FAll leaves on Tree Peony. Roses here and there.

The tree peony has been hinting at fall for a couple of weeks now. The grapes are done. The apples are picked. The tomatoes are winding down.


The roses were low maintenance this year. I almost never watered them. The only fertilizer was compost. They were mulched with bark chips. These roses have bloomed all summer - nothing dramatic, but some fragrance and color without hassle.

This is Tamara, an Astin rose. Very fragrant, minimal trouble.


This is Magic Carousel, a miniature rose. It's just doing its own thing, blooming off and on. Minimal effort on my part.

I decided that any rose that requires major effort and fails to produce, just isn't worth it. There is a Darwinian reduction in the number of roses in the yard. The ones that survive will be be the ones that continue to bloom, with minimal disease, under the conditions in this yard; organically. With preference given for the fragrant ones.

Puerto Vallarta

It was time for a much needed break - so off to Puerto Vallarta for a change of climate and attempt to clear the mind. Here are a few photos.


Ning got to hold an iguana (for a fee - watch for locals bearing 'photo ops'). This creature was quite tame and fun to hold.



PV had a few 'vegetarian friendly' places - always a challenge when I travel. Using the 'Lonely Planet' guidebook, some veggie friendly places were identified. This one was off the beaten track, quiet, very tasty, inexpensive, and all of the options were vegetarian (as opposed to my finding the 'one item' that did not contain meat).

I did learn to say "Estoy vegetariano' but along with that is needed 'No como carne. no como pesco. no como pollo' to bring home the point. Another very good restaurant was "Barcelona' which served "tapas" which were small entrees (or large appetizers) with a wide selection of veggie options (for me) and seafood and meat options (for Ning).





This trip was definitely needed. Even if I didn't clear ALL of the unwanted mental baggage out, I did find some rest and some perspective. I got to try some (limited" Spanish. People were very friendly. The food was very good, overall. We did a LOT of walking up and down hills. The sun was great. The ocean was warm. The scenery was beautiful

Not much lawn here. Time off from blog.

 

"State of the yard" and house, as of today. There is more lawn than can be seen in the photo, although it is gradually heading into the "delawnification" category.

I'll be off from the blog for a week. Hopefully there will be a bunch of ripe figs next week. 

Man's Best Friends

Baigo
Charlie

Northpole Apple - ready to pick

This "NorthPole" is a columnar apple with what is called a "MacIntosh" flavor. It was developed originally from a MacIntosh parent with a lot of selective breeding. Mostly, it grows straight-up with a few short branches that I've been pruning back even shorter to maintain the cordon structure.

Last year the apples did not seem very tasty - bland and grainy. For some reason, this year they are crisp and really do have an "apple' flavor, and worth the effort.

Raintree Nursery lists this as an early october ripening apple - so it's right on time.

This tree has a small "garden footprint' and is happy in the rose bed (which also contains the miniature peaches, a current, and quite a few other 'non-rose' plants).

Blog therapy. 880 visits in 2 months. Bike stats / vitals

This blog was started late July 2006. So far, 880 visits (Im not sure how this works - the same site also states 990 in a different area). Click on image for more detailed view. It's like having friends and family visiting, which is fun.

In a stressful world, thinking about the things that I write about calms me down, makes me feel like I'm sharing something important, and focuses my mind.

Bike this week: 60 miles of commute to/from work; plus 15 miles on Sunday = 75 miles. BP today 131/84 HR 74. Weight no change in a month, still about 207#.

Testing the limits - Palms in Pacific Northwest

This beautiful palm is about a mile from our house. Only a couple of varieties of palm will survive here; this is a Windmill Palm (Trachycarpus fortunei). We have a smaller specimen of the same species - so far it's survived 4 winters, including 2 ice storms and a couple of snow storms.

If the world really is getting warmer, maybe we should be experimenting more with plants that need warmer and probably drier conditions. At any rate, it's fun finding out what will grow and testing the limit.

Puttering. Garlic for next year.

Garlic is fun because it is planted in the fall, grows in late fall, becomes somewhat dormant during the winter then resumes growth in Spring for an early Summer harvest. Since we average a couple of cloves daily in the kitchen, we use all of the garlic that this small garden nproduces. It is easily planted among roses and perennials as well, and is reputed to be a good companion plant, repelling insects (I dont know if that is really true.)

This year I planted saved cloves from the last harvest of "German Red" garlic, which produced large clove bulbs of fairly strong tasting garlic. The wrappers of this variety have purplish-red stripes, adn the variety is said to have been brought to the US by German immigrants several generations ago. This is the '3rd generation' of this garlic in my garden. As I have read, each year I save the largest bulbs and plant the largest cloves from those bulbs. They do seem to be adapting to this yard, and this year's crop had the largest bulbs so far.

I also bouught a couple of bulbs of Inchelium Red garlic, which Rodale Institute rated as the best tasting. I wonder if these were mislabeled in the bins, however - they didn't look red and the cloves were not as big as photos on the internet. Still, they would be an interesting variety to try, since they have a good story (originating from Washington State tribal reservation gardens) and a good reputation.

I did not replant the garlic that I had grown from grocery store left-overs. These also turned out great, with larger bulbs than I had bought originally. However, since they are easily purchased, I wanted something 'more special' in the yard.

"Vancouver" found variety of fig. Main Crop. Yum.

The net is there to discourage feathered and furry friends. These are big juicy figs. AFter a month of wondering, they are starting to ripen.
These are very juicy and sweet. Worth the wait and effort. Looks like there will be a nice crop this year. So far only one fig has split from the rains.

An hour at Portland Nursery

 

This trip resulted in the impulse buy on the previous page, and some of the sedums. Not a bad time to find a few perrenials - they are grown to a nice size, and on sale. This is a good tree and shrub planting time too.