the september garden

september 4

september 9

september 17

september 24

it's honestly still this green, but tomorrow is october 1, so a new month starts. the temperatures are still unseasonably warm and not cold at night, so no frost in sight. at least not in the forecast for the next week or so, so i haven't moved the citrus fruit inside yet. the mango plant (it's still a plant and not a tree - i grew it myself from a mango seed) is still very happy out there as well. i'm leaving them as long as i can.

the august garden

i'm not sure how it's already september 10 and i haven't posted the august garden, but better late than never. 

august 7

august 12

august 20

august 26

the light is fading fast in the evenings. the pumpkins and winter squash are ripening. the beans are done. and as i write this, we're finally having some quite warm days, so maybe i'll get a few ripe tomatoes from that jungle of tomato plants in the greenhouse on the left. 

the july garden

 

july 2

july 9

july 16

july 22

july 30

we had a lot of rain in july. the weeds have gotten a bit away from me, as i just can't keep up with all this rain. there are loads of slugs and so i spend a good 30 minutes morning and evening, picking them into a bucket to feed to my running ducks. it gives them so much joy. i have special slug gloves that i put on to do it, as i can't stand those slimy bastards. but i do it to see how happy it makes the ducks. i wish they could run around free and eat all the slugs themselves, but that stupid jerk of a fox is still hanging around. soon, there will be tomatoes, it would happen faster if we had slightly warmer weather. mostly days are only in the upper 60s. the rest of the world is boiling over and we're wearing sweaters around here. 

the june garden (and a little bit of july)

june 4

june 6

june 9

june 11

june 20

june 24

july 2

what a long way it's come in just one month! lots of sunshine and some recent rain has made everything take off. i think in next sunday's shot, the sunflowers (which i should have thinned) will obscure the bench. 

garden progress

may 19

may 21

may 28

june 4

it's so amazing the difference just a few weeks, a bit of watering and some sunshine makes. i'm doing these photos every sunday for the rest of the garden season. 

age is just a number

sometimes i forget my age. in a physical sense, i feel it's what it is and yes, i'm 56. on a mental level, i feel nowhere near that. and which one counts? one, the other, both? i have no idea. i want to wear sparkly things and pretty shoes and plenty of highlighter. and at the same time, comfy sneaks and sweatpants and a hoodie are fine. what is age anymore anyway? we're expected to work into our 70s, but workplaces already write us off in our 50s, especially if you happen to be a woman. i'm more digital and plugged into what's happening in the world (chatGPT) and especially on tiktok (i'm looking at you, wes andersen trend) than many of my colleagues who are young enough to be my children. where does it leave me? age is both a reality and to some extent a social construct. 

i'm thinking about this because it occurred to me that it was around the age i am now that my mother was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. and one of the consequences of growing older is that it's hard to keep weight off. a long, dark, rainy winter didn't help that. so i went to the doctor for a check-up and i've asked for ozempic. i have to jump a few more hoops (blood tests, etc.), which are fair enough, but i expect to get it. 

i went to a running shop this week and bought new running shoes. i'll probably mostly walk in them, at least at first, but i'm also going to work on that. the guy in the shop was super kind to me. i even got on a treadmill and he assessed my running style (i told him i wasn't currently a runner), and made sure i got the right shoes. this is now known as no excuse. i'm even listening to born to run by christopher mcdougall, not because i expect to be an ultrarunner, but because it's inspiring. and it makes running sound like such a natural thing that we humans are supposed to do.

speaking of natural things humans are supposed to do, i'm so eager to get all the plants into the ground in the garden. we will still have frost some nights, so i'm going to try to restrain myself, but i am so eager to get everything planted. trying to be content with preparing the beds this weekend and then planting everything next weekend. we'll see how that goes...

i can't stop growing avocado plants

 

please ignore all the dirt at the base of these, the kitten has been busy.

like many people during corona, i became a little bit obsessed with one thing in particular. growing avocado plants. i was ordering gorgeous boxes of buttery avocados from freshland and after seeing a tiktok (naturally), i started saving the seeds and trying to get them to sprout. i remember trying as a child, with three toothpicks stuck into the seed, suspending the pit over a glass of water. i don't think it ever worked, but tiktok had a better way. 

you soak the pit for a couple of days in water, then peel off the brown outer skin. then you wrap it up in a damp paper towel, stick it in a ziploc bag and ignore it for a month or so. after about a month, it should have sprouted a little root like this one. and then it's time to suspend it over water.

i collected old milk bottles in thrift stores, as they work perfectly for this and you don't have to do the pit any violence with toothpicks. you just fill it as full as you can and make sure the tiny little root can touch the water. 

i had five pits that had sprouted (and yes, i might have an equal number that are still nestled in their damp paper towel), so i set them on the window sill in the kitchen to sprout. the root will grow a bit more and then a little nub of the tree will sprout out and its leaves will begin to unfold. 

once they're well-established and have really good roots (i neglected to photograph that part), they're ready to be potted. i had five from late last summer that we were ready to pot last weekend and it was warm enough out in the sunny greenhouse to spend a bit of time getting them potted up. 

i have quite a few bigger plants from the ones i did that first year of corona. they're thriving and all have lovely new leaves forming at the top, as they sense the light returning. they're on various window sills all over the house. they make a nice gift when you're invited to a birthday or just as a hostess gift. they're quite easygoing. i give mine a good watering once a week and they all seem to be thriving. in our climate, i don't ever expect to be able to plant them out (though who knows, with climate change), nor do i really expect that they'll ever produce avocados. someone told me on instagram that they wouldn't, but i'm not so sure. all i know is that it's a little obsession that i quite enjoy.

i even drew some and made avocado plant prints last weekend during our printmaking course. it just feels somehow magical, getting a whole live plant from the pit of an avocado that i ate on toast. 

experiments in fresh indigo - part 1

i bought some indigo seeds in the spring and planted them in pots in the greenhouse. once they were big enough and the frost gone, i planted them out in a raised bed. they looked a bit weak and scrappy and i wasn't sure whether they would turn out. but they took hold and became big, lovely, lush plants, taking over the bed, even though i had only planted them in one half. 

i read about people dyeing with fresh indigo (regular indigo dyeing is a fermentation process and seemed daunting) and decided to take some with me down to the little museum in randbøldal, where i weave. we had a regular indigo dye pot simmering that day, but i took the fresh leaves and some salt and decided to try the salt method on some silk i had found.

i massaged the salt into the leaves and then put in the piece of silk, which i'd prepared shibori-style with some small knots made with rubber bands. i massaged the leaf and salt mixture into the silk and let it sit.

i think i gave it about half an hour. it turned a lovely light aqua blue color. it took the leaves with quite some variation, with some spots darker than others. unexpected and lovely.

it's the perfect length for a scarf and i gave it a dip in vinegar water to set the dye and then took out the rubber bands. they had produced a lovely pattern, together with the salted indigo leaves.

it created a lovely play of colors on the silk and i found myself wishing i had more. it had been the last of the bolt at the fabric store, so i only had a small piece. i had divided it into three scarf-lengths and i put the other two in the regular indigo dye pot. that yielded a darker blue, as you can see here below.

i've sewn the ends together and made it into an infinity scarf that wraps twice around and has a lovely drape. i'll have to share a picture of it another day, as it's grey and rainy today and not light enough to take photos. it definitely won't be my last experiment in dyeing with fresh indigo. i think next year, i'll actually try to make some regular indigo dye to use, going through the whole fermentation and drying process. it's really a magical plant and it seems to do well in our climate. 

garden progress

june 21

 july 16

almost a month apart. 

we've eaten the first zucchinis and broad beans and loads of herbs. and we can't keep up with the cucumbers, though having the child home helps. soon, there will be more tomatoes than we can eat, but those first ones will be so welcome. i replanted the strawberries, so no crop this year. but i supported a local farmer who sells them. that's ok too, though it didn't result in juice or any berries in the freezer (if i'm honest, i still have a bit of both from last year).

i'm growing indigo (it's just out of sight on the right), and i'm going to play with it next week. i'm on holiday, enjoying time with the child, sleeping in, making loads of good food, going for long walks, hanging out in the garden. it's a good summer. and i hope you're having a good one too!

brain fog or how she talked about bin laden and the garden in one post

i had all sorts of bloggy brilliance in my head this morning during blogger's scheduled maintenance downtime. and of course, as soon as blogger was back online, all that brilliance had slouched off into a kind of soupy fog.

actually, it was one of those mornings where i woke up exhausted from involved and crazy dreams involving the american embassy in copenhagen. i'm clearly still scarred by last week's experience.  i felt like i needed a nap already when i woke up.

since i couldn't blog, i actually sat down and worked diligently for two solid hours. i didn't even open flickr or pinterest, which is big for me. i did check in on facebook, to see if my nephew had had his mouth washed out with soap for the string of swear words (which i believe were actually song lyrics) he posted as his status update last evening. (he had.) but i didn't linger.

*  *  *

i checked in a bit on the news. they're beginning to release some information about the documents they found in bin laden's house. what's being said is how involved he still was in the day-to-day leadership of al qaeda. a guy who was holed up for five years in a completely unwired house next to a military academy in pakistan was just working from home? i have my doubts.

i have tried both working at home and having a long-distance manager and i can tell you, that works in the short term, but not on a long term basis. and it especially does not work if you are not connected. it smacks a bit of justification and reassurance to me. yup, he was still really important and running the show. i don't think so.  but time will undoubtedly tell.

*  *  *

we planted the bulk of the rest of the garden - beans, peas, beets, onions, corn, carrots and most of the brassicas (that is my new favorite word). tomorrow, we're going to move out the kale and brussels sprouts (more brassicas) that were started indoors, along with the leeks, squash and pumpkins. the lowest it should go over the next week is 5°C, so we should be out of the frost danger zone.

i also started some asparagus from seed and tho' i completely didn't follow the complicated directions on the back of the package, every single seed i planted came up. but i may wait for their little roots to get a bit more robust before those get planted out. you can't pick asparagus for the first 3 years anyway.

*  *  *

have any of you read jonathan franzen's freedom? i'm reading it now and although i don't even like this patty woman, i can't put it down. franzen just captures something so essentially middle class and midwest, that even when you don't like the characters, you can just so RELATE.

*  *  *

well, i've bored you long enough, so i'm off to see if i can unfollow anyone else on twitter for posting stuff that's just too personal or evangelical.