Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Thursday, August 31, 2006
EOM Miscellany
Can this really be the last day of August? Summer gets shorter every year.
This is going to be an end-of-the-month catchall post. Today was the day the home renovations were supposed to be completed. They're not. Hope he gets the last of the windows put in before the big rainstorm.
The big rainstorm. Here we go again? Drought-deluge-drought-deluge. The National Weather Service is issuing dire predictions, but the guys at capitalweather.com are more circumspect. Well, we need the rain....
Some plants just amaze me. The beds in front of the house were really neglected by me this year. I sporadically tended to the woody (expen$ive) plants in back of the house, but basically just let the front go. Too much trouble to maneuver around tools and materials, and the weather was hot, and I just didn't feel like it. So imagine my surprise when I noticed a bright red volunteer Salvia coccinea beginning to bloom in what is possibly the very worst bit of the property. I mean, the very worst. This is just to one side of the driveway, in the hellstrip between the sidewalk and the street. The soil is heavy clay. In the summer it might as well be brick. Any mulch that was applied in the spring has long since been scattered by wild critters or dog walkers or construction/delivery vehicles driving over it, etc. On the few occasions when I dragged the sprinkler out into the front lawn, this area was ignored. And behind the volunteer salvia is a Dianthus gratianopolitanus 'Firewitch' that was newly planted this spring and growing contentedly. Amazing.
If you've been reading here for the last six weeks or so, you know of the tomato troubles. Washington Post to the rescue again with the consoling news that it isn't just me. There's been plenty of tomato disappointment to go around this year. My latest particular hassle is with tomato fruitworms, which are apparently just corn earworms in search of novelty. I tossed several more tomatoes onto the compost pile after seeing the little creatures poke their heads out as if they were in apples in a cartoon. You may have the idea that we haven't eaten a single tomato from the garden, so let me correct that impression. We haven't had many, but the few we harvested were delicious. My current favorite is Black Russian. Mine are more of a dark-red color than black or purple. The flavor is excellent. A perfect balance of sweet-tart against an overall flavor that defines "tomato". Even DH noticed this. I made fast salsa the other day (using a food processor instead of a knife), and he said "this tastes like tomato". (OK, actually he meant that he wanted more chiles in there, but still.) Later today I'm probably going to pick all the ones that are just now ripening so they don't crack when the big rainstorm hits. That's been another problem - slow ripening. I think I'm delusional about how much sun they get - it's probably not enough. I'm still waiting for Kellogg's Breakfast and Striped Roman. Striped Roman was my last year's favorite.
The butterfly show continues. There's about fifty million skippers, and I still don't know most of their names. Maybe next year. I photographed a Great Spangled Fritillary lunching on a Buddleia, but I only got one shot before it flew away. Around noon today, I found a Snowberry Clearwing Moth motionless on an Autumn Joy Sedum. I got several pictures of this one - I've never seen one so still before. I nudged it after I took its picture, just to see if it was still alive. It flew away, so the answer was yes.
The birds know that autumn is coming. Around 7:30 this morning, the trees in back of the house were alive with migrant birds. I didn't have the field guide handy, but I know there were warblers and flycatchers. I thought I saw a yellow-bellied sapsucker, but couldn't be sure. The tourists mingled with some locals (cardinals, wrens, etc) and then moved on.
Speaking of moving on, this turned out way longer than I planned, so I think I'll go make a cup of tea and check the weather radar.
3 Comments:
Yes, I too feel like summer is getting shorter every year. I'm not feeling like putting my fall/winter crops in just yet, but needs must.
The picture of the Snowberry Clearwing Moth is amazing. And I think I'll look into seeds of the Black Russian for next year. Sounds like a great tomato.
I have family in Virginia Beach that are getting more rain than you might. Have a good weekend (if possible - they plan on playing Monopoly).
C.C., I think it rained harder this morning (Tuesday) than it did all during the tropical storm. We sure did need it though.
Hope your family in VA Beach didn't have too much trouble from the storm. Some of our friends near Annapolis had power outages, but we just had a nice steady rain.
Just received an email from them that said they came through it fine, except the car needs new sparks and air filter because her husband said it was okay to drive through the 4 feet of water in front of the house. That'll teach him!!
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