Thank Murphy the Trickster God for things we can count on… like mushrooms, wildflowers, and our ever-loving Ozark Hillbilly:
Top photo: I have absolutely no idea what kind of fungi this is. I had never seen it before I took this pic and have not seen it since. I still think it is extraordinarily beautiful.
Autumn Dagwood. We didn’t get much color this year until I had surgery, at which point I had no desire whatsoever to drag a gallon of piss up and down the hills and hollers. Still, the dogwoods never disappoint.
I happen to think that goldenrod is even prettier after it’s gone to seed.
A Pretty One. Everybody likes Zinnias, even little green beetles.
I planted these Asian lilies out at our mailbox our first spring here. It has been a challenge keeping them safe from the MODOT mowers, but most years I succeed. My wife has always been certain that someone is going to steal them and I have always poo poohed her concerns. This year, somebody did. I know it wasn’t MODOT because they had mowed 2 weeks before and besides, they don’t work on Sundays. When we left the house that Sunday morn, the lilies were there. When we returned that Sunday afternoon, they were gone.
I now have a trail camera watching my drive and if I can capture a clear picture of a license plate, somebody’s tire sidewalls might meet a sharp object. Or not. We’ll see just how pissed I am.
A Funguy that everyone can recognize as a mushroom. I didn’t have a good mushroom year. I got some morels, but no Hen of the Woods and no chanterelles.
Dying Cone Flower. We all get to that point where the end is far closer than the beginning and we are well past our prime. Even then, there is beauty.
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What’s going on in your garden (indoor / tropical / planning), this week?
Baud
Blech.
SiubhanDuinne
These are beautiful. Ozark, I love your philosophy of life and your constant recognition of beauty in even the humbles things.
OzarkHillbilly
Reminder: Click the pic to embiggen.
@Baud: Took the word right out of my fingers.
eta @SiubhanDuinne: Everything is beautiful,
In it’s own way…
This earworm brought to you by the fine folks in Bear Water Holler.
SiubhanDuinne
Not going to hijack the Garden Thread, but I hope an Open Thread is forthcoming so we can pay proper tribute to the great and good Desmond Tutu, who died this morning at 90.
Betty
Thank you for these offerings, Ozark. A nice portrait of autumn Nature in your neighborhood.
Geminid
I could use some help identifying flowering plants, especially good cutting flowers, that are not poisonous to dogs. Some customers had me install beds on the perimeter of a fenced backyard. Their old dog transitioned to doggie heaven last spring, and now a new White Lab is digging up lilies, etc. and eating them. I dug a new bed outside and am transplanting everything but roses, which she also likes to chew but are not poisonous to dogs. They’ll have me replant in the Spring, but I’m hoping to come up with something besides roses. Any ideas?
satby
Lovely Ozark! Though I felt a sneeze coming on just looking at the goldenrod. Sorry about the lillies ?
satby
@Geminid: ask and ye shall receive: https://www.rover.com/blog/10-safe-plants-dogs-can-add-almost-garden-right-now/
Charluckles
Nuke that beetle from space!
Torrey
@Geminid: here’s another such site: Plants and Dogs. Butterfly bush is apparently pet-safe.
Geminid
@satby: Thanks. I don’t think everything I’m transplanting is in fact poisonous, but I don’t know plants, I just do plants. These folks are very cautious and need an authoritive source. I will forward this to them for Boxing Day.
Geminid
@Torrey: Thank you.
OzarkHillbilly
I got my Baker Creek Catalogue in the mail Friday. Sucks to be me.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: I got three, count’em three, seed catalogs in the mail on Friday: Baker, Burpee, and Johnny’s. Guess what I’ve been doing when not opening presents and eating Christmas feasts.
CCL
Got a Select Seeds catalog AND a gift certificate to use…spent Christmas making lists!
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: Heh.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: Johnny’s has the romanesco zucchini seeds that you recommended a while back; I don’t think that Baker Creek does. We grew them last summer and loved them, so they’re on the must-plant-again list. We also tried Armenian cucumber for the first time, to great success. Will definitely do them again too. I’m debating on my tomato types. I have limited space, so need to be judicious in my planting. But there are so many delicious sounding varieties!
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: @O. Felix Culpa: Got a bunch of them, including Baker Creek. Not going to even peek at them until later. Much later.
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Hehe. I clearly lack your self-discipline. I’ve already started my garden spreadsheet planner.
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: I love the tart taste of Green Zebra tomatoes but after years of less than satisfactory results I am having to face the fact that they just do not grow well in this particular location. I has a sad.
Baker Creek stopped carrying Romanesco a couple years ago. I now get mine from Renee’s. I think it was you who recommended the Lemon squash. I’m giving them a shot this year.
@satby: Smart move.
satby
@O. Felix Culpa: @OzarkHillbilly: I’ll probably relent and start some seeds, but results in this location have been pretty mediocre. I think because I don’t get enough full sun hours any more since trees on the adjacent lot have grown much taller and shade more of my yard. It barely seemed worth the effort last year.
oldgold
As 2022 nears, I am considering what my resolutions for self-improvement for the new year should be. This is difficult work. Not as a consequence of lack of subject matter to work with – much to the contrary.
Garden chat has inspired me to firmly commit to at least one resolution. As a consequence of piss poor planning, pathetic procrastination, pedantic posturing, pests and pandemic (yes, I like peas) over the last half century or so, I have never harvested a tomato out of my garden West of Eden. Next year this shutout ends. I think I can. BLTs are in my future.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: @satby: I’m learning that certain plants simply do not thrive where I live, even with good drip irrigation. I’ve tried Cherokee purples and Brandywines multiple times, and get barely a fruit. So I’m trying to identify tomato strains that like–or endure–the southwestern sun and heat. Sungolds did fine, as did the Italian heirloom Costoluto Genovese, which I got from Renee’s.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: We love the lemon squash! They spread like mad and are prolific. Make sure to harvest them when they’re still small–literally lemon-sized. Their outer skin gets hard and unpleasant if they grow too large.
O. Felix Culpa
@oldgold: May your garden thrive at least as well as your alliteration!
Another Scott
Some of us were lamenting that it’s too easy to get questions answered now. ;-)
Google search on the first image – Tremella
Google Lens on one’s phone is startling at how good it is in identifying flowers and such.
“Ignorance is precious. Once it’s lost, it’s gone forever!” – my uncle.
Cheers,
Scott.
oldgold
@O. Felix Culpa:
Bing! Bam! Boom! Yes, I like alliteration, but my real passion is onomatopoeia.
O. Felix Culpa
@oldgold: Ooh, that’s right up there with the tintinnabulation of the bells!
oldgold
@O. Felix Culpa:
I just called the tinnitus hotline, but no one answered. The phone just kept rrriiinnnggginggg.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: That fungus is very pretty. And who steals plants out of someone’s yard? (I remember the cops stationed overnight at the entrances to a neighborhood somewhere near Newport Beach, CA to keep people from stealing cuttings from the rare, expensive coral trees which the developer had planted as street trees)
@O. Felix Culpa: I haven’t seen my Johnny’s catalog yet, but I’ve gotten 5 or 6 others, including Totally Tomatoes, and Vermont Bean Seed. Both sell other seeds but their names make me giggle a little. I went a little nuts about beans in spring of 2020, noticing how pretty they were and thinking they’d provide a source of protein if we needed it, in case of food shortages. Remember the dire warnings of supply chain breakdowns and the actual shortages of some food items. I remember not being able to buy a nice big onion when we ran out of ours, the vegetable displays were picked clean for weeks and we couldn’t find flour.
opiejeanne
@O. Felix Culpa: I sat down with my garden journal in early December and made some notes on what grew well and what I want to grow in 2022. “Yaya” carrots is at the top of the list. They were great, and Johnny’s ran out of the seeds pretty early so the second that catalog shows up I’m ordering several packets. We planted a last round of carrots in late August, “Short and Sweet” and another one that slips my mind at the moment, and we roasted some on Christmas Eve.
Not growing corn or potatoes this year, planting beans their place in order to improve the soil. Corn is always problematic here, even the short season corn.
wombat probability cloud
@Another Scott: The fungus looked like a jelly fungus to me, so I turned to The Google for images and found this close match: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremella_fuciformis
Aurora S
The fungus is Cauliflower Mushroom, aka Sparassis crispa. They get quite a bit bigger than that, and are one of my favorites.
BigJimSlade
People steal flowers from other people’s yards? What the hell?.
jnfr
I ordered some peppers and tomato plants for the spring. Guess I’m once again not assuming it will be safe to visit the nurseries this year, again.
Jeffery
Transplanted violas today I had started from seeds in October in a large clear soda bottle I used as a mini greenhouse. This week the weather in Philly will be mild enough they won’t notice being moved. Now if I can only keep the squirrels from getting to them. The pot is covered with a wire mesh.
O. Felix Culpa
@opiejeanne: Thanks for the tip on the yaya carrots. I’ll give them a try. I’ve had good results with carrots the past two years and it’s always fun trying a new variety.
I plan to do lots of beans too, mainly the dry type. Ms. O is not that fond of green beans and such, and they don’t do particularly well here, anyway. Do you have any favorites?
I remember when flour (and yeast) were hard to come by. I have plenty stored up as a result. :)
dnfree
@Geminid: I have no idea about plants that are poisonous to animals (our concern is finding plants deer don’t like), but last year we had some landscaping done and now we have ninebark bushes. Looked good all year. They have an attractive pink flower.
Edited to add link to photo. Apparently they came in different colors. This is similar to ours.
https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/physocarpus/ginger-wine-ninebark-physocarpus-opulifolius
StringOnAStick
I just got the seeds I ordered from Pinetree Seeds in Maine; the growing season here in central Oregon is only 90 days with an average last frost the 3rd week of June, I’m expecting challenges but I’ll be planting in rich soil in the actual ground instead of pots like I had to for 16 years in CO. Pinetree and Johnny’s sell a cucumber called Picolino that is seedless and super productive; highly recommended! Pinetree had Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato seeds, the only tomato that was productive in my pots; small fruit but lots of them and very intense tomato flavour
I’m thinking about building wire columns and filling them withheld basalt and planting the warm season things next to them for nightgown heat.
Geminid
@dnfree: Thanks. I will check these out.
Geminid
@StringOnAStick: Can you make raised beds with the basalt? A circular or elliptical* bed would be more stable than rectangular. A tarp would help hold heat at night. Clear plastic would do the same and maybe also trap daytime heat until sprouts got up an inch or so, higher if you set some stakes in the bed.
Geminid
@Geminid: *Ellipses are easy to lay out and kind of fun. You offset two stakes in line with the center. Then you tie a string to one stake, run it out to a desired outside midpoint and then back to the other. When you swing this doubled string around it describes an ellipse. The closer the stakes, or abscissa, are, the fatter the ellipse is; the farther apart, the skinnier the ellipse.
This is a good way to lay out a bed without having kinks in the curve, and produces a pleasant form. If you like geometry, its not hard to sketch an ellipse on paper and get the exact ellipse you want using the quadratic formula. But just using trial and error, it doesn’t take long to get what you like.
Circular and elliptical retaining walls are more stable than square ones when you lean them in a little. That creates some stability from compression, like a continuous arch.
Xavier
I’m thinking frost flowers for that first image.
Dan B
@satby: Goldenrod gets a bad rap for pollen. Ragweed, which has a dull flower, is the culprit. Showy flowers attract bugs and bees to carry their sticky and heavy pollen to other flowers. However some people react to fragrance which is also designed to attract pollinators.
Dan B
Our garden is under five inches of snow. Wind is in the forecast followed by the coldest temps in a couple decades and below freezing for three days. Unheard of.
Geminid
@Dan B: Temperatures hit 70° here in Virginia, and it’s very dry. You folks probably need the water more. It may be a good thing your gardens are covered with snow. That might protect plants from the cold.
OzarkHillbilly
@wombat probability cloud:
Ding ding ding… That’s a winner. Thanx, and to Scott too for getting the genus.
StringOnAStick
@Geminid: My entire veggie bed is a raised bed since the “soil” here is mostly chucks of basalt under a very thin layer of sand; I will subdivide it and plant accordingly. I’m pretty good at season extending tricks, I just think I’m going to have to come up with a few more here than I’ve had to before when gardening elsewhere. I also saw evidence yesterday of riotous rabbit play in the front yard thanks to the snow, so chicken wire around the various veggies is going to be essential too, so I can combine chicken wire and row covers to get things warmed up faster this spring.
opiejeanne
@O. Felix Culpa: The dry beans that I really liked were pole beans: Annie Jackson and Papa de Rolas. The bush beans that did the best was Rosso di Lucca. All three produced well. All three were available at Uprising Seeds this past year and will probably be again in 2022.
Slim
@Aurora S:
Yup I think so too. I spend all my time in the woods foraging and have a stack of guides. Identifying based on a single picture is always tricky business but those 2 earlier guesses missed by a mile.
MazeDancer
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