Red Clay Halo

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, for my friend and co-worker Marcia. She sent me pictures of a sod sofa installation she did down in North Carolina last week. I told her that for the folks maintaining it, it will be like trying to grow sod on the outside of a clay pot. She’ll be blogging about that installation soon, but meantime you can read about her sod-sofa experiences here.

And an all-time favorite: Time (The Revelator). Oh. Almost forgot: Elvis Presley Blues. (And he shook it like a hurricane. He shook it like to make it break. And he shook it like a holy roller, baby. With his soul at stake, soul at stake.)

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Saturday walk-around

Just some pix from the weekend …

I returned the veggie garden to respectability. It had really gotten out of hand. But now the oats and peas I put on the garlic beds two or three weeks ago look great and I cleaned up some bed that were in ‘weed cover crop’ mode and planted some fall greens. Not too shabby.

saturday walkaround pix

Grass border coming into its own.
saturday walkaround pix

Turtleheads (Chelone obliqua) and more in the wet patch.
saturday walkaround pix

Weird leaflet on a young locust tree.
saturday walkaround pix

Lots of yellow flower (again, still). Helianthus …
saturday walkaround pix

Rudbeckia …
saturday walkaround pix

Rudbeckia laciniata ‘Hortensia’ (Outhouse Plant, Golden Glow). The deer hit them pretty hard this year, for the first time. But they still look OK.
saturday walkaround pix

saturday walkaround pix

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Comments: Garden cliches

I do tend to comment here and there throughout the garden blogosphere. I think that when I have something worth commenting on, I’ll start posting them here, as well. This is the first.

Amy Stewart in a post at GardenRant says she doesn’t like the false choice posed by the cliche, “”Who says organic gardens can’t be beautiful?”‘

My comment:

My least favorite in catalogs and plant databases: ‘Prefers consistently moist, well-drained soil.’ Well I prefer ice cream.

The corollary implication is that you should create consistently moist, well-drained soil at a great cost of sweat and treasure instead of finding plants that will thrive in the soil you’ve got.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Dropping a load at USDA

My old compatriots at the Rodale Institute drop a load of compost at the new organic People’s Garden in Washington.


Rodale compost at USDA

Hey guys. When do I get my load?

And in more inside the Beltway news, here’s a great slideshow of Michelle and kids planting the White House veggie garden. (Page down after clicking link.)

Push back: First lady’s organic garden concerns chemical firms. I certainly hope so.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email