happy fall

I received this lovely hand made card in the mail the other day. A stamped pick up full of pumpkins with button wheels and autumn colors. It has fall greetings inside. Thanks Barbara Ann for the great card!

march to november 2008

krinkly kale leaves

I've been admiring the krinkles and colors of my kale leaves. They seem to get prettier by the day. Hard to choose between kale soup and more kale photos. As they say: you can't have your kale and eat it too ... (I do actually have enough for both.)

The varieties here are Tuscan kale (thin blue leaves with dinosaur like krinkles), red Russian kale (giant ruffled leaves with purple/pink stems) and winterbor kale (very very curly blueish leaves).

Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

on Veteran's Day

... to pay tribute to all of those who have served our country!

This is a late fall mum that is beautiful in my parents garden now. Its a great salmon color, with daisy type flowers and a loose natural form. Hardy and comes back every year. I'd love to get a big bunch of these for my garden. The name is Sheffield Pink and links I found are Burpee or Triple Oaks Nursery.

garden photos

Here are photos I took yesterday of my two vegetable garden plots. The top one is my home garden and the bottom is my community plot.

Not much work going on in the community garden. I brought home the last of my garden tools and pulled a bunch of carrots yesterday. I still have several crops growing: broad leaved escarole, snap peas, Chinese greens, arugula, kale, lot of beets and radish.

I got my home garden winterized yesterday. I heavily mulched my kale, parsley and gnome (poor gnome). If the winter cold is as brutal as the Farmer's Almanac predicts, gnome will be glad. I also took down my tomato poles, dead plants and plastic mulch - finally. And I spread some more winter rye cover crop seed.

The area at the bottom of the top photo is where I will make a nice (I hope) decorative garden next year. I'd like to find a piece of "garden art". And a couple interesting rose varieties. I have a New Dawn climbing rose, two herbaceous peonies and a big tree peony waiting to be planted here. I hope this area will look better in next year's photos.

This summer, I grew sunflowers and gourds in this plot next to the house. I got 5 nice big birdhouse gourds from this area (these are BIG plants!). I hope I can dry these during the winter and have some new birdhouses in the spring. We'll see.

In this photo, this plot is filled with debris from my front yard - our foundation planting project, which is now complete. The stumps of 5 or 6 BIG shrubberies are dumped here for now. Some day I'll get around to posting photos of our new front yard. It looks nice, if I don't say so myself....

November harvest - carrots

Yesterday I harvested a big bunch of carrots. My only harvest this week. I still have so many vegetables between my gardens and my half winter share from Belmont CSA. My vegetable drawer is full to overflowing. We eat a lot of veggies, but there's a limit. The nice thing is how well most of the winter vegetables keep.

I noticed these carrots are kind of hairy. This can happen in soil that is too fertile (too much nitrogen) or waterlogged (not recently). Hmmm. I thought my N was low - guess not.

carrots (Daucus carota)

Dear President Obama - how about a Portuguese water dog?

Topic: A PWD in the white house? The First Portie?

Dear President Elect Obama,

My name is Skippy and I’m a Portuguese water dog. First, may I say that you have made my family very happy by winning the job of President of the United States of America! How awesome!

But I write on a personal issue. I heard your family is deciding on a type of dog to get. I heard that your daughter is allergic and I heard one of the breeds you’re considering is a PWD! And I heard this is your first dog. All of these are just like my family, so I’m writing to tell you about ME.

Since this is not a time to be modest, I’ll tell you that I have a fantastic coat and great personality. People say “chenille”, “velveteen” and “beautiful” when they walk by me. I’ve gotten used to hearing these words on my walk and then my owners say “Thank you” even though no one’s talking about them! People usually stop to pat me and say “He’s so soft!” Well, I am. And I don’t shed so there’s no fur in the house and no one is allergic to me. I’m a wavy-coated PWD, with loose curls. My fur is black as night. I get clipped every 6 weeks, bathed every week, no other coat care. I walk with a gait people comment on. Spirited and loose, with elbow and ankle joints that move with a flourish and big webbed paws. Well, I’m so proud of the attention and I hold my tail high!

But my personality is my best quality. Books say I’m intelligent, loyal and spirited. Yup, that’s true. I’m smart; I was potty trained by 7 weeks; I learned quick not to chew on furniture; I learned where I’m allowed to go and where I shouldn’t go and lots of other rules. And I’ve learned lots of words. If I could speak, I’d say many things.

Loyalty means I’m a family dog. Don’t like to be away from my pack. I have a special bond with my owner and I am happy when the whole pack is together. I do NOT like to be left behind.

The spirited part means sometimes I decide to do what I want to - just for fun. (My owner usually laughs, but sometimes not...) Sometimes I play keep away just to see what will happen. ;-) Well, why not – its fun to be a dog!

My breed is an old breed. My ancestors worked hard with fishermen in Portugal. I’m strong and solidly built and would be happy to work all day. But I’m not a fishing dog - my job is to be a companion. I take my family on walks; I protect the house and garden with my strong bark and deep growl. I worked nearly 50 hours last year as a therapy dog visiting hospitals and schools. I did tricks for elders and jumped up on hospital beds to snuggle with kids in rehab. My owner enjoyed this so much it made me very proud!

People say my breed is “high-strung”. Well, I’m pretty calm. That’s ‘cause I spend almost all my time with my pack, I run an hour a day, my family pays a lot of attention to me and I do projects (like therapy work, agility and obedience classes). Oh, plus I have my own door I use day and night, my own fenced yard, good food, lots of treats and toys (… spoiled….).

By the way, Mr. President Elect, you can talk to the excellent Senator from my state, Mr. Ted Kennedy about my breed, too. He has a pair of really cute Porties (Sunny and Splash). I hear they go with him on business sometimes and liven things up (well why not!).

Whatever dog you decide on – I wish you and your pack the greatest happiness. My owners have no idea what the life of a President is like and a Portie may not be the dog for you. But, I have also heard them say they’re really happy to have ME in the family!

Woof to you!

Skippy

more pictures of Skip
slide show of Skippy
Skippy's breeder (Clio is his Mom!)

PS. Maybe you could rescue a PWD? I hate the thought of an unwanted Portie pup! PWDCA Rescue and Relocation Program!

posts about Skippy
first Portuguese water dog

autumn roses

There's not really much to do in the garden now, so Skippy and I were out admiring the last of the roses. There is something special about an end of the season rose blossom. It gets that delicate crinkly look to the petals. Against the dying foliage, they look ethereal - an out of context reminder of summer.

These roses are a planting in a park in Cambridge where Skippy and I walked this afternoon. Probably a variety of hardy shrub roses. Very pretty.

Over the past few weeks my husband and I, with a lot of help from my parents, removed all of the big old shrubbery from our front yard and replaced them with new varieties. I have a very sunny area that's still empty where I'd like to plant some roses. I think the colors shown here are my favorites - a delicate shell pink and a white English rose. It will be fun to pick a couple nice ones in the spring. I always like the Austin hybrids.

too late broccoli

Dan in Ontario asked me about my fall broccoli. His is doing good. Mine is not :(

I wasn't going to show mine because it looks like I didn't plan right. Its just now getting ready to form heads. Way too late. With the cold weather, its not really doing much growing. It'll be killed by the winter weather soon and will be added to my compost pile. Next year I'll plant my fall crop of broccoli earlier.

I planted these broccoli on August 27. Next year I suppose I should plant about 3 weeks earlier - about August 7 I think.

Brassicaceae

but what kind of puppy will he get?

So on to the big question - what breed of dog will he get his girls? I have a suggestion, a Portuguese Water Dog!

first Portuguese water dog

its a new day!

The town of Belmont voted 69% (9,354 votes) for Obama. It is an exciting new day.
Here's a link to Obama's full victory speech.

harvest of greens

Well, they don't look as pretty as summer greens, but I picked a lot from my garden plot today. I think this week may be the last for many greens, so I might as well pick them. The escarole, peas, lettuce and beet greens are getting damaged by the cold weather. The dill looks cold. But some veggies still show no sign of being bothered by the cold, including the Chinese greens, arugula, kale and carrots.

Today I picked escarole, red and green lettuce, a nice handful of baby dill, lots of arugula, beets, radish, pea tendrils and some Chinese greens.




Here's some photos of Skippy hanging out while I harvested.



harvests from my vegetable gardens

radish (Raphanus sativus)

thick cover of clover and rye

I'm pleased with the patch of green manure I planted early this fall. The clover and rye did very well though the field peas and vetch didn't do much. My later sowings (too late) did not sprout as well.

topic: soil

my last garden tomatoes

This is about it for my garden tomatoes. The green tomatoes I picked a couple weeks ago are now ripening and we're enjoying them in salads. Though this year's wet weather gave me a small harvest, the variety was nice. I grew ten different types of heirlooms and hybrids. The late producing varieties (in this photo) are Purple Calabash (purple and green fruit) and Oxheart Red (wonderfully meaty and tomato red). I'm partial to the 'tomato red' colored fruits.

tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum)

happy halloween

more pictures of Skip
Skippy slide show