Celebrate giving Life. Pull Weeds. Pick Fruit. Plan Gangsta Birdies Demise. Laugh maniacally.

Marty the Monk
facing east at the entrance of the herb garden

Fifteen years ago this evening, the oldest of my two sons was brought forth into this world. Like most teenagers now-a-days he pretty much spent the day eating and taking long luxurious naps.
He well knows that if it was any other day he would have been outside right along with the rest of us.

Tonight is also going to one of the coolest since mid-April, around the upper 40's. With about a month left of the growing season I decided to start cleanup while I have the inclination and energy. It makes fall a whole lot easier to deal with before the first hard frost comes in to try and kill off and turn everything to mulch as much and as fast as possible.

Starting with the herb garden which was the first to come into action during the spring I pulled the garlic, trimmed the sage of its seeds and pretty much wiped out whatever weeds that did not belong there.

I let the garlic go to seed this year. I happen to love the stuff, eat copious amounts of it and spend a pretty penny every fall buying more to plant. This year I decided to let it go to seed. The bulbs and cloves are smaller as a result of doing that , since the energy goes to the flowering tops and seeds instead of the bulbs to make them bigger. They way I eat the stuff it would not matter how big they are anyway.

With these I will be planting all over the property with them just to see how they do and see them naturalize themselves to the elements and the area in which they are sowed in. And I will not run out as fast either.


























The next battle in the Mini-orchard has began. My peach tree (one of three) in the middle of the mini-orchard next to the pear tree has been hit by a particularly greedy bunch of "Gangsta Birdie" blue jays. It would not be too bad if they ate the entire fruit. But they peck and peck at one side of it. Just when you think you have a nice piece of fruit and you grab at it from a blind angle, you find that you have a half eaten mess on your hands...literally. Even the squirrels have better manners than that. At least they take the fruit off the tree and eat most of it.

I got some nice peaches off the tree though. They will go well with some ice cream that we will be having this evening after dinner. The pears still have a few more weeks to go...if they make it to then. The birds are getting to them too.

These red grapes are excellent eating and will be ready in about a week or so. On my grape arbor I have a mixture of wild grapes, domestic red grapes and bella donna (which is highly poisonous to humans) Fortunately all three stand out so that the differences are clearly visible, and tends to remind us that even in nature there is good and bad mixed into everything. The birds miss the grapes and get everything else. See? Everyone wins.












Sometimes you just have to take a picture of flowers with a child standing in front to them. My apprentice here sowed the seeds of the sunflowers in June and is so happy that they are finally starting to bloom. I bought a sunflower mixture so that they are coming up in all shapes, sizes and hues. The one he is standing in front of is his favorite if only because it bloomed first.


Until next time may all your gardening adventures continue to be fruitful ones!