Thurs. Oct. 29, 2020: Almost Samhain!

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Thursday, October 29, 2020

Second Quarter Moon in Aries

Neptune, Uranus, Mars, Mercury Retrograde

Celtic Tree Month of Ivy

Rainy, cold, raw

Today is my mother’s 96^th birthday, which I believe is cause for celebration!

On the garden front, nothing much to report. Last Friday, the wonderful guy who mows came and took care of the leaves – which is good, because I was NOT looking forward to it.

Of course, by Sunday, the yard was full of leaves again!

But it’s autumn, and those who don’t want leaves on the ground should live somewhere without seasons.

The tradeoff between having wonderful trees and raking leaves? Happy to have it.

Today or tomorrow, I’m going to harvest the last of the basil and make another batch of pesto. There are a couple of tomatoes hanging on. We’ll take in the herbs.

The rest will have to be cut back, and the pots put away over the coming week. Next weekend (not this one, busy with Samhain, Day of the Dead, Tending the Dead this one), I will take in the furniture out on the deck, and give it a final scrub for winter.

The plants we’ve brought in are happy to be inside. They’re doing well. The angle of the sun is very different, much lower than it was in summer, so I have to adjust where I place the plants for sun.

It’s fascinating to watch the changes in the sun’s angle and the way things grow, though.

For Halloween, I still have to put up the lights outside, which I will do on Saturday morning. It’s stormy today and tomorrow, so I’ll leave it. I’m then setting up a table in the front yard, with information for socially-distanced Halloween, the jar candles I made with spider-web netting and battery-operated candles, and the treat bags. If we have trick or treaters, they get a bag with 3 edibles and 3 non-edibles. If we don’t, I have bags for next year, wherever we may be, and we’ll eat the candy between now and the end of the year!

It’s positive, whichever way it works.

How’s your autumn?

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Thurs. Oct. 22, 2020: First Frost

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Thursday, October 22, 2020

Waxing Moon First Quarter in Capricorn

Neptune, Uranus, Mars, Mercury Retrograde

Celtic Tree Month of Ivy

Foggy and warm

Last weekend was our first frost.

I rearranged my bedroom so that I could bring in a low bookcase that holds the two large geraniums. Two smaller plant stands hold two more geraniums. The gigantic peace lily, which I bought in a 4” pot the first winter we lived here, is on my vanity table – where the cats can’t get at it.

My mother took in some of the smaller geraniums to her bedroom. Geraniums help with love, acceptance, and balance, so these are good plants to have in a bedroom. The peace lily is about comfort and harmony (and about purity and sexual energy). Again, fine for the bedroom.

The maiden hair fern, which was so unhappy in the back bedroom last winter, but revived out on the deck, is now in a sunny, warm spot in my office. Maidenhair fern is used for purity and beauty. A paste made from the fronds helps with some insect stings.

The yellow begonia is in the living room. Its association with caution, gratitude, and justice make sense there.

We’re tucking in the rosemary, tarragon, chive, and parsley where we can fit them, and where they can get decent sunlight.

Slowly, I’m clearing away the space we use for quarantine in the garage (moving it to another section), so the large overwinter plants (rose of Sharon, forsythia, lilac) can overwinter there. I plan to get them in this week.

The pansies are still blooming like crazy, so I’ll leave those baskets out longer.

As the other annuals die back, I’m removing them from the pots and stacking the pots in the garage, on the side for pots we don’t need to water all winter! We’ll harvest the last few tomatoes this week, and then scrub and put those pots away.

I still have to put up the lights for Halloween and some of the exterior decorations. It’s been so windy that it hasn’t made sense.

I’ll start putting away the furniture this weekend and next weekend – while still trying to steal a few minutes to sit outside and enjoy the deck here and there!

I am so tired of every day hearing chainsaws and leaf blowers. No one is making things beautiful. It’s all about destruction. Everything that makes Cape Cod wonderful and beautiful is being destroyed.

Thurs. Oct. 15, 2020: Quiet Autumn

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Thursday, October 15, 2020

Dark Moon, 4^th quarter in Virgo

Neptune, Uranus, Mercury, Mars Retrograde

Cloudy and pleasant

Celtic Tree Month of Ivy

There just isn’t a lot to say about the garden right now. I need to cut back some more as the lilies suck the chlorophyll back into the bulbs. Soon, I’ll start raking leaves.

This weekend, we have to take in some of the plants to overwinter. I’m not taking in all the furniture yet. Sometimes, it’s still nice enough to sit out for a few minutes.

We have to figure out where to put the enormous peace lily and the maidenhair fern. We thought the fern died in spring, but it’s come back and is gorgeous. Last winter, it wasn’t in a sunny enough spot. We will fix it this year.

We’re still in drought. I’m still planning gardens for various stories (and still not happy with any of the software). I’m fantasizing about next spring’s garden, but it is more likely to be spring 2022, since spring of 2021 has so much transition in it.

How’s your garden doing?

Thurs. Oct. 8, 2020: Dreaming of Tulips

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Thursday, October 8, 2020

Second Quarter Moon in Gemini

Neptune, Uranus, Mars Retrograde

Celtic Tree Month of Ivy

Stormy weather

Now you have an ear worm of that old standard, don’t you?

Not much to say, garden-wise. I haven’t been doing much to put the garden to bed, but I’ll need to start raking leaves soon.

I’ve put up some of the outdoor decorations. I’m waiting to put up the lights until closer to the holiday.

The new furnace works, and we’re not cold all the time, which is nice.

I’m not planting bulbs for spring, because too much is up in the air about spring. But I’m looking at the catalogues and dreaming of what I can plant NEXT autumn for the following spring. Tulips and daffodils have become favorites, and I hope, next autumn, I can plant a lot of them, so that Spring 2022 will be beautiful.

Tulips have such a tumultuous history, tied in with the history of the Netherlands. There was a time when their value was like that of gold. There’s an interesting article on History.com about how the stories coming down about that time are inaccurate and overblown, and there were indicators of a coming crash that were ignored. So the tulip is not at fault!

What are you doing to put your garden to bed?

Thurs. Oct. 1, 2020: Chrysanthemums Start Blooming

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Thursday, October 1, 2020

Full Moon in Aries

Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Mars Retrograde

Celtic Tree Month of Ivy

Cooler

Not much to report on the garden front. We had some more tomatoes, which were luscious, and enough beans for another meal – so good. In the next few years, I want to grow more beans.

The chrysanthemums are starting to bloom. I have some that are in a hanging basket on the deck, acting like vines, and then the pots I bought for the front. The one in the barrel is still considering its options.

I put lawn food down on Sunday. It rained quite a bit Tuesday and Wednesday, so I hope it soaked in rather than washing off.

Leaves are falling; soon it will be time to rake. Neighbors have started up the daily leaf blowing. Not that most of them ever stopped.

Of course, all this leaf blowing means all the leaves in the neighborhood eventually end up in MY lawn (because the neighbors blow them into corners of their property and the wind takes them here). Since I am the only person who actually brings the leaves to the dump. . .

Pretty soon, we’ll have to start taking in the big pots to the garage to overwinter, which means setting up our quarantine area in the garage somewhere else.

Today, however, is the first day of October, which means the decorating starts, both inside and outside. I’m looking forward to adding bits and bobs to the yard and gusseying up the house for the holidays.

We get two full moons in October, which makes me happy.

I will take and post pictures on the Instagram account, which is @devonelllingtonwork. I use that account for garden, cats, cooking, textiles – very little book promotion!

How’s your garden doing?