The moist, cool air of early October mornings and the fragile warmth of its golden, hazy afternoons are treasures to savor and linger over before the darkness and cold and rain of winter. While there’s still some warmth to the days, I like to plant crimson clover as a cover crop on annual/tender perennial beds. Favas can go in almost any time if I start them in the greenhouse, but broadcasting clover has worked best for me when it’s done by early October. Otherwise the slugs mow it all down as it slowly germinates. Usually, I sow the seeds, rake them in and sprinkle compost over the top. But this year, even more than they usually do, the birds have been eating the seeds that haven’t germinated and laying out, helter skelter, the seeds that have germinated. They can do a lot of damage very quickly. With all due respect for their need to eat, I wish they’d find somewhere else to forage. But they don’t, so this year I’m using a fabric, not Reemay, the floating row cover often seen on garden beds, but something called tulle or bridal veil. It definitely works. It allows water through the fabric, holds moisture in, is extremely tough and keeps the birds and squirrels out. Though squirrels don’t eat tiny clover seed (unless it’s in a bird feeder), they do a lot of digging and burying of acorns and other nuts in the nice, loose soil of the garden beds.
Newly planted cover crop beds in section C.
Before getting covered,
and after.
You can see the clover coming up, but I’ll wait until it’s a bit thicker before removing the covers.
On the way home from work the other day, while bicycling through a nearby neighborhood, I came across some Boletus barrowsii, a paler version of porcini. Most were creamy white. I’m surprised to find any, it’s been so dry.
Appearing through the moss and duff, what a thrill it is to find mushrooms, especially porcini. Porcini!
Isn’t that a sight for sore eyes? City porcini!
In this kitchen light, the bottom two seem darker, more like B. edulis, but the top two have the creamy white caps. The lighter ones were found near a hornbeam (Carpinus sp.) and the darker near a linden (Tilia sp.). Looking for mushrooms is an addiction you can only understand (like any addiction) if you’ve tried it and become addicted.
Whether B. edulis or B. barrowsii, who cares? Once they get in the pan with some butter, they’re porcini. These were so firm that they gave off almost no water while cooking. And the flavor was as good as any I’ve had, maybe the best ever. Porcini…
The drought we experienced this summer was hard on many Medicinal Herb Garden plants. Some were damaged, others died and some lost their fruit after flowering. That happened to the trifoliate orange (Ponciris trifoliata) in section D. But then, late in the summer, it flowered again and produced more fruit, by far the most I’ve ever seen on its branches. It must have had some energy stored up to do that and it seems like this second flush of fruit will deplete some of its energy for next year. But the ways of trees are mysterious. I once saw an apple tree that was almost completely hollowed out, with only a narrow, vertical strip of live wood leading up to the branches from the roots. This was in an abandoned orchard in the San Juan Islands, on Shaw Island. Many nearby trees had fallen over, collapsing under their own weight. But this tree, and a few others nearby, looked perfectly healthy above the hollow trunks. It seemed impossible. For all I know they might have toppled over the moment I turned my back, or they could still be standing when my bones have turned to dust. The life force is strong and that is a hopeful sign in this time of mass extinction and environmental devastation.
Trifoliate orange (Ponciris trifoliata) in section D, having dropped its first set of fruit, flowered and produced fruit a second time in the same season. This picture was taken in late September and there are both flowers and fruit on display.
And check out the snow bush (Ceanothus cordulatus) which flowered and then, much later, flowered again. Hmmmm, never seen that before…
This picture was taken on the first of May.
This picture was taken on September 30. I’ve been growing snow bush for 15 years but this crazy summer of heat and drought and massive fires is the first time I’ve seen it flower a second time. It flowered again after we got some long-awaited rain.
Soon the autumn rains will come and we’ll forget all about this summer. But this summer was, perhaps, a herald of things to come. Forgetting might not be our best option. Maybe it’s time to start making informed plans to prepare for the future that awaits us. Hopefully, the UW and the City of Seattle will be considering best practices for choosing and growing extremely drought-and-heat-tolerant plants in our public landscapes. For a decade and a half, in the Medicinal Herb Garden, I’ve been experimenting with plants from the hot, arid lands. Some simply can’t handle the prolonged wetness of our winters, but others thrive here. I’ll continue experimenting but with a new urgency, following these last two summers of prolonged heat and drought.
Here’s an animated illustration of the changes to the USDA Hardiness Zones between 1990 and 2006. Hint: it got warmer.
https://www.climate.gov/teaching/resources/changes-hardiness-zones
And it’s gotten warmer since 2006. How warm? Here’s more from NOAA, and it doesn’t include 2015:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/global/201412
But this does:
We will adapt because we have to. And we will change our ways, little by little, as more and more people sense the urgency of our collective predicament. Maybe Seattle will take the lead in this change.
as the last glaciers’
waters trickle to the sea
snow bush blooms again
See you in the garden.
….and should you ever find yourself in need of a tutu, tulle is just the stuff! Our friends Dona and Paul found a ginormous porcini up in the Kootenai…..will try to forward the photo via email…As always, I so enjoy this blog!!!!!!!