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Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Friday, November 09, 2007

Miscellany and Oddities

I should amend the title of the previous post to "I Was Half-Right". The subfreezing temperatures were enough to kill off the least cold-hardy plants, but the tough ones are left standing. This introduces oddity #1: A 90% frozen Alternanthera with one perfectly fine branch. The only thing I can think of is that the unfrozen branch was protected by some nearby zinnias, which then collapsed in a heap the morning after the freeze? Either that or there is some very strange microclimate stuff going on.

Today's pictures are from central Virginia, where I found the lettuce and spinach green and happy under a double layer of Agribon-19. On the way to the undercover greenery, I spotted oddity #2: one of my supposedly deer repellent plants - a nice little rosemary - was broken and chewed. Just last weekend I was admiring how nicely the 4 rosemarys anchored the corners of the potager. All spring and summer I fretted about how I was going to keep the deer away from the edibles, and all spring and summer they didn't bother much of anything. And now, when the tomatoes and peppers are frozen dead and gone, the critters come back to eat the "critter-proof" plants. I tell you, there's never a dull moment in gardening. Some of bronze fennel had the tops chewed off too. Apparently whoever did this was just tasting because the chewed-off pieces were left on the ground. BTW, something also chewed off the top of an Illicium earlier in the year - another reputed deer-proof plant.

There are foot-(hoof?)-prints all over the newly planted garlic beds too, but I can't see that anything was dug up. The soil is so sandy there that the prints are indistinct.

Maple leaves from the November album

It's kind of a gray, ugly day today, but we have a bit of fall color in the woods, even though a lot of the leaves just turned brown and dropped during the drought. The black gums and sweet gums were pretty a few weeks ago and now have shed their leaves, but the wild blueberries and the maples are looking spectacular.

We've been busy lately and I've been neglecting my blog reading. I opened Google Reader this morning and found 150+ unread gardening posts. I'm almost hoping for a rainy weekend so I can sit around and drink tea and read blogs....

But then again, I need clear skies to look for Comet Holmes. Have you seen it? I didn't even know about it until this morning when I was blog surfing and found it on a birding blog, of all things. I started at A DC Birding Blog, where I learned that this year may bring large numbers of winter finches to feeders in the US. More on this later. From there, I read his Friday roundup, and went to check out the Harris's Sparrow on Mike's Birding and Digiscoping Blog. I noticed there a recent post on Comet 17P/Holmes. I think I need to set a timer to limit my internet time.

Anyhow, the reason I was interested in the winter finches was because yesterday I think I saw a small group of pine siskins in the tulip tree in front of the house. I've never seen a pine siskin before, so I'm not 100% sure, but they were streaky all over with wing bars and very pointy beaks. I didn't get a real good look. This site claims that they eat tulip tree seeds, and I think that's what they were doing, so it makes sense.

So in keeping with the season, my gardening activity is moving indoors to books, catalogs and the internet, and my outdoor activities have more to do with the sky than with the earth.

Labels: astronomy, birds, critters, frost, seasons

posted by Entangled at 4:55 PM ::: Permalink

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