the once and future garden

In one final attempt to not utterly ruin the garden next season (as we have so spectacularly done, to date), Pd and I actually spent an afternoon taking care of it. Apparently things like it when you do that.

Pd weeded the entire patch of lawn. We don't actually have much of a lawn — it is maybe 50-feet square — and once it was verdant and green. We even mowed it and everything. But then there was a grass-frying heatwave, and it turned out that our outdoor hose has a blockage in it so we couldn't water, and then it all turned brown and dead. And then it became green again, but the green were opportunitistic weeds, not grass, and it's sort of ... stayed that way.

Anyway, now it's weedless and kind of sad looking, because instead of weeds it's just brown and dead, with clumps of dirt taken out of it. But we have hopes for the future! We will probably either seed or sod in the spring.


I planted the garlic. It's just an experiment right now, so six bulbs only, in a sunny spot I've staked out for my food plants (such as they are). I also planted 18 tulip bulbs in the front garden; three different kinds. They're staggered from early to late spring, so we'll see what happens. (I planted them kind of randomly. Honestly, I just planted a bunch of them where I'd pulled up weeds, because then there was already disturbed soil and a blank spot. It seemed as good a way to randomize as any.)

18 tulips sound like a lot, but it really isn't.

I trimmed my strawberry herb pot, and brough it indoors.


It fell over, when we were in Iceland, and wasn't watered, and I've basically let it slowly die. But it fared better than I thought it would, left to its own devices, so I thought I might as well salvage what I could. The sage, rosemary and oregano should be fine, and the bunching onions and garlic chives are reasonable. The tarragon was crushed by the sage and rosemary and is utterly gone, as is the basil. Really I am only doing this because I want fresh rosemary and oregano throughout the long winter.

And finally, the pièce de resistance:


I finally planted the strawberry plants, and do you see? Blossoms! Two of them! They won't turn into berries, not now; it's too cold. But still! I didn't think they would blossom at all, not after all the neglect and mold problems, but voilà!

They may not survive the winter. I decided to plant them because, at this point, what have I got to lose? Either I throw them out now, or they die over the winter; what's the difference? So I planted five of the stronger-looking ones, with the healthiest leaves; that was all I had room for. In theory these are annuals, unless they send out runners (which I did not see), so they may just die back and never return. But they are also in front of the rhubarb (which we never did harvest) — the sunniest, happiest corner of the garden, so we shall see.