Some things I am enjoying right now:

::Lilacs::

It’s a good lilac year. It was warming up a couple weeks ago, so they grew and bloomed quickly, but then it cooled down and got rainy, so they’ve been lasting longer than usual.

::Book Recommendations::

Modern Mrs. Darcy and her What Should I Read Next podcast

I’m going through a bit of a reading lull at the moment

, but listening to episodes of this podcast is helping to get me enthused about reading again.

::Organization::

Bullet Journaling

I’ve always been on the lookout for the perfect planner, I’ve tried all the apps, and I have lists on bits of paper scattered all over. I think Bullet Journaling is the perfect solution for me. Sometimes I have to-do lists a mile long, but sometimes keeping a calendar seems like overkill for my relatively peaceful life. With a bullet journal I can adjust it as needed. So far I’m finding it helpful to use a page for a weekly spread, rather than daily pages. I also love having a place to keep lists of projects I want to do, and books to read, and recipes I want to try. I even keep a post-it on my current weekly page to use for listing groceries I need to buy. It’s as simple or as complicated as I need it to be, I think it’s really genius!

::Beautiful Knitting::

My next new knitting project is going to be this beautiful Waiting for Rain Shawl. I have some Lakes Yarn in Fernan Merino Fingering in a pretty silver-green color. I am not allowing myself to cast on until I’m finished with two other projects first. This is highly motivating, however, and I hope to get to this within the week.

One morning last week I went out to feed the chickens, and I could feel autumn in the air. It was so exciting. Spring is my favorite season, but autumn is a close second. I have enjoyed this summer, though, and while I didn’t do much making of the sewing or knitting, or even cooking variety, I was quite happy to do some growing.

I’ve said before that I’ve not had much luck with gardening in the past, but I think I made a good decision to stick with mostly container gardening on the porch this summer. Not everything thrived, but some things did really well, and others are still hanging on. These guys have been happy all summer, and grew like weeds. I had a spider mite infestation affect nearly everything, so with the recommendation of a lady at a local nursery I sprayed once with Captain Jack’s Deadbug, and that took care of the problem for the rest of the summer. The only other special product I used was EB Stone Organic Sure Start; whenever I brought home and re-potted a new plant, I sprinkled a little of that on the soil and then watered it in. Otherwise, I just watered regularly and things grew like magic. It’s been crazy!

I amassed a nice little succulent collection, most of which I will bring inside for the winter. I think if you’re a novice gardener, they’re a good place to start. I pretty much just watered them once a week, and didn’t lose a single one. Just be warned, they can be addicting, and whenever you’re at a nursery you’ll have to take just one more home.

Here are a my biggest succulents, and violas for the fall, and the biggest surprise of all, my fairy garden is still alive and growing.

So

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, what didn’t work out? I had some petunias in a hanging basket, and they were hanging on but not growing a whole lot, until this last week when they decided to pack it in. I don’t know if it’s just too cold for them now that it’s in the 40s at night, or if they didn’t get enough water (the coco fiber lining didn’t hold onto the water very well), but they’ve just shriveled up. My dream of a basket spilling with petunias didn’t quite materialize.

The zinnias I planted along with a pale green sedum didn’t ever grow either, so I pulled them out once the blooms faded. Some little critter has been nibbling on that sedum, and completely devoured my opal basil. The two regular basil plants on the other side of the porch we untouched, so I don’t know what the appeal of the other plants might have been.

I might never be a master gardener, but I think my thumb got just a little greener this year. I’ve even got a couple houseplants that have been alive for more than two weeks. I still want to grow a massive vegetable garden one day, but for now I’m feeling like I did just fine, and that is good enough.

I decided to simplify around here a bit and re-designed this old site again. There are still some things to fix, like some font inconsistencies, and that weird Read More button on the bottom of every post. Frankly, however, I’m not sure when I’ll get to those things because it’s still summer and I spend eight hours a day in a windowless office staring at a computer screen, so I haven’t really wanted to look at my computer when I’m home. I’d rather be outside while it’s still light and warm in the evening. I hope you won’t mind too much. Yawn! I am boring myself with this site design talk, let’s move on to something I think is more interesting (although you may still find this post yawn worthy, so sorry!).

My limited success with my container gardening on the porch has sent me down a gardening rabbit-hole, and I have recently become enamored with tillandsias, also known as air plants. They’re from the bromeliad family, and don’t have roots, so they don’t require soil. In fact, they require very little care other than occasionally spraying or dunking in water. I started out picking up the little guy in the middle (aka tillandsia aeranthos) at Home Depot for $5. It stayed alive for a week, so when I saw the one just above it on another Home Depot trip, I thought it’s bulbous shape and long skinny fronds were interesting (it’s called tillandsia butzii). So it came home with me too.

Then I learned that Spanish moss is actually also a tillandsia (tillandsia bergerii), and decided then and there that I was officially a tillandsia collector.  I added another tillandsia aeranthos, only a much bigger version (top right), but what I really wanted was a Tillandsia xerographica (bottom right). These are big and bold, with broader leaves that curl slightly as they get longer. When I spotted this one at a local nursery, I had to splurge and add it to the collection too. It’s the size of a melon!

Now I need to figure out where I want to keep them all, and how to display them. Right now they’re on (or hanging from) the shelf above my desk

, but I think they’d like a little more light, so I may put them in the bathroom where they might also benefit from the moisture of the steam when we shower. Or they might end up in the kitchen by a sunny window. And next on my list: tillandsia tectorum. There are some nice containers and terrariums for air plants at that link too.

So that is your botany lesson for today.

I finally made my little fairy garden this weekend. I used a poorly constructed (by me) box from scraps of wood from an old, weathered fence that fell over a few years ago. And then I thought I’d practice with my nifty 50 lens and take some artistically dreamy photos.

That might not have been the best idea

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, since I still don’t know what I’m doing or how to capture what I want.

Well, it is a fairy’s eye view I guess.  How about an iPhone photo of the whole thing?

Well, bad photos aside, it was a lot of fun to collect small plants and garden accessories and design a garden for the imaginary wee folk. Winston wonders when they are going to show up, so he can eat them.

This succulent (and other plants) gardening thing might become an addiction. Luckily , I think it’s a pretty healthy one. I decided to go big and brought home this lovely thing a few days ago – it’s about 10 inches across. I’m reading Succulents Simplified in an attempt to learn how to best care for all these plants I keep buying, and even attempting to remember the Latin names. I believe this guy is a Dudleya Pulverulenta (aka chalk lettuce). Like always, I have a whole board dedicated to just succulents.

I love the way succulents are like sculptures. I’m enjoying the creativity of putting plants together in little arrangements that are pleasing to start with, but with patience, eventually become something lusher and richer. I think this pot needs something to creep over the edge to finish it off, some kind of sedum, probably.

Now if you’ll excuse me

, I have to go water some plants.

I think it’s pretty obvious that I like flowers. I also like vegetables, and I love the idea of a garden. I have tried a few times to turn the back corner of our property into a vegetable garden, without success. Despite the fact that this is Southern California, the elevation (4000 feet) at which we live makes for harsh conditions in the garden.

Our last frost date is Memorial Day, so that means there are few vegetables that I can plant outdoors before June. One year, I waited patiently for that last weekend in May, and then filled my 4′ x 8′ raised bed with just as many plants as I could. And then we have several frosty nights well into June, which reduced most everything to a black, shriveled mess.

Undeterred, the next year I tried again, although I was less ambitious, and didn’t plant quite as much. Each day I faithfully watered my little vegetables, and every day it seemed like there were fewer plants. The soil itself seemed undisturbed, but a plant that I swore had been there the day before was suddenly missing. A closer inspection revealed very faint animal tracks, probably a rabbit or squirrel. Whatever it was, it made tidy work of eating my tender plants right down to the ground and letting nothing go to waste. Whatever little beast it was, it eventually ate everything.

This year, I had to move the geese out to that back garden pen, because they were beating up on my chickens, so there will be no attempt at a vegetable garden this year. Instead I’ve decided to focus on container gardening, and so far, I am enjoying much better results.

So far there has been only one casualty. I originally had a purple and white lisianthus in the middle pot, above. The day after I repotted it, the whole thing just keeled over. I have no idea why. I thought I’d try to return it, so I removed it back to the pot it came in, and it perked up a little. I don’t know if it will recover completely, but I guess it liked it’s cramped plastic pot better than my pretty, roomy, distressed terra cotta pot. I replaced it with this geranium, and I actually like this whole arrangement so much better.

I love the tiny flowers, and the silvery grey-green foliage.

I know it’s all about the porch all the time around here, but I’m so happy with how it is coming together, and it is where I spend most of my time when I am home. All my pots of herbs and flowers and succulents are what make it feel so lush and special to me, and shockingly, nearly everything seems happy and is growing.

I got really ambitious and even added a dwarf kumquat, which will move inside this fall. I am going to try really hard to keep it alive. And the Silver Falls hanging just above is one of my favorite things. It’s just in the ugly plastic pot it came it, so I need to find something pretty to put it in. Luckily, the plant covers most of the pot, so I hardly notice it.

Pulley is hanging out in my new seating area. I want to make a cover for the cushions on the love seat, and a new slipcover for the ottoman, so I’m not going to bore you with too many pictures of that area. I hope to have a really dramatic before and after post once I get that stuff done.

I found that it really started looking homey out here when I added a few things to my bright yellow side table.

Despite giving up on the raised bed for now, we do have a few nice things happening elsewhere on our property. Mr. Heylucy has been planting trees every weekend, hoping to replace some of the shade we lost when our oak trees died. We discovered that a previously unknown bush is actually an elder berry shrub. It doesn’t seem to mind our climate, and has become enormous this last year. I don’t know why we never noticed that it had berries on it before. I may have to try making some elderberry syrup later this summer, and bottle it up to treat winter colds.

I put in a few tomatoes by the chicken pen

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, and they are growing and starting to bloom, so I’m hopeful that we’ll get at least enough to enjoy in salads. Someday I want a giant tomato patch so I’ll have enough to can and make sauce to last all winter. I have two big pots near the back door. I stuck a few strawberries in one, and the two little dogs thought it would be great fun to jump in and dig it all up. I haven’t even had the heart to clean up the soil they spewed all over the walk way. Nobody got any treats that night, I can tell you.

Next up: a fairy garden in a box! Pulley says, “yay, something else for me to play with on the porch!”

Look at that face! I love the little water droplets on his whiskers. His favorite thing to do is bring sticks on to the porch and then chew them up and leave all the little bits for me to sweep up. It is not my favorite thing.