Note To Future Self

This little elf has been busy on his projects. But as a sub-sub-contractor he’s more than willing to go over-time and over-budget.

So the big Elf Christmas-like project is still not done. However, as a reward for pottering in the shed for weeks on end, resource consent was granted for a massive bookshelf, which I didst recently complete.

OK, it’s not like a completely redid the bathroom, but I for one am happy about another 4.2 linear meters of book carrying capacity…

teetering very close to my side of the bed…

uh, in an earthquake zone.

… is coming

The nighttime temps are dropping, and I still have lots of green tomatoes on the vine. Sigh. No tomatogeddon this year I’m afraid.

My soccer game on sunday was called after 80 bone-numbing minutes when the freezing rain turned to hail, so it’s fair to say that winter has officially started.

However, I’ve been a bit behind in my blogging, so here’s one last taste of summer…
This was our front flower bed in march last year

and in march this year. I guess those two weekends we spent digging for dinosaurs were worth it.

I say, dearest. Do you remember back in 2008 when our living room was that horrible grey color?

With that ghastly modern art on the walls…

Then there was that lovely spring weekend we spent repainting it a different horrible grey color…

and you insisted on painting one wall with the blood of our defeated enemies…

No, me neither. But for some reason my arms are really tired.

p.s. The title of the post? Monday was Labour Day, a national holiday. It took a three-day weekend to get the project completed. Yes, we’re nesting. You should see the to-do list.

Forsythia and Rhododendrons are both icons of spring.I have a soft spot for both of them. Rhododendrons remind me of Swat and portland.There was a big bank of Forsythia outside the naval observatory in madison, so I always feel a bit homesick when I see them. However, the logic that would plant them next to each other … escapes me.

The first harvest of the season. mmm. Rhubarb crumble.

oh, and since Aaron posted such a nice picture of me last time, here’s one of him

In the immortal words of Jim Anchower: Hola, amigos. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but we’ve been on the busy side for a couple of weeks. Lots more of the usual travelogue and photo junk on the horizon, I’m afraid. I actually put Anna on a plane back to the States a week ago, and look what I’ve done with my time: zilch.

Well, not exactly nothing. We’re well into fall down on this end of the earth, and I’ve been scrambling to finish up our summer vegetable business before the frosts swoop in and turn it all to mush. In a word, tomatoes.

We made the rookie mistake (again) of planting far too many plants, far too densely.

Before Anna’s trip we survived round one, converting tomatoes to chili sauce (relish).

But in Anna’s absence, I’ve been left home alone with the garden. Gulp. Every day after work, I walk through the garden and pick … and pick … and pick.

And when I can’t see the kitchen table, I think of something to do with the darned things. This time around: pasta sauce.

Roasted garden vegetable pasta sauce.

Hot diggity. About two gallons so far.

In closing, here are a couple of scenes from our late-fall garden.

One of the best things about our house is that its previous owner was an avid gardener who liked to plant one of everything. We’ve got asparagus, rhubarb, peaches, apples, gooseberries, black currants and the most glorious display of snowdrops and grape hyacinths I’ve ever seen.

The worst thing about our house is that its previous owner was an avid gardener who liked to plant one of everything. In our front yard, clockwise from the corner of the house, we have a climbing rose (pink), a lilac (white), a camellia (fuchsia), a pieris japonica (mostly dead), a butterfly bush (deep purple), some random bush that blooms for months (blush pink), a large rhododendron (pink), another lilac (lilac), a witch hazel, a forsythia, an azalea (magenta), another rhody (also pink), a kowhai, a hebe (lavender), a blooming cherry with red foliage, a rose (cerise), hollyhocks (dark pink, magenta and pale pink), 3 or four peonies (peony), a large standard rose (mauve) and five shrub roses up against the house (shell, coral, cream, its-a-girl pink and lipstick).

To be fair, the previous occupant did try and temper things by under-planting everything with calendulas (blaze orange).

In late spring, when they’re all blooming, it feels like we live inside someone’s grandma’s underpants. Then, just when I think I’m going to have to bleach a jolly roger in the lawn or die of shame, they all finish and leave me with this …

Its not completely scorched earth, I do like that bed of dahlias in the corner

but the front bed is what people see as they walk past.
Its so full of bulbs that I can’t just throw some summer annuals in there because every trowel thrust cleaves at least one bulb. Really. Every time. So, naturally, I started hatching schemes for digging up the whole bed as soon as the first frost knocked everything back. There’s just one problem:

Yeah, that’s right. The tomatoes are rotting on the vine and my spring bulbs have sprouted.

Help!

All I can thing to do is scatter seeds or small bulbs (glads? more dahlias?) on the surface and dump some compost on top and hope that the bulbs can grow up through it.

Any ideas? please?