Bold Gold and Bold Blue Beauty

I have a red/rust colored house,  lots of fire in the color, which leads me to usually choose white for my pots.  But that dark gold color waved its flag at me and convinced me the marigolds would be just right in team with a few white, wax begonias who are going to parade in a concrete pot that gets HARD sun.

I couldn’t figure out the resource for the plants, but I like their style.  The little box is supposed to have eight and there were ten because a couple littler plants survived.  The set wasn’t crippled by the little separate sections that have been popular for 20 years at garden centers.    I had to STIMULATE the roots to get them apart.   This is the same resource that sold the wax begonias.  I was already impressed, now even more so.

The ten plants were too many for the concrete container, but a generous line will background the begonias.   The remainder will make a vigorous pot of gold to decorate another corner.  Plus,  these had siblings.  If those containers don’t hear what happened to the early adoptees, I may be able to secure some more.  In this economy,  many gold marigolds can’t be a really bad investment!

BUT, do I want the tall, spindly sentries?  One flower, glow, fade, dry, all in a row?  No, this setting will take some height, but I want more flowers at once from a well fed root system  (They’re snacking on worm castings as I write.)

After letting them glow overnight because they are so beautiful,  out  came the scissors and off came their little golden blooms.

Now, in an effort to insure survival, they will put forth root and extra branches.   Each branch or stem is a source for a golden head.  IF this works, I should have a great pot of golden marigolds gracing the white wax begonias.

In worst case, I do have a picture.   Thank goodness for digital tools to preserve a view for the future of things that fade in the garden.

Now, to tell them over at the other Garden

But, the storms came into the country from the west and wreaked severe damage. I understand the need for nature.  I watch those African reports where they show wild animals doing uncivilized things to one another under the gaze of nature.  I am not a tree hugger. I believe that a tree is a plant which will either be harvested by man, the responsible party or by nature through disease, bugs, fire, etc.

But, the vision of what nature can do in what appears to be a weathery tantrum, otherwise known as tornado is so saddening and appalling.

While people were injured and killed in the tantrum.  While their homes and lively hoods were twisted and blasted away.  While the winds ripped and tore, the massive trees that have stood beautiful sentry watch for hundreds of years were swept as twigs before the storm.  Suddenly, without warning, they were changed from oxygen producing shelters of wonder to shambles.

I just have a hard time understanding how nature could turn on herself this way and ruin these wonderful trees.  It doesn’t fit my softy belief system.  There will be very little useful gain from these toppled trees except for the microbial decay that comes as their mouldering carcasses turn to dust on the forest floor.   Some of the rubble must be burned to make room for the people as they come back into the land.   True, some will be carried away to chippers to become mulch and dust in a more useful manner.

And, time will begin to move forward toward the next  hundreds of years when the little baby oaks just in their second leaf stage have grown to stand sentry and provide shelter, air cleansing and amazing beauty.  Nature is part of time, grinding the grist fine and tight.  Makes us believe, if nothing else, that we are specks on the face of time.

The storms passed. People moved in to clear the rubble.  The next days were balmy, chilly, rainy, and then balmy again. The weather people tell us it is coming again in a couple days.   We will hunker down, humbled and saddened, then go back out to clear away the rubble again.

But, in the late summer, almost too far from the predicted last date for I was able to get around one end of the garden, just in front and to the end of the Sweet potato rows.   The rescued marigolds were set out with plenty of space to spread and bloom.  None of the seed was new, but old packages that I wanted to get used up.

The last half of the onion sets purchased in the spring

Left over beets, turnips, spinach and lettuce in short rows

New box of beans…the only option left was Yellow Wax Pole Beans

When the fuel prices began to go sky high, people were encouraged to grow gardens to produce their own food and save money.  This advice, like a great deal of bureaucratic direction, had some good points, but is way off base for the big reason that started it.  A few seeds in a plot of unprepared ground is not going to really cut a food bill enough to make any economic difference and let a family now have ample gas money. 

But, gardening is good for the back, good for the belly when the seeds do grow and produce, and good for the mind.  So, I tried to keep quieter than usual about the silliness of the first recommendation.

The beans went in in hills.  Each hill sprouted and grew.   We saved so much money that we could now put two posts at the ends  of the row and string some of that plastic string for the hay baler that didn’t work.  DH put in four strands of the string for the beans to climb.  They were a little reluctant to cooperate.  Probably someone at the seed store told them we were supposed to have official poles in sets of three to make a teepee.   The bean plants really preferred to grow along the string or make a tangle near the top.  Oh well, at least they were up out of the mud.    They grew well and bloomed well.  Then, overnight, the beans GREW and I thought, “Oh crap, they are going to be too much like dried beans.” But, these yellow guys that we weren’t familiar with had BIG pods with lots of vegetable tissue that cooked up deliciously.   We plan to look for some more of these strangers next year.

The beets did the same thing they did last year….nothing.

The turnips did not do the same thing they did in last year’s fall garden.  Because of that memory, I planted them REALLY close together.  And every one of them sprouted.  In soil that was too shallow, they grew like crazy.  I tried thinning them out, giving the culls to the chickens, but didn’t keep up with them.  Then, they began making turnips almost on the top of the ground.   DH swept leaves over them and we let them go until today.  Up until this last cold spell, the leaves were sometimes frozen, but not completely.   I dug them today, which wasn’t digging, but more like brushing the oak leaves aside to pick them up.  They will be good for New Year’s Day!

All of the onions grew too.  This year I took better care of the second half of the sets, putting them into a mesh bag and hanging them back on the basement wall.

The lettuce and spinach were disappointing.  The few that did grow were delicious and some spinach is still out there battling the cold weather.  I dragged leaves over the little plants to see what we find in the spring. 

We had great green beans from fall garden in 2007; much better than the ones from spring, when the weather heated up too fast.  I’m convinced that a fall garden is a good idea and will try to be more organized and ready for it this year.  If those wax beans had been in the ground a couple weeks earlier, we would have had a bumper crop from one little bag of beans…Jack told me it would be like that.

Several years ago, I read about this formula. Gather enough eggshells to fill (without crushing) at quart jar or a gallon jar. Add water to the eggshell contents of the jar and leave for 24 hours. Then, drain the water and pour it onto plants.

This gave the plants an interesting little kick, but I had only used it on containers such as houseplants.

This summer, the neighborhood conversation about the locally sad condition of our watermelon growing efforts told us that our melon plants were crying out for calcium. Without more calcium than they were getting, the baby melons rotted and died a few days after setting on.

There are ways of adding calcium, but the eggshells immediately came to my mind. I had some saved up, so I put about two quarts of eggshell water on the base of the plant. That last, lonely little melon grew to be a fine treat.

Was my eggshell nectar partially responsible. We have no scientific way of knowing, but the melon plant and product improved remarkably after receiving the little calcium draught.

We’ve shared the melon with the grandchild who found it first. With the work of summer done, the vine still flourishes across the grassy area. A volunteer without nearby friends or ability to attract other vermin, the melon vine has grown beautifully, holding out for frost.

I have found that if a drenching with eggshell water is good once for a house plant, it does not follow that the plant will benefit from treatment more than once or twice a year. Too often can set a little mold fungus growing on the top of the plant ‘dirt’.

The majority of the egg shells are crushed and scattered about the garden and flowerbeds. Eventually, they will be worked into the soil to share their calcium content and act as air spacers in the dense, clay soil. A small amount is pulverized and scattered over the nightcrawler beds. There is opinion that the calcium of the eggshells, in crumbs or whole, benefits the nightcrawler fertility. The fine dust makes a good resource for grit in the gullets of the diligent little composters.

Egg shells are indeed at the front of mylist for gardening bits and wisdom.

We’re gardeners of the heart, constantly watching and learning. Thank you for stopping by to read our post.