Fallen Leaves

Something for free has always appealed to me as long as I can quickly make good use of it.  Quaint old villages around here feature massive trees lining the streets and holding locations near houses.  Cleaning up the dropped leaves is a standard practice at this time of year but few see them as treasure.  Piling bags of leaves around the skirting of mobile homes to keep out winter's cold is a common activity here.  Some old stone house foundations receive a similar treatment.  There is some competition to be the first to find bags of leaves curbside.  They are free for the taking since that diminishes the work for the village crew.  I filled the pickup with bags of leaves and drove home happy!

Having done this for awhile, the best locations for clean leaves or leaves that are vacuumed up by lawn mowers are known to me.  Prechopped leaves are the best, but clean whole leaves get two runs by my mower.  We have found several advantages to placing leaves on our garden soil.  The people that just raked these leaves from their lawns might not understand why I dump them out on my lawn.

These Cardinal Flower plants from seed were moved to their permanent location in our new woodland garden several weeks ago.  Here the ground leaves serve three important functions.  Cardinal Flower plants grow in moist locations in the wild.  Their soil here will remain moist under a cover of leaves.  As the leaves decay the soil under them will become more like natural forest ground.  The leaf cover will also discourage weeds.  The desired plant in the foreground has a weed growing right next to its crown.  Several attempts to remove it have been made but the tangle of white Cardinal Flower roots has tightly held the weed crown.  This battle is expected to go on forever but fight the weed we will.  These three plant were growing so close together when dug that we felt separating them might be fatal.  Now they simply look crowded but nothing can be done about that until spring.  Fall divisions of Cardinal Flower are seldom successful.

At the end of last week this was our tomato bed.  The poles, weeds, straw mulch and fallen tomatoes have all be removed.  The trench between the field grasses and the bed has been dug again and filled with ground bark mulch.  A top dressing of lime followed by a mixture of long aged compost, purchased composted cow manure and peat moss was mixed into the soil.  A layer of new leaves that just had two trips under the mower completed the preparation of this ground.  The wire fence sections that usually are placed to keep the deer out will be placed on top of the leaves to hold them in place.  When winter ends this bed will emerge nearly ready for its next crop.  That is something to look forward to.

Brazilian Bower

The expression Brazilian bower was encountered in a long ago forgotten article about creating an elevated green space in Manhattan.  Those two words border on meaningless here but they certainly sound impressive.  This shaded space adjacent to the garden by the road is being transformed into a woodland planting.  I think of it as my Brazilian bower but those words are never spoken out loud.  Sumac leaves create a tropical appearance that more than offsets their impenetrable tangle of roots just below the soil surface.  We are removing unwanted grass growth by smothering.  Large flat stones are being placed both to increase soil moisture and to suggest the appearance of a broken stone ledge.  Bags of collected hardwood leaves provide raw material to create woodland soil and create the desired appearance.

These pink Trout lilies are native to the western United States.  They are far more suitable garden subjects than our native yellow flowered plants.  These flower and multiply while our native specie  spends years trying to reach a deep depth in the soil before flowering.  The appearance of these bulbs helps one understand their early name Dog-tooth violet.

Carefully mixed woodland soil was placed in front of the ledge stone to provide several inches of root free planting space.  After the bulb clusters were placed, a thick layer of screened leaves completed the planting.

This trip back up the hill found me admiring my work while driving.  We have found some success growing native plants in our shade garden.  Its elevated construction results in arid soil.  We hope that this ground level placement near flat stones will result in more moisture in the soil.  Deep leaf cover also retains moisture.  We hope to fill this shaded area with lush growth of native woodland plants.

Twice Used Tree Leaves

Last summer two hills of squash grew here.  Fresh grass clippings were placed under the young plants to discourage weeds.  After frost ended the squash plants, all vegetation was removed and composted and the ground was left bare.  When the village trees finally dropped their leaves, this planting bed received a thick leaf cover.  Various wire cages were placed on top of the leaves to keep them in place.  Today we needed to clear the leaves away to make room for new plants.

This planting bed is bordered by pasture grass.  That means that it will fill with grass runners with each passing day.  Our attempt to win this battle involves expendable plants and leaf mulch.  Three of the sunflowers that reseed freely here were  planted near the peas.  Three cone flowers that also multiply freely were planted next.  A catnip, a rose campion and a poppy round out this planting of free plants for the moment.  When additional weeds are cleared, more temporary or expendable plants will be given a place to grow.  The leaf mulch placed here today came from the bed cleared for planting.

We needed to clear the planting bed so that the basil and pepper plants could finally be released from their pots.  Our frost free date is June first so we are not that far behind.  This ground will be left bare for some time.  Exposure to sunlight is thought to be of some benefit to the soil.  We will then open a bag of tree leaves that were chopped by our lawn mower last fall.  A trip through a sifting screen will give us small sized leaf pieces to be placed under the basil and pepper plants.  These fine old leaf pieces will look really sharp and will nearly rot away be fall.  Weeds will be few in number on this ground then and the rotted leaves will add a much sought after layer of black to our soil.  A generous application of limestone will be followed by new leaves as winter approaches.

This bed of peas is just across the stone path next to the basil plants.  After putting the seeds into the soil, full sized leaves were placed on the bare soil.  Room was left open to allow the peas an easy trip into sunlight and fresh air.  Once the peas were up, the leaves were pushed close intending to keep the weeds away.  The soil under the chicken wire was left bare and we expect to see some weeds there.  The peas have a good head start so our next job here should be picking fresh peas.

We are looking for techniques that will decrease the work required to keep the gardens looking tended.  Some time is required to gather and place the leaves but once they are on the ground plants can reach harvest with little additional effort from us.  A recent inspection of the garlic bed in the garden by the woods revealed a nearly weed free planting.  The garlic will be harvested in little more than five weeks from now and what weeds are present are small.  They will not negatively impact the growth of the garlic now.  Only my pride will require some time spent pulling weeds there.

A Perfect November Day

The weather forecast for today predicted a fantastic day.  A hard overnight frost was followed by clear skies and temperatures that reached well into the 50's.  This glorious afternoon was spent running fallen maple leaves through the lawn mower creating perfect garden mulch.  The bags of shredded leaves will be piled and covered with a tarp.  If all goes as planned, we will find fine, dry, aged, ph proper mulch for our basil planting next June.  How much better than that does it ever get?

Our original Gloriosa daisies were given to us many years ago by Elle, an elderly gardener that took us under her wing.  Many of her plants still grow in our gardens so we remember her fondly and often.  This last of the season flower looks rather stunning dressed with frost.

Foxglove has found many locations around the garden to send down roots.  We prefer to have it grow at the base of stone walls.  That type of location seems satisfactory to the plant as it reseeds wildly there.  A generous coating of frost highlights the texture of these leaves.

Cone flower has been a favorite of the lady of the garden forever.  It now grows here in unmanageable numbers.  We hate to discard living plants but a run through the compost pile happens to this plant rarely.  An end of the season flower still holding petals and a perfect seed head looks lovely with its frost overcoat beginning to melt in the morning sun.

If our overnight freeze was harsh enough to end nearly all of the tiny biting black bugs, this will have been a truly perfect  day.

Autumn Leaves And Bluebirds

November's weather has given us a chance to spend some time catching up outside.  It has been wonderful!  This morning, November 7, I noticed bird movement around the bluebird houses.  After not seeing bluebirds here since the pea ending spring drought, I was delighted to see them  checking  the houses.  I have never seen slate gray juncos chasing other birds before, but they were definitely annoyed by the bluebird's presence.  Everything about November 2015 has been a little weird so far.  Some of it has been in a very good way.  There is no bluebird in the photo.  Our simple point and shoot camera has no chance of capturing a usable bird closeup.

Ed and I spent the morning bagging leaves at a friend's house in Unadilla.  They still bag up leaves for pickup there and Ed is mulching the garden with leaves as we get it cleared .  We turned it into a bit of a lawn party.  It was fun to spend the morning  working together.  The leaves are all cleaned up at Helen's.  Ed got bags and bags of leaves for his garden beds.  Working together saved time and energy for everyone.  What could be better than that?

• Sunset comes early these days before 5:00 pm. Days continue to get shorter until the winter solstice but progress continues in the garden.  Today was a wonderful warm November day.  We made the most of it.