aWorkingWell-Gardening

April 14, 2008 - There
were many bees in my pear
tree today. Bees are harder
to photograph than I had
thought. Treating them as if
they were birds doesn't
quite work. As you can see,
the bee in the photo at right
is not as obvious as a bird
would be, and this is with
the image showing at 100%,

Last year I felt so lucky if I
saw more than one bee in an
hour. Today there were
dozens at one time in my
pear tree. :)

I even planted borage for them last year -- it's touted as their favorite flower. But
they hardly paid any attention to it, whereas they nuzzled into the dandelions in a
true display of love. I found one little one that must have been out too late and
been overtaken by the cold of the night or sheer exhaustion, because it was
curled up, asleep on a dandelion in the morning.

When he kept saying how the tree was on his property, while he was leaning far
over the fence to cut it, he reminded me so much of President Bush and Vice
President Cheney saying there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, when
there were not.

I asked him if he was a
Republican, and he said it was
none of my business.

But I felt as if he was, as if he
didn't care that he'd raised the
temperature in this area of our
neighborhood. I felt that he
didn't believe in global warming,
that if it was something that
didn't profit him, he didn't care
about it.

I asked him if he had stock in
Halliburton. He had begun to look to me as if he would enjoy profiting from the
war in Iraq, from destruction and lies.

I was glad the tree had badly cracked one of his urns when it fell.

Mushrooms are an after-the-rain-in-the-fall
kind of thing. One description said, "after a
thunderstorm." I love mushrooms, so when I
found this 6 inch wide, white mushroom in my
garden I was tempted to fry it up. But, that didn't
seem wise. Instead I went to a mushroom forum
and showed them my pictures.

It turns out that some big white
mushrooms are the most deadly
mushrooms of all. So, I had to do
a spore print.

When the spores were chocolate
brown, I was on the right track to
having an edible mushroom. The
fact that the gills don't attach straight to the stem is
another characteristic of this edible mushroom. But,
by now it had spoiled.

So, when I saw Portobello mushrooms to grow in the house I had to order them.
The tiny mushrooms have just come up and are darling, if I do say so myself.
This picture is of one of the many groups of little Portobellos. It looks a little
cloud-like... and cloudy because I took the picture through the plastic tent. But,
aren't they cute? My mouth is watering. Seriously.

5/31/06 My garden is a tad uninspired
right now, I'll be the first to admit it.

There would be waist high grass, if it weren't
for me walking in a great circle around my
garden over and over again, to build up
strength.
This part of my garden is a corner under the
Ponderosa. I hardly looked at it because it
was so completely not beautiful. But, now
that I've been walking there every day, I
know this is a very cool, temperature wise,
part of my garden. So...

In March or April, after I received a Dharma catalog in the mail, I know no
reason why, I began to think about how neat it would be to have a calming
statue set among ferns under the Ponderosa. I thought ferns might grow, despite
this being high DESERT, because of how cool it is.

Thinking that I should raise the back corner so that the ferns would be higher, as
if they were on a little hill, and so that I could have other plants beneath them, I
collected the red cinder block edging (that I hated) and arranged it to protect the
fence bottom a bit; then I put stones on top of the edging. You can just see the
stones. I filled the area with Russian vine clippings, leaves and dried grass that
had overgrown my yard last year when I had a tetanus relapse and I couldn't do
anything outside.

As I dug beds in other areas for the plants I wanted to order, I used some of the
dirt to cover the leaves and grass. I'm thinking the leaves and grass will compost
into a moisture holding material. (I would have rescued some fishing night
crawlers from Wal*Mart, because they do such a dynamite job of eating up
leaves, but I was afraid I might crush them if I was still working on the area and
was stepping on it.)

6/15/06 This is way more exciting than it looks.

It's my asparagus bed, in the making. (I just ordered
seeds, given how well the Bio Dome is working.)

And, it's 12.5 feet more garden than I had before --
see, this is a narrow, triangular corner of my garden
that's hard to do anything with; so I've used it as a
compost area ever since I bought my home about 16
years ago.

I've just dug the compost pile down, so it's not as
obvious as before. It used to start at the reddish rock
just above the hole, so you can see I was giving it a lot
of space.

so early in the morning."That's the song that continues, "A penny for a spool of
thread, a penny for a needle -- That's the way the money goes, pop goes the
weasel." I didn't know that the song wasn't about a little animal, a weasel, that it
was about having to pawn the shoe making tool called a "weasel."

I wonder if it would be wise to not let kids get attached to songs about poverty...

Meaning: I wonder if I had liked a song about wealth if I would have had a
wealthy life. The thing is, I've had a rich life: When I lived in London I was able
to walk from my home in the derelict building (or equally from my home on the
preserved historic street next to Regent's Canal a few years earlier) past The
Eagle. In the song, part of the lyrics go, "in and out The Eagle." It was the exact
pub from the song, I was told. I loved England because of how beautiful it is in
the way you can see the work of people over centuries and centuries. So, it was
a part of my rich life to live in England, and if a song about poverty is what
made it happen, sort of like an answer to a prayer, then I am delighted.

7/16/06 I like to sit in my cool corner and give my burdens to the
Angel of Divine Love. I attached a necklace my cousin sent me some years
ago to my fence, to give me something to remind me of the Angel of Divine
Love. It's been working quite well.

I have felt scared so much for the last several years, for
several reasons to include the foreclosures and court things,
as well as the tetanus which was terrifying when the muscle
seizures happened because they were so extremely painful.
They made me understand how torture could make anyone
say anything to stop the pain. My point, however, is that by
giving my burdens to the Angel of Divine Love, I have
regained some peace. (I hope the primroses come back.
I was sad they disappeared. Primroses are said to spring up
where there is love. I used to feel love for the earth and people and America and
so many many things. But the pain has taken over, and that's not good. I want
to get back to feeling love, not pain.)

7/20/06 I took this picture
this morning shortly after
dawn. The thing is, this is
how my cool, shady corner is
in my mind.

When I'm stressed by
something, like the court
things, and I think about my
cool corner, this is how it
beckons to me in my mind.

During the day, the sun
outside my shady corner is
hot and parching, the shade
under the ponderosa pine is
not nearly so deep, and the
morning glories have retired,
but the haven quality remains.

9/6/06 I've had so much trouble walking that digging and working in my
garden wasn't an option. I think the pain that caused my legs to all but buckle
under me is from the stress related to my condo. I got better when the
bankruptcy judge denied my motion to reopen my Chapter 13, but said I could
do an adversary proceeding against Deutsche Bank and its lawyer for violation of
the automatic stay. (He isn't saying the violation existed, he's saying I can bring
the case to court.)

I could barely get to the chair in my calm and lovely corner. But, knowing that it
was there was enjoyable.

Now, everything is overgrown except for the small but lovely corner. But, I filed
an appeal in the state case that foreclosed my condo and sold it without any
notice to me. I found errors in it, Again. But at least it is filed.

9/26/06 In June I was picturing lots
of zinnias. But now, when summer is
past, there's only one.
Not much of my garden is the way I
pictured it. In June there was so much
time ahead of me that it didn't seem
like a problem that I can do so little at
one time. One shovelful, I thought,
adds up over a few days. And in truth I
got a lot done at the rate of one or two
shovelfuls at a time.

The thing is, there were times I had
trouble walking. So there were periods
when I didn't do even the small amount
I was counting on.

I've been depressed, looking at my
garden, and seeing how much it's not
what I had planned.

But when I focus on
the zinnia I am
thankful I planted it
and it came up and
flowered.

*** If you are thinking you would like to do a bit of a garden, there's a neat
program from Microsoft called OneNote where you can put pictures and things
together really easily. You just have to drag things from web pages, you don't
even have to copy and paste. It came on my new computer, so I don't know
how much it would be to buy. Later -- All of the pages disappeared and there
was no way to get them back! NOT my favorite!

I used OneNote to study the different plants that I wanted, to become familiar
with what the plants wanted. It was good for that, but from my trial period
experience with it, I sure wouldn't buy it.

6/3/06 Now that I've chosen Rosy
Summersweet and Fothergilla Blue
Mist for the cool, shady corner, I'm
rethinking the would-be compost.

Though the catalog says Rosy
Summersweet "will grow in just about
any soil," I decided to move the compost
makings, dig a hole, put the makings into
it in layers with dirt, and build up the
area above with dirt, steer manure and
peat moss. That way I'll be planting into
rich dirt rather than a tangle of vine
stems and dirt.

But I can only do about three spadefuls
before my muscles tighten, so this is
taking a bit long. I think it's worth while,
though. (I was surprised to see that the
leaves in the debris pile had composted
already. The vines and twigs were not so
quick, so I think this will be good.)

6/10/06 I guess because of my brain damage, I was a little unclear on
which plants would arrive as plants, and which as seeds. Because I've always
bought my creeping thyme as little plants, I was expecting what I was familiar
with. But seeds arrived. Inside the packet was a small wax paper packet with a
trace of something in it.... apparently that trace was a hundred seeds.

I tried planting about a quarter of them in a small container, but nothing seemed
to happen.

So, I ordered Park's Bio-Dome. It arrived yesterday, I planted something in each
of the 60 cells, and today the two rows of Statice are already sprouting. I'm
going to take a picture of it, because if you have kids, this is really instantaneous
results and I bet they'd love it.

2/21/07 I've been wondering if someone should have warned me what it's
like two months down the road from the happy, anticipatory days of planting in
Bio Domes.

I was thinking, "Echinacea, delfinium, Irish moss, astilbe, pansy, foxglove, salvia
blue queen and thyme (to start)" when I blithely got more Bio Domes and put
seeds in about 180 cells. It was so exciting I completely overlooked the "180"
part of it.

As they sprouted and I matched them to my layout map to see what was coming
up first, they were flourishing, compact and so fun. But... it soon became clear
that my January indoor garden was crying out for more root room. At which
point I opted for tallish, red, beverage cups... and the 180 part of it struck me.

The wooden boxes, as an aside,
were a wonderful way to hide all
my extra sponges, my seed
selection and my tools. (I have a
few very handy plaster of Paris
trowels that I use to get the little
plants out of the white cells.)

I've transplanted a few of the
perennials outside, and they are
doing very well. But I don't have
the beds ready for all of these, so
this is how my little planting table
looks now.

(Maybe it's messy, but it makes
me smile.)

2/21/07 The door blew off my Mason Bee home during the winter. I just
found it the other day. I wasn't able to walk very well toward the end of fall, so I
hadn't been outside in quite a long time. When I saw all the straws exposed, the
straws are made out of cardboard and are larger than soda straws, I wondered if
they had been ruined.

Surprisingly, they looked fine except for
grass that seemed to have blown into
several of them. By whacking the straws
on the side of a crock pot that had broken
in the cold, I was able to empty the straws
quite easily, except for one. One was so
tightly full of grass and bits of weed that
I had to whack it over and over again,
growing ever more amazed that the wind
could have driven the weeds into the
corkscrew shapes that came out.

But then a shape came out that was like
a flying creature of some sort that was in a cocoon. My heart sank. I had been
told that the bees would not use my house last year because I put it up too late.
Yet here was this poor cocoon... not really a cocoon, more like a translucent
envelope around the shape of a flying insect.

If shaking a baby hurts it, then all the whacking must have been horrible for the
poor bee, if it is a bee. I put it back into the straw and put the door back on.
Gosh, I felt so bad, and still do. I bet the mother bee put all the grass and weeds
inside the straws for her baby, to keep it warm. Maybe it would have been a
queen Mason Bee and I would have had lots of wonderful bees in my garden.

I hope I haven't jinxed my Mason Bee homes.

I'm posting the picture today because when
I was outside this morning I saw two of
them... and they looked really happy with
each other. I wish I had a picture of the
two of them flying playfully together.

Last year I failed to take a picture of the
chocolate colored caterpillar that was eating
one of my grape vines. I should have. I'm
pretty sure it was related to these. (Or, I
like to think so.)

There's a special kind of plant these
butterflies are said to really like, and I have
them. But they aren't up yet.

March 25, 2007 - Cut and torn away is
the bough that supported the wall of vines
and flowers above my shady corner. My
garden is so much louder without it. There
is a major road not far away, and without
the vines and tree boughs the noise
bombards into my garden.

It made me ache to see the man saw into
the bough, then break it with a great tearing
gash. He said it was keeping the sun out of
his garden. I said I'd planted a shade
garden. When I looked over the fence, his
garden is mainly cement, gravel and
architectural urns.

3/30/07 - Joy! I was just thinking that it's hard to continue believing in God
when so many bad things happen. Judge Pfeffer just dismissed my appeal
without granting me the extensions I requested by motion as an accommodation
of my disability. It is discrimination for him to do that. But I'm so tired and I've
been so sick since the lawyer asked for a hearing without letting me respond, that
I began to wonder what had made me believe there could be a basic Goodness in
the universe. God.

I went outside, because I was thinking that maybe if I could break away from the
power I've given to the state district court, I wouldn't be feeling so bad. I was
supposed to have surgery on my jaw for an infection around my old dental
implants, but I postponed it because of the court case and believing the court
would not give me a continuance. But then the woman who was supposed to
give me a ride to the later appointment went out of town on family matters and I
had to postpone again. And I've been so sick, and stressed by the court things
and being denied the due process that is supposed to be my right.

Okay, so I went outside, it's a cold grey day, and just sat in my chair on my
deck, soaking in the day. Being outside was lifting my spirits, and I wondered if
the Christmas roses would have bloomed a whole three months the way it said
they would, if I had deadheaded them. I went to my shady corner to take a look
at whether or not they were doing seeds.

When I was finished looking at them, and their very noteworthy seeds, I
wondered whether the man who cut down the tree boughs had found the note I'd
thrown over the fence, that had landed near his cement porch. I looked over the
fence and saw that it wasn't there any more.

I decided to sit in my shady corner for a bit, and was focusing on how my Jack
Frost is getting ready to flower, when I saw two stones I hadn't noticed before. I
went to take a look, and they were mushrooms.

Totally beautiful mushrooms. I wish I'd cut
them off instead of pulling them up, because
there were more little mushrooms around the
base of their stems. When I saw the little
mushrooms I took the base out and put it back
where I'd found the mushrooms, and covered
it with some earth and leaves. You can see two
of the little mushrooms in this picture.

I just cannot tell you how happy this makes
me, and how sure I am that the judge is not
very important in the full measure of things.

6/6/06 The bare root plants arrived this evening. They are quite
different than I expected. About a dozen plants arrived in one small box. I had
been so worried I wouldn't be able to carry the plants in, imagining that they
would be very heavy. But this small box was light, filled with packing popcorn,
and once opened didn't seem to contain any plants. I had to burrow through the
packing material to find them. Some were long, egg roll looking things, with
strings of wood where in cuisine you would find bean sprouts. Inside these,
once the saran wrapping was taken off, there were very naked little plants,
indeed. But with hopeful sprouting bits.

I'm glad I used the OneNote program (see footnote below ***) to plan where
everything would go, and keep track of the beds I had prepared. Whew! I was
able to immediately take the plants to their new homes. And, there was a light
rain, which I bet the plants are loving.

I did make a mistake with the bed for the lilies-of-the-valley, though: I didn't
add very much decayed manure. The instructions that came with the plant said
it likes decayed manure. I was thinking grandpa never put manure over his bed,
so I only faintly added any. Wouldn't you know it, there's so much I can't
remember, then the thing I remember is wrong for the occasion.

Equally, I may have too much manure in the Creeping Wintergreen bed. The
soil looks a lot blacker than the soil in the other beds. My plan is to watch the
plant, which will be really easy because it is so cute -- it has one red berry. (It
wasn't "bare root.") If it starts to yellow or look distressed in any way, I can
take it up and amend the soil. At least, that's my plan.

I didn't post a picture of the bed under one of the pear
trees, nor the gladiolus bed adjacent. I'll put pictures
here when the plants begin to come up.

The neat thing was that when I dug the small hole for
the Coral Bells, there were lots of earth worms.

In most of my garden there is nary a worm. I don't
know whether that's because my tenants were
bug-spray happy, or because it's been so dry.

In any case, I put a container of Wal*Mart night
crawlers under the pear where I hoped they would turn
the fallen leaves into castings.

Then I put several inches of manure, peat moss and
clay earth over the whole area, hoping it would be to
the worms liking. I guess it was. (If these little earth
worms were babies.)

I'm planting a Harlem Poppy in front of the gladiolus.
I'm hoping it looks good. (Once in London I thought a
flowered skirt would look good with a striped blouse; I
was so wrong.)

March 22, 2008 - It's nearly a year since I lost the shade for my shady corner. I
sure missed having my quiet meditation spot after the leaves were gone and the
noise was loud from the highway not far away.

I've been having a hard time focusing hope on my garden. Last year I had all my
seedlings well under way when PNM shut off my heat and lights and they all
died. I planted them all again, but without the indoor DayLight lamps and
controlled environment they mostly languished rather than flourished.

Now, I am facing foreclosure again, and it's hard to not be worried. I hope I am
still in my home this fall... but whether I will be is unknown. So, it's been hard to
focus on my garden, hard not to feel scared.

Then, yesterday I wondered if any of my daffodils from last year were going to

have flowers this year. It seems like all the
daffodils I plant bloom one year, then do no
more than foliage forever after.

I planted these daffodils under my ponderosa
where sunlight hits the many fallen needles most
of the day. I put potting soil around the bulbs
before I realized that its moisture holding pellets
were not good for bulbs -- all my bulbs planted
that way in pots died, though admittedly the pots
were cadmium glazed. The pellets appear to have
culled only some of these daffodils.

In the same way I didn't see how bad my old
deck was until I saw a picture I took of it, I didn't
realize how sparse my daffodils were and how
straggly the surrounding "landscaping" was.

March 23, 2008 - It must be a lot drier this year,
or else this is the effect of not watering last year
after the beginning of October when they shut
my water off for a day and I hurt my back and
couldn't move without extreme pain.

There was pretty much snow during the winter,
but maybe the preceding months without water
were too much for the grasses and plants. My
Creeping Wintergreen looks dead, and so do a lot
of other plants, but maybe the others are dormant
for the winter. The Creeping Wintergreen is an
evergreen, so I think it is really not alive.

So far what I've done is put a rock by each
clump of daffodils and spread dirt mixed with
peat moss over the pine needles to even out the
look and to make them compost. Plus, I took
some of the compost from my avocado in the
living room and put it in a large Whey Protein jar
with water from my algae thick Britta pitcher and
I shook it for a count of 300 to mix up the micro
organisms, then I watered the dirt covered
needles with the mixture which I hope is "pro
biotic" rich for the soil.

I also planted a lot of seeds that I had for plants
that I love. They are all the ones I had last year
(shown above), but many of which died after my
heat and lights were turned off on April 4, San

April 12, 2008 - My daffodils are looking good and I'm inspired to believe that I
will be able to keep my home and garden. So, I'm going to see about ordering a
few more plants and possibly bulbs for my garden. (that feels really good.)

April 13, 2008 - The picture from yesterday shows that the changes I've made
since March 23 don't make as much visual difference as I imagine. Except that
the raised bed behind the bird's water dish is much darker because I raised it and
added a lot of darker earth so
that I can plant some blue
geraniums there, that I've
already ordered. I doubt
they will bloom this year,
though.

This fall I'm going to plant
chionodoxa to the left of the
stones. Chionodoxa are the most
charming flowers I have ever
seen. I just love them. Here is a
picture of some of the ones
under my pear tree.

I ordered some plants two weeks ago, but I can't remember what I ordered. I
just have to trust I ordered things that will be good for this location. I want to
order some more things, but I also don't want to reorder what I already ordered
and I have a hard time keeping it straight.

April 19, 2008 - When I was taking pictures of the bees I noticed that the grass
in front of the chair I sit in to shake the compost tea, three hundred pretty sturdy

after the requisite shaking I changed to the sprinkler cover and shook the tea
onto my raspberries and several other groups of plants.

I am so eager to see how this works.

To make the tea I put about three heaping tablespoonfuls of compost from the
pot with my poor avocado that appears to have succumbed to the cold in my
living room, into the Whey jar and fill it about three quarters full with water from
my Brita pitcher that is coated with algae. Then I take it outside, sit in the chair
and shake it three hundred times.

The compost is from leaves, fruit peels, apples and pears that went bad,
watermelon rind, scraps of fish and meat, a dead black widow, some spider
webs, dead flies and moths, and coffee grounds -- all things I thought would
make a richly bio-diverse compost similar to what would occur in nature if
everything were left to enrich the earth, rather than thrown neatly away.

Then, because the humus in Secrets of the Soil is created by aging cow dung in
cow horns buried in the earth, I seasoned the beginning mixture with probiotics
dissolved in warm water. I have pictures on my avocado page.

shakes, is much greener than anywhere else. Since
I water it all about the same amount, my guess is
that the drops of compost tea that escape while I'm
shaking are fertilizing the grass they land on
enough to make the difference.

I wouldn't think that would be possible except that
in Secrets of the Soil it describes making a very
particular compost tea and spraying it on a
relatively vast field, so that the concentration is
tiny. But, the book says, the results are a startling
increase in fertility.

Before I noticed how green this particular patch of
grass was, I was shaking up compost tea and
pouring a whole Whey bottle full for each set of
plants. Now, wondering if just a small spray would
work, and since I don't have much compost, I
made holes in a second cover to the Whey jar and