a week ago, last saturday ..
two days ago ..
okay, i won’t go on and on about how beautifull it is .. this will be the last photos for awhile ..
well, maybe one more ..
when i first moved to this island, many moons ago, there were lots of trails .. trails took you pretty much everywhere you wanted to go .. all trails were well used by the locals .. oh, there were also roads, too .. not much wider than the occasional vehicle that used them .. tracks, really .. and they covered the expanse of the island .. still do, although now they are wide enough for two vehicles to pass, with room to spare .. as the population has grown, and land has been cleared to build homes, many of the trails have disappeared .. there are many people who live here now, who have no idea there are trails through the existing woods .. and, there are some people who know there are trails, but don’t use them .. and then, there are those of us who travel them frequently .. rarely meeting .. but, we know who we are ..
beau and i use often find ourselves on these trails .. for a number of different reasons .. almost always, our travels are moments of solitude .. we are taking the shortcut from our home to another’s .. or, we are taking the longcut .. meandering through slowly, with the intent of pleasure in our surroundings .. (at those times it’s good to have the camera pocketed) .. the trails move into and through forests whose trees reach up a hundred or more feet .. cedar branches sway downward to the floor of ferns and myriad species of underbrush .. sometimes the trail leads to a road .. other times to a beach .. or to the lake (affectionately referred to as “the pond”) .. or over to the community garden .. just depends on where you want to go ..
today it’s pouring rain .. no gardening for me .. however, regardless of the rain, i decided to walk over to the community garden to see if the rye seed had arrived .. the beds there are ready to be planted .. beau and i started out on our walk following the road southwards .. this gave me the opportunity to wander by stu’s and see if the delivery of dirt and manure had happened yet .. and there it was .. bags of material stacked in the driveway .. carrying on down the road to the garden, i see the rye hasn’t arrived yet, so we turn around and head back towards home .. the rain is beginning to pour down pretty steadily now, so we take the back trail through to home .. i always imagine there is an element of cover from the branches .. it was soaking wet in there .. oh, well .. them’s the chances ya take ..
a short trail tale .. years ago, there was a wild daphne growing at the entrance to one of the trails near a roadside .. growing up and over the entryway, grew a large blackberry .. this blackberry commenced growing up and over a lower tree branch, and made its way across to entangle with the daphne .. a perfect archway opening .. for me, that trail became the ‘daphne bower’ one .. the bower has since transformed with the cycles of growth .. there is no archway there now .. however, the trail is still there .. for now .. at some point in time, someone will buy that lot and daphne bower will be transformed, yet again .. in the meantime, happy trails .. wherever they may lead ..
the other morning, while standing by the kitchen window, i saw a green haze of colour showing itself from the long bed on our side of the garden .. eureka .. it means the rye is growing beautifully .. let’s see now .. how long since we planted it .. the 5th of november .. fifteen days .. today, the beds are greener than yesterday .. and every day from here on in, more green will come .. a brilliant view in our otherwise greying november environment ..
previously to seeing the haze of green, i’d been out almost every day since planting, to peer at the tiny seeds as they began their journey upward .. can’t seem to help myself .. just have to get out there and watch the little guys growing .. and grow they did .. so there’s been much to see .. i’ll hazard a guess that they started coming up through the ground less than a week after they were planted .. day by day little seeds swelled up with moisture .. then rootlets sprouted .. laying on top of the ground .. exposed to the elements .. yet, looking at them a few days later, it appeared that many of those little rootlets simply took hold of the earth, and off they went .. at the time, it made me wonder about the many seeds that fell into the furrows .. presumably, their rootlets were also grabbing ahold so their shoots could glide up through the layer of compost above .. obviously, something like that happened .. such an incredible sense of purpose these little seeds seem to possess ..
there is a point in the cycle, just before the greening occurs, when the seedlings shoot up in spikes of red and pale yellow .. squatting down for an eye level view, one can see all these stalwart little seedlings doing their utmost to grow .. hundreds .. thousands .. all moving in a kind on synchronicity .. upwards .. this is one of my favourite peering times in the growth of rye seed ..
and .. these days, while the rains are raining down, and the winds are blowing gales, it’s good to be able to stand inside and see the green haze coming from the garden .. soon, i’ll be peering at garlic shoots .. it’s just a never ending story for one who peers at gardens ..
well .. the garden beds have now all been cleaned up .. they are ready for the next things .. fall rye and garlic .. the fall rye is going to be our cover crop for the winter .. we use it as green manure, providing the soil with nourishment, which is an important factor in the growing of an abundant garden .. veggie or ornamental ..
we’ve just come in from outside .. the clocks in this part of the world were turned back on the weekend, and it begins to darken by about 5:30 .. regardless, we were able to plant our fall rye .. we decided to plant the long bed in our part of the garden with fall rye, as well as four of the smaller four by four beds in our neighbour’s part of the garden .. yesterday we cleaned up the remains of the tomato plants .. moved a few herbs into pots .. and pretty much made our way back to bare garden beds .. today, frank was digging in maple leaves .. chopping them and turning them under so none of them were showing in the dirt .. once that was done, he planted the seed .. we like to plant lots so the birds can have their share, and there is still a fine crop of rye that comes up .. in order to get some of the seeds into the ground, frank then took the steel rake (the one with the long flat edge and row of teeth), and using the flat edge, made furrows by tapping the ground with the edge of the rake .. he went one way .. then crosswise across the bed .. each time he tapped, a furrow was made, and some of the seed fell into it .. once the furrowing was done, the rake was used to tamp the ground .. flatten and firm it to keep the most of the seed just under the surface .. and voila! ..
shortly, there will be little red shoots coming up .. they are so beautifull .. a bit later the shoots will turn brilliant green .. it will be a lovely sight over the winter months..
so much to look forward to ..
about a month ago, i purchased garlic bulbs at our local farmers’ market .. there’s a fellow there who has been growing garlic for years .. he grows beautyfull garlic .. big, big bulbs with a bit of a reddish tone to the outer skin .. it’s name is ‘music’ .. so, i had over 100 cloves from him .. then, when frank and i went on our road trip (another story), a friend gave us garlic bulbs that he was growing in the midst of an apple orchard .. he’d just recently planted 3,000 cloves .. surprisingly, it didn’t take that much space .. anyway, once the bulbs were separated, we had another 80 cloves, or so .. lots of garlic cloves .. and, i even ended up with garlic for the kitchen ..
so, today we planted 171 cloves of garlic into two of the six four by four beds (that’s a lot of numbers), in our neighbour’s yard .. i’d dug in the manure yesterday in preparation .. two bags of composted steer manure, each .. today, frank made a grid, across the top of the soil, using a piece of broomstick .. nine lines one way .. nine lines another .. five inches apart .. it looked pretty cool, actually .. and then, at the intersections of the lines i planted the garlic .. we ended up with 81 cloves in one bed .. 90 in the other .. (not quite sure how it came out that way .. just did) .. one bed has an ‘extra’ row .. however, it matters not, really .. we love garlic .. we use it a lot in our cooking .. and it keeps so well .. i hang it in onion bags in the basement after i’ve cleaned it all up .. but, i’m getting ahead of myself ..
once the beds were planted (the grid made it so easy), we covered them in two to three inches of straw ..
and, other than watering it from probably april through june, that’s about it .. leave off the watering for a couple of weeks before harvesting, and in mid july there will be lots and lots of lovely garlic bulbs ..
garlic is such a wonderfull plant, requiring little care other than the initial work of preparing the bed and planting the cloves .. now, we can just watch it grow .. and, it does grow a bit over the winter .. at some point, we’ll see the little green sprouts coming up through the straw .. that’s when i’ll start dreaming of bags of garlic hanging in the basement ..
