Red

Red theme photograph for my camera club's December meeting...

A Potting Shed

It is official.  My garden shed is now a Potting Shed.

Before it was built, I thought of it as a potting shed.  But the reality of the shed was that it was more of a garden room/garden office/play house/storage shed than a place to pot up plants, start cuttings, and whatever else you do in a potting shed.  If I needed to pot up plants or start cuttings it was usually done on the patio, near the hose.

But recently, it was cold and rainy and I needed to get a lot of plants ready to come indoors for the winter.  That would involve dirt, rooting hormone, lots of dead leaves, water, and etc.  Rather than bringing the mess into my kitchen or dealing with the cold and rain outside, I moved my work to the dry, comfortable shed.

The potting table

Normally, this cabinet holds a tray of "curiosities" that I have collected -- leaves, tree bark, sea shells, a shed snake skin, pine cones, an abandoned hornet's nest, a robin's nest that fell from a tree in my yard, a dragonfly that died in my shed and other interesting natural things.  The tray was moved somewhere else in the shed and the cabinet became my potting table.

I stayed dry and comfortable while making my mess.  I had most of the tools I needed right on hand.  After each plant was re-potted and groomed of dead leaves, I put it outside the door of the shed to get a bit of rain before the whole group of plants was carried into the house.  And the mess was contained and easy to clean up.  Success on all counts!

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) cuttings

Rosemary is not hardy in Southwestern Pennsylvania and my rosemary bush is now too large to bring in the house for winter.  This winter, it will stay outside, nestled in a pile of leaves in my composter.  If it survives, great; if not, I have cuttings that I hope will take and survive the winter inside.

Alas, poor Yorick!

Here's a very small sampling of my natural curiosities.  Pine cones, cob webs (okay, not actually collected by me), a dried up seed pod from a shrub that I have not yet identified, and a bird skull.  I am guessing that it is a robin's skull, because I found it in a garden where I saw a mortally wounded robin several months before.

Fall Foliage

Fall Foliage theme photograph for my camera club's November meeting...

Green Bean Season

Pole beans are one of the few edibles I grow in my garden.  I grow them because I love green beans -- nothing tastes like a fresh green bean -- and they are so easy to grow.  I have tried several varieties of pole beans, but I always come back to my favorite, Kentucky Wonder.  They are prolific, tasty and -- for the most part -- problem free.

I got a late start this year with my green beans, so my harvest is just beginning now.  Normally, the season would be in full swing.

This year, we had a pest problem with the beans -- rabbits.  The rabbits normally leave the beans alone once the plants are too tall for the rabbits to strip the leaves from the upper portions of the plant.  But this year, the rabbits chopped off six of my eighteen plants just above the ground, killing the plants entirely.  That's 2/3 of my planting!

Fortunately, I discovered the problem and got fencing around the plants quickly.  The remaining plants are doing well and starting to produce.  I have picked several handfuls already and used a few in meals.

Usually, I freeze several bags of green beans for winter enjoyment.  I prefer them over store-bought frozen green beans.  I'm hopeful that I will have enough to freeze this year.  Fingers crossed.

Why I am Worried

I have shown this re-blooming bearded iris before (here).  

It doesn't re-bloom every fall, but every time it has re-bloomed in the past, it has not lasted long before the weather changes and winter is upon us.  I associate the second set of blooms with the end of fall and the onset of winter.

So the reason I am worried is that it is blooming its fool head off right now.  I don't think it has ever bloomed as vigorously as it is this summer.  I hope this doesn't mean what it usually means.  I'm not ready for winter!

Blueberry Season - The Final Score for 2014

This year's blueberry season lasted from early July to about August 10th.  There were still quite a few unripe berries left on the Elliot bush when we stopped picking, but the birds picked the remaining berries as fast as they ripened.  There must be some fat, happy birds in our neighborhood.  I saw robins, cardinals, blue jays and catbirds in the garden.  And there were some small critters, such as chipmunks, enjoying the bounty too.

We picked a total of 63 cups of berries.  (Last year we picked 34 cups.)  Of those 63 cups, about 15 cups went to neighbors, a few we ate fresh, and the rest were frozen.  I gave a bunch of bags of frozen blueberries to my sister.

I have been enjoying peach/blueberry smoothies made with fresh peaches and frozen blueberries for breakfast many mornings lately.  YUM!

A successful blueberry season.

The Shed - At Work and At Play

I knew from the beginning that there would be a certain element of "play house" to my garden shed.  Up until the time it was delivered, I insisted to myself and to Eric that element would be small and temporary.  I warned Eric that the stinky, dirty lawn mower and gas cans would have to stay in the garage for a while longer.

But when I started filling the shed with stuff, it became obvious that the "play house" element was here to stay.  One of the first things in the shed (after the curtains and candle lamps in the windows) was a small wool rug that had been languishing in our garage.  And then a collection of children's tea sets...

And a spare picnic table, dressed for a tea party.  

The shed will always be a working garden shed -- storing rakes, shovels, grass seed, a wheel barrow, hand tools, outdoor furniture cushions, umbrellas, and etc.

It also serves as storage for my gardening books and a place for me to do garden planning and garden day dreaming.

That's my "grab and go" bucket of gardening hand tools by the door.

And this storage cabinet can easily be turned into a potting table by removing my tray of "curiosities" and adding the potting tray stored on the loft shelf.

But, to me, nothing says "Garden Shed" louder or more emphatically than this Waterford crystal table lamp that I bought at an estate sale.

Or the antique cherry drop leaf table that replaced the old picnic table.