Tag: Gardening

Brain breaks and Sunday naps

What everyone should be doing on Sunday:

Mattie and Oscar napping on the couch.

This is only their morning nap, too. They have some serious afternoon napping to look forward to.

This past week, I wrapped up adding all the longhand edits into the manuscript. Am I done editing? No. No, I am not.

The next round is more surgical. There are things I want to change, elements that need linking, and small things to add that will play out in book three.

But this coming week, I’m taking a bit of a break. I’ll be making notes in the morning, but we’re due for some lovely weather, so I’m going to give my brain a rest and get all the outdoor stuff done.

Otherwise, it will somehow become November, and I’ll be outside, pulling in the hoses and birdbaths during a wintry mix.

I’ll probably read a lot, too, and maybe binge-watch a few things. But mostly, I’m hoping to be kind to future-me and get all the autumn clean-up done.

Summer slips away

Seriously? How is summer suddenly slipping away? Between COVID and the construction zone, I seem to have lost some time.

At least my hydrangeas are on point.

Lime and pink hydrangeas
My hydrangeas, showing off

And now that I have my energy back, I’m once again taking longer walks in the wetlands.

Gravel path beneath trees in the wetlands.
You can already see that hint of autumn in the leaves

Plus! Editing! Here’s my current editing stack:

Printed pages and notebook for editing
Hand edits and notes for The Marigold Miracle

Parts I and II of The Marigold Miracle have been redrafted. That stack of pages above is Part III. Yes, Part III happens to be 183 pages, which for some writers is a novel. Y’all, I’m not sure why I decided to write such big books, but here we are.

Slow and steady and all that. I will turtle my way through this edit.

Now if only summer would slow down just a bit.

In which I confront fearsome creatures in the wild (or at least my garden)

Between the heat and the wildfire smoke, I have been confronting fearsome creatures in the wilds of my yard.

First up? This predator:

Tabby cat in a garden bed between sedum and salvia.

The neighbor’s cat has taken to lounging around like it’s queen of the world. It also left me a tribute: a dead mouse. (No picture of that; you can thank me later.)

On the positive side, I think it (or its orange tabby friend) has taken care of whatever borrowing critter was disrupting my garden beds.

Then, there are these turkeys. No, really, they’re turkeys.

Mama and baby turkeys in the garden.

They are still wandering through the yard once or twice a day. Glad I can provide a smorgasbord for them.

On the other hand? These two troublemakers:

Two bucks eating hosta plants

These two show up every day and try to stealthily eat the hosta plants in the front yard. I have to be careful about shooing them away since they tend to bolt into the road out front. Also, that one in the back may be a ten-point buck. Impressive.

Last, but not least, this fellow:

Caterpillar on a marigold

I think it’s some kind of woolly caterpillar. I believe it’s native (that seems to be the consensus from internet searches). In any case, it’s napping, not eating. Plus, that’s a marigold, which is one of nature’s pest controls.

The grass is, once again, up past my ankles. I need to go rinse off all the bug spray and check for the most fearsome creature of all: the deer tick.

Mini-garden project

I’ve had my eye on a spot in the front yard that gets a fair amount of sun, enough that I was tempted to try planting some sun-loving perennials. Most of our yard is far too shady for those (although we try; we still try).

Also, I thought the clump of hostas looked lonely.

Garden bed staked out
Garden bed with sheet mulch
Garden bed with fresh compost
Flower bed planted with perennials.

And one week later:

Garden bed with blooming purple and pink flowers

Once upon a time, those lonely hostas weren’t so lonely. The hosta beds lined the entire driveway on the left-hand side. Over the years, the soil compacted and wear and tear took their toll.

For my next project, I’m thinking of using the sheet-mulch method to line the area between this clump of hostas and the ones in the front of the house. The local garden center has some lovely spotted dead-nettle that might work nicely in that in-between space. It’s shady enough under the trees for it to be happy and sunny enough in the yard that it shouldn’t take over the entire space.

We’ll see how much energy I have for that.

In writing news, I completed what I wanted to on Rose’s portion for The Rose Rebellion, and now I’m moving on to The Marigold Miracle. I had one of those shower epiphanies this week on how to revise the opening, and I’m excited to dive in.

Well, hello there

Look who made a grand appearance this year:

Yellow and purple iris surrounded by purple flowers

Our iris has finally decided to bloom. After … three years, two? I can’t remember when we planted it.

The last two days have been incredible for gardening: high 50s and low 60s in the morning, with partly cloudy skies. I took it into my head to create another sheet-mulch mini-garden, which is what I’ve been doing for the last several hours.

I took some before-and-after photos that I hope to share later this week.

In related news, did you know that the best time to shop at Menards is around seven in the morning? Well, it is. The aisles are clear, mulch and compost stacked at the perfect height, and there’s no waiting in line. Also, everyone there is clearly in scheming mode and making grand plans.

This early-morning trek to Menards could become a (possibly bad) habit.

This and that

Garden this and that, in no particular order:

  • A buck has been skulking down by the pond, aggravating the dogs every time we go outside.
  • Relatedly, someone with hooves investigated the herb garden last night. They devoured one of the volunteer lettuces.
  • They left the herbs and marigolds alone. Since I don’t like lettuce, this is fine.
  • They also nibbled on the phlox and decided, like last year, it doesn’t taste all that great.
  • They left the newly planted blackberry bush alone.

Writing this and that:

15,000 words in Rose’s POV for The Rose Rebellion. I’m glad I listened to my intuition and didn’t dive into editing The Marigold Miracle. Several things came up this week that I need for that. So, for now, the printout of The Marigold Miracle will continue to sit on my desk, waiting patiently. 

Some garden pics:

Cottage garden in early spring

Current state of the cottage garden. Try to ignore the recycling bins and the Boler that needs a power wash.

Two white and pink peonies

The peonies, back for an encore.

Whimsy in the garden

Stone hedgehog and rain gauge by hosta plants.

Whimsy is maybe the watchword for the garden this year. Above is a stone hedgehog that used to live in my mother’s garden, along with a dachshund rain gauge. After all, if you’re going to have a rain gauge in your garden, make it a dachshund one.

Some things we’re trying:

  • An old-fashioned herb garden in the raised beds (inspired by a chapter in The Northern Gardener by Mary Lahr Schier).
  • A blackberry bush (we’ll see if it takes)
  • Carving out a few more corners for cottage-like pollinator gardens.
  • Possibly reclaiming a stretch of the lawn by the pond and returning it to native grasses and plants (this is ambitious, and I’m not sure it will happen this year).

I took some photos, but it’s cloudy today (you can tell that in the photo above). Everything looks rather dull, so I decided to hold off on sharing any more pictures for now.

And while I’ve been out lugging mulch and compost around (lots and lots of lugging), I’ve been writing. How, you ask.

Well, technically, not writing. I’ve been using text-to-speech to listen to The Pansy Paradox. I need that in my head as I revise book two and look forward to book three. Listening while working in the garden has been surprisingly enjoyable.

Sunshine and Shakespeare

Look at what we found in the yard. A Fivespot! A volunteer fivespot since we have no idea where it came from, and we haven’t been scattering wildflower seeds yet.

Volunteer Fivespot in the yard

Fivespots are annuals in Minnesota. Perhaps this little one self-seeded and somehow survived the brutal winter. If so, it’s resilient.

In any case, it was a nice surprise.

This week, I managed to combine my Shakespeare class and gardening. Part of the course includes studying an adaptation of one of the plays. This week, it’s The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, a retelling of The Winter’s Tale.

The library has the audio version, so I’ve been spending hours working in the garden while someone reads to me. It has been lovely.

In writing-related things, I’ve been doing some preliminary work on book three, The Rose Rebellion. There are things I need to know before I tackle revising The Marigold Miracle. Rose has presented her story to me as a series of sent and unsent letters.

Yes. Because I can’t make anything easy on myself. But I’m having so much fun writing these letters, and I’m hoping that I can (fingers crossed) make them work in the overall narrative.

Next week looks busy, what with an author workshop, but I’m hoping for more Shakespeare and sunshine nevertheless.