Category: Life on the Farmlet

*Fall is Not Easy: a colorful view of the farmlet

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Here on the Farmlet it seems that every fall, just when we start getting some great color, the wind comes and takes it all away.  This fall was no exception and to make matters worse I find myself lame and on a walking stick.  And for those who are wondering, “YES, I am going to the Dr. tomorrow because it has been a week and I am not improving.”

However, wind and lame knee aside, I decided I would give it my best shot and get out to see if I could capture what remains!

Lil’ Bit tiptoeing through the wet leaves.

A festive chicken yard

The newly revamped front flower bed. 

NOTE:  It used to be harder to find native plants, shrubs, and perennials, but all of a sudden the deep South is “getting it.”  I am back in my element!  Not all is native, but the bulk of it will be when I am done!

*Winged Sumac 

This is something I have wanted in my garden for some time, but had not found a local source for it.  I don’t know how it got here perhaps a bird, or the tornado storm, but it is definitely a welcome native.  Do you know why she is called “winged?”

Notes from the USDA Native Plants Database:  “Sumac serves primarily as a winter emergency food for wildlife. Ring-necked pheasant, bobwhite quail, wild turkey, and about 300 species of songbirds include sumac fruit in their diet. It is also known to be important only in the winter diets of ruffed grouse and the sharp-tailed grouse. Fox squirrels and cottontail rabbits eat the sumac bark. White-tail deer like the fruit and stems.
Sumac also makes good ornamental plantings and hedges because of the brilliant red fall foliage.“

One burnished tree. 

This one can be viewed closer by clicking on it.  😉

~*~

Happy Autumn!

~*~

(I had fun, even if the results are less than spectacular!)

NOTES: 

  • Today’s title “Fall is Not Easy”  comes from a favorite children’s book I used to share with my little students during the season.  If you have little ones Pre-K to 3rd grades (+ or -)  then perhaps you would like to preview this entertaining book.  Look HERE
  • Why is Winged Sumac ‘winged?’  Have a look at the USDA Plant database PDF – HERE  and the site information HERE
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Thoughts on housekeeping and hAiRy DoGs…

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If you own dogs you know they shed.  If you own big hairy dogs you know they shed A LOT!

I grew up hearing my mother and my friends mother’s euphemisms  about dust bunnies and kittens under the bed…  Oh the horror!  Yeah, well they didn’t live with Buddy.

I don’t get dust bunnies, nor dust kittens, I get dust buffaloes!  

They congregate in the corners, hide under the sofa, the chest of drawers, and lurk under the bed, but the worst is when they creep into the kitchen and …

Well, you know what I mean.  Now there are jokes about your food not tasting right without the cat or dog hair in it, but really?  I don’t find them humorous.  So, I have banished the dogs from the kitchen, at least during mealtimes, and the looks I get are pathetic.

Buddy, “Look mom, I’m being such a good dog!  Can I come in now?”

Me,  “No, sorry boy, I’m making dinner.”

Later, after dinner…

I ask you, “Is he not pathetic looking?”  It is an hour and a half later and he hasn’t moved,  “Good boy!” I tell him.

And the very next morning…

“Aw, Mom!  We’re being really good, and the morning sun feels so nice…”

And what can I say?  Sighing softly to myself, not a thing.

Instead, I head for the vacuum cleaner.

~*~

Do you have rules and limits for your pets?

The Blue Plate Special

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After several seasons of fighting legions of weeds in this humid climate I have finally come to my senses and begun installing raised beds!  Trying to grow food in this weed infested place is insanity without using RoundUp.

And you know how I feel about Monsanto.

So the logical and more safe solution for us is raised beds.  Bob has been helping me in the garden every Sunday for weeks now.  He has rototilled, and scorched baby weeds with the Red Dragon.

(this is not Bob) 😉

Please click the photo above to be taken directly to the Red Dragon site. 

This is NOT a paid endorsement!  We have had our RD weed burner for many years and just love how well it works.   Unfortunately, we can’t use it in and amongst the veggies…  Hence the new garden plan.

So, here is the layout.

Notations in blue show changes and planned additions.  We have the center and right side construction completed and half planted.  NOTE:  The rotation plan I am utilizing is to help with insect and disease control.  You can see the plan HERE

Want more?  Here is the Garden Organic website: http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/index.php

There is still so much more to be done here.  I have to add more soil, and lay down the wood mulch around the beds. 

The strawberries have been moved and replanted, and the asparagus arrives with the new orchard trees next month!

GOODBY WEEDS!

Hello beautiful!

~*~

What plans do you have for your garden(s)?  What strategies do you use to help you with chores and upkeep?

PLEASE DON’T BE SHY!

SHARE WITH US!

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Photo Friday: looking for weeds in all the wrong places

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For the past two years I have been searching for wild plants to put in my garden.   They are weeds to the locals, and are often bushhogged or just simply tilled under.  Yet I find them attractive and have scouted for accessible sources to bring them home to my gardens…

The tornado storms of April 11, brought some of them to me, but I continued to look for one.  Goldenrod!  I think it is the most beautiful thing to see in fall, and so do my bees!  They drink its nectar to make stinky (think dirty rotten socks) smelling honey, and bring home it’s pollen to feast on over the winter.

So imagine my surprise when my chicken yard exploded in great yellow, plumes of the stuff!

In the photo below you will see several “WEEDS”  That my neighbors would surely not appreciate if growing in their yards.

However we,

the chickens,

wild bees,

my bees,

and butterflies do.   And, for all our sake, I certainly do.

And then there is the Eupatorium capillifolium…

The common name is Dog fennel, and it is sold as a background foliage plant in Europe under the name of Elegant Feather. 

I am sorry, but mine is anything but elegant at the moment.  All spring and summer it is upright and a lovely green, looking quite a bit like asparagus, or culinary fennel.

Usually, by this time of the year it has been cut back down to the ground.  This year things got in the way, and feel I let it get out of hand.  Or did I?

For the past week I have been in search of the lovely perfume in the chicken yard, which is never a place to be confused with “lovely perfume.”  This morning the scent was unmistakably coming from here.  Then I noticed the hum, and realized it was a bee magnet!

Buddy was busy sniffing at something in the bush, and found that out the hard way.  Poor Buddy.

Here is a closeup of the Dog Fennel blooms,

and others!

Goldenrod

Hm, I have forgotten her name. 

Do you know it?

UPDATE:  Thanks to my Facebook friend Jodi, I was able to locate and identify my ‘salvia’ as Scarlet Sage.  You can find out more about this beautiful flower HERE.     Thank you Jodi!

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