The winter garden

It always makes me a little sad when all the outdoor Christmas lights are put away for the year.  The yard seems bare and plain.  It was sunny and warmer today (above zero!) so I took a walk around the yard and realized that it's full of interesting sights.  Not the bling of Christmas lights, but still beautiful.  Of course it is - I planned it that way!

We in Wisconsin only have five or six months to spend out in our yards.  The rest of the year, the garden can still be enjoyed from the window.  It takes some of the dreariness out of winter days to look out and see something besides solid white. But it takes some planning when it's warm to set your landscape up with winter interest.  This spring, in addition to picking out new plants to try and arranging pots on the deck, think about what you'd like to see out your windows in winter 2016.  Here are some things you might want add to your landscape so that next winter you'll enjoy your yard for all 12 months.

Garden art is instant color and form.  Gazing balls come in so many gorgeous colors.  I want them all!  Bottle trees add a pop of cheerful color.  Unpainted metal sculptures are a more subtle focal point.

This is a driftwood "sculpture".

Sturdy vines like this trumpet vine have a sculptural form in winter.

This crane gets lost amid the summer foliage.  I forget he's there until winter.

A sundial makes an interesting focal point.

Cement scupltures hold up well in our harsh weather.

Not all grasses are hardy in our winters.  Check before you buy.

There are lots of  landscape plants you can enjoy year-round.  If you don't have any hardy tall grasses in your garden, you need some! Plant them in the front yard where you'll see them waving in the wind every time you leave your house or come home.

      

     

River birches look great in winter.  The peeling bark is more apparent when the leaves have fallen.

When you're cleaning up your garden in fall, leave some sturdy perennials standing. 

The flower heads of coneflower and hydrangeas will look good until spring.

If you want to see something green in winter (besides conifers) plant holly or yucca.

For some color, yellow and redtwig dogwoods stand out in the snow.

For subtle winter beauty, add some rock to your garden.  I love how the snow drapes over our rock retaining walls.

  

I didn't notice that I forgot to bring this little guy inside for the winter until I wondered what that thing was sticking out of the snow.  He's going to be upset!

One Last Garden Chore

By now all the garden clean-up is done. The leaves are hopefully chopped and put in your compost pile or left on the grass and gardens.  The produce has all been eaten or preserved. Fall always makes me a little sad.  The bright colors of the garden have turned to browns and golds.  I took a walk around the garden yesterday and was surprised that there are still some beautiful sights.

Cheyenne privet is a wonderful shrub.  It grows quickly into a privacy hedge, takes well to shearing, and gets these dark blue berries in fall.

Smokebush is one of my favorite shrubs for color all the time, especially in fall.

The lavender was still blooming last week, and it still smells wonderful.

Snapdragons keep blooming even though we've had frost several times.

Before you say goodbye to your garden, there's one more thing you might want to do.  Remember last winter?  Our gardening business was busy in spring taking out dead Alberta spruce and yews.  We have plenty of both in our yard.  We plan on providing protection this winter. We didn't lose any shrubs, but we have some topiaries that had winter kill in spots and didn't recover.  The deer have also done a lot of damage to our arborvitaes in the past.

This arborvitae was a yummy deer snack.

Last year we wrapped the arborvitaes with plastic mesh and the deer were foiled.  In addition to that, we're going to wrap the Alberta spruce and yews with burlap.  It's a pain, but not even close to the work of digging out dead shrubs, not to mention the expense of buying new ones.  It's also important to give evergreens a good soak before the ground freezes.  They continue to lose moisture through their needles all winter.  The extra effort might be worthwhile when you consider the investment you have in your landscape.

Carrot Harvest

Since we expanded our tiny vegetable garden this year, I've tried a few things I didn't have room for in the past.  I had no luck with cantaloupe (I got one small melon), but the carrots did alright.  I forgot to do my research before I planted them, so it didn't occur to me that they might not do so well in clay soil.  When I complained that they were on the small side, my mom said, "Carrots grow in sandy soil".  You're never too old to need Mom's advice.  I'm going add sand to the area where the carrots will go next year and see what happens.

I know carrots are cheap to buy, so why grow them?  I'm trying to eat more locally grown, organic produce and you can't get any more local and organic than your own backyard.  They're fresher, they taste fantastic, and the best part is that every time we eat them in salad, coleslaw, soup, or carrot cake I get to say, "I grew these carrots!"  I LOVE saying "I grew these (fill in the blank here)"  It feels really good!

I have a lot of carrot cake recipes, because that's the best way to use carrots, but this is the best carrot soup!  It's quick and easy if you use a food processor or Salad Shooter to slice the carrots.

                                                         Carrot and Coriander Soup

3 T. butter
1 lb. carrots, sliced       
11/2 t. ground coriander1 small onion, chopped

5 C. chicken stock

6 oz. plain yogurt
salt & pepper

Melt butter in a large saucepan.  Add onions and carrots.  Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes, until vegetables begin to soften.  Add coriander and cook for one more minute.  Add stock and salt & pepper.  Bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender.  Puree with a stick blender or food processor.  Add yogurt and heat through.

Makes 4 Cups

I always double this recipe and add things like kale or spinach.  If you add things before you puree, no one will know what you've added.  Chef's Surprise!

Prolific little pumpkins

I'm not a big fan of fall.  It's always a little depressing to see it get cool and dark earlier each evening. But there are some things I like about fall, and pumpkins are one of them (and pumpkin pie, pumpkin bars, pumpkin bread, etc.).  The mini pumpkins I talked about yesterday were harvested today - 87 from four plants.  One plant, the white Gooligans, produced 41 pumpkins!  Of course, my favorite variety of the three I planted, the orange and white striped Hooligans, produced only six pumpkins. The other two plants were the orange ones, 20 pumpkins per plant.

I'll be planting these again next year for sure, but NOT in the fenced-in vegetable bed. (See yesterday's warning about sprawling garden bullies.) I have a big, sturdy trellis where a clematis died last winter.  I'll try mini pumpkins on it next year.

If you like decorating with gourds and pumpkins, I highly recommend growing them instead of buying.  They require no care beyond planting a seed and watering daily until it sprouts.  For the price of a pack of seeds, you'll have all the gourds or pumpkins you could possibly use and plenty to share with your neighbors.

One last harvest

There isn't much left to harvest from the vegetable garden.  The tomatoes, peppers, and beans are about done.  Carrots and kohlrabis are still going.  But there is one thing I've been waiting for and I think I'll harvest them this week - mini pumpkins!

These are actually edible pumpkins, not the gourds that look like mini pumpkins.  They're about 3"x 2".  

All three of these varieties came in one package called Harvest Blend.  The varieties are Bumpkin (orange), Gooligan (white), and Hooligan (orange & white mottled).  I just got the seed package out and read the back again.  I hadn't read it carefully when I planted, so I missed the line that says that these can sprawl just as far as larger varieties.  Oops!  That explains why they went over the fence, across the path, and into the lawn.  That will teach me to read seed packages more carefully.  I will definitely plant these again next year, but not in the vegetable garden.  They sprawled over the carrots and basil, blocking out the sun.  They were garden bullies and will not be allowed back into the playground next year. They probably don't need to be in the fenced-in area.  The back of the flower garden is a good spot for them.  They can have all the room they want.  I don't think deer or rabbits would be interested in them.  I saw a front yard garden yesterday that included full-sized pumpkins growing among the flowers.  What a great idea!  It was really eye-catching.  In a cottage-style garden they could wander wherever they want to.  I'll be trying that next year.  

It's raining today, so I'll have to wait to harvest them.  When I do, I'll report back on how many pumpkins I got from my four plants. 

Reseeders

Even though I am a perennial gardener, I am very happy to have annuals in my garden too.  They provide weeks or months of color with zero effort on my part.  I don't even have to plant them!  I'm not talking about flats of impatiens or petunias.  I mean the plants that seed themselves.  Here is one of my favorites, moss roses.

                               

I didn't plant any of these.  They just reseed year after year from a flat of moss roses I bought over ten years ago.  They grow in the lime sand between the patio stones.

Here's another reseeder I really like.  I got some of this from my mom years ago, and it just keeps moving around my yard, wherever the wind blows the seeds.

Verbena bonariensis

Nothing comes in as many different colors as snapdragons do.  That's what I love about them - you never know what color each plant will turn out to be when they bloom. And you never know where they are going to show up.  I even have a snapdragon blooming up in my window box this year! This is another annual that I brought home in a flat many years ago and now have forever.

snapdragons

 Sea holly is an unusual plant.  The stems are the same blue-purple as the flowers.  People who see it in my garden often ask what it is.  

sea holly

This patch of calendula is pretty much done blooming now, but it was a sea of yellow and gold flowers all summer.  My parents gave me a few plants years ago and it reseeds itself.

calendula

There are many other plants that reseed:blanket flower, rose campion, gaura, and poppies.   I even have blue fescue and Autumn Joy sedum in the crevices of the rocks in our terraces. This look isn't for everyone.  It's definitely cottage garden style.  If you put down a thick layer of mulch, you won't get as much reseeding.  And if you like your landscape neat and tidy with each plant staying put, reseeders will drive you crazy.  But if you like a loose, natural effect, with plants moving around and lots of colorful flowers with no planting try adding some of these.

Rain in My Barrel

It rained for a little while yesterday.  Not really enough to give the garden a good soak, but enough to fill my rain barrel.  Going to the rain barrel with my watering can and finding it empty is such a disappointment. There's something about rainwater.  When things are really dry, you can keep them alive by watering with the hose, but one good rain, and everything springs right back.  It's like nature adds a secret ingredient!  That's why I much prefer to water my vegetables, window boxes, and pots from the rain barrel when I can.

I have my rain barrel located just a few feet from the vegetable garden to make it really convenient.  There is a spigot, but I'm too impatient to fill the watering can that way.  I usually just remove the lid and dip the can in the barrel.

It's surprising how little rain it takes to fill the barrel.  I've only used the hose to water a couple of times all summer. I'm thinking of adding a second one on the other side of the house.  Maybe that will eliminate the disappointment of finding an empty rain barrel.

It just started raining as I'm writing this.  My empty barrel will be full again. Yea!