounted the trellises with brass brackets. The passiflora vine is pretty strong and we want these trellises to stay in place.
And they look pretty good. Behind the trellis here you can see the passiflora vine, lumped over a tomato support. The thing has been miraculously unaffected by the freeze, probably because it's actually quite close to the house.
And threaded through the trellis, the vine looks pretty nice. In a few days the coils will coil around the trellis and hold it in place. By midsummer next year, you will hardly be able to see the trellis for the vine.
And we have a fruit ripening, too. This vine is crazy.
The other crazy thing that happened this season is that our Western redbud finally settled in and started growing. It's had years of just sort of existing, all quiet and tiny, on that corner of the house. And suddenly a couple of weeks ago it had a growth spurt.
This is going to be a big pruning year -- the front hedge is going to bear the brunt of it but everybody is due for a trim -- and I half wonder if the little redbud didn't feel left out.
posted by ayse on 11/28/10