Butterflies

The buddleia in the far border has been attracting LOTS of butterflies.  Monarchs, tiger swallowtails, skippers, and more.

Buckeye on Buddleia

Silver-spotted skipper nectaring

It's been fun to watch the activity over the last few weeks!

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More planting

I'm wondering how we'll eat all these greens, if the seeds I'm sowing are productive, unless the resident woodchuck in the back woodlot creeps out!  But I have barriers that I'm planning to use, too.

I spent yesterday evening turning over the beds in the satellite garden in the Piedmont, and cleaning out the Oxalis that had colonized my containers, and sowed more lettuce, spinach, turnips, chard, and kale late this afternoon.

Maybe the edges of Isaac will water them in for me; otherwise, I'll get them nicely settled in tomorrow.

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Cleaning up

I spent quite a bit of time today cleaning up the raised beds in the mountains today. This meant editing some tomatoes that were not producing very much, along with some squash plants.

I'll add some mushroom compost and organic fertilizer over the weekend, and sow more fall greens and lettuce!

Uh, having two vegetable gardens is way too tempting.  How can I resist replanting?

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A pileated woodpecker

Behind my office is a Southern red oak in decline.  Limbs have been trimmed and the top has already broken, although we're not inclined to take it down just yet.

My colleague pointed out to me this morning that a pileated woodpecker was busily working a cavity high up on the trunk - what a great sight.  This is a blurry image from early morning (cropped, of course!).

It's probably a feeding cavity based on my bit of research, although I'm hardly an expert on bird behavior.  Not the time of the year for a nesting cavity, certainly, and pileated woodpeckers forage in dead and dying trees in search of a favorite prey item, carpenter ants, according to All About Birds, Cornell Ornithology Lab's online field guide site. 

Or perhaps it's foraging for some sort of other insect larvae, too.

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Pizza peppers...

I love thick-walled and productive pizza peppers.  One source is Territorial Seed, where they describe them as hot, but I haven't found them to be hot at all.  They're juicy and delicious. Totally Tomatoes may offer the same variety, hard to know.

And they're certainly the most substantial peppers that I've ever grown (in terms of being as close to as thick-walled as greenhouse peppers).

'Pizza' peppers

Here's an image of a couple of peppers from the garden (one from the Piedmont, one from the mountains). The larger one is from a well-watered mountain container, the smaller was on its own.

I left the edge of the lime in the photo for a size perspective.  They're not big, but delicious and the plants are productive!

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Looking forward to garden visiting

In just about a month, I'll be visiting gardens in Germany and the Netherlands for a couple of weeks on a self-guided garden study tour.

I've been wanting to do this for several years, after I started learning more about the 'new wave' gardening trends practiced by Dutch, German, and English garden designers, creating naturalistic gardens, and often using many of our North American natives.

It should be quite interesting.  I'll be visiting Piet and Anna Oudolf's private garden during their open days, as well as Mien Rhys' garden, now open to the public.  There are a number of other destinations on the itinerary, too, Hermannshof and Weihenstephan. The latter requires dealing with Oktoberfest visitors, so I may not make it there.  We'll see. But there are lots of other gardens, natural areas, and cultural sites to visit, too, so I'm totally looking forward to the traveling.

I spent a year in Germany as a post-doc almost three decades ago, so it will be interesting to return.  My gardening companion and I went to an International Botanical Congress in Berlin back in 1987, and spent 3 weeks traveling in Germany, Austria, and Northern Italy, but we haven't visited Germany since, choosing more far flung places to travel to (the exception have been trips to Northern Italy in 2001 and Southern Italy in 2008).

I'm currently immersing myself in reading and listening to German (it's amazing how much that I still comprehend), and enjoying reading gardening blogs in German, too!  It's great fun to be able to listen to podcasts, read magazines online, etc.

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A gift of peppers

Coming back down from the mountains for the beginning of another fall semester, it was a gift to have a green and flourishing garden.  Yes, it's overgrown, the meadow is a mess (but there was a southern-bound monarch flitting around the scruffy common milkweed plants, too).  The zoysia lawn that came with the house is looking great, thanks to intermittent rains throughout the summer.  In the last two summers, we came home to parched beds and a crispy lawn, with the woodland garden parched, so it's great to have something different.

My main perennial border doesn't look too bad, but has the usual redbud seedlings that need to be cut out (this was last year's post about the same problem).

Happily, the satellite garden is ready to plant with fall greens, or almost ready, after some quick turning of beds.  I'd spent quite a bit of time on my last visit prepping soil, adding compost, weeding, etc.  Hooray!  And the main vegetable garden, ditto. 

Except for the hulking Florida Anise that has engulfed my potting bench AND access to the last block in the main vegetable garden.  I think I'll need to get in reinforcements, and they won't be my gardening companion or assistant, both of whom have other responsibilities this fall.  Tim has classes to teach, and a new book project, and Woody, well, he's got cheering up duties and is healing a sore knee.

But, it's fun to contemplate sowing seeds of hardy greens, spinach, and lettuce here, and maybe I'll try some beets, peas, and fava beans, too. Who knows?  Every season brings something new to the garden.

Finally, the gift of peppers.  A 'pizza' pepper plant in the satellite garden had 4 beautiful red peppers on it.  They're thick-walled and sweet.  Definitely a gift from a plant that had had no care all summer.

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