It seems like all I can talk about is gardening. That’s not the case, but I’m going to do one more blog about gardening before I move on to other things.
This wonderful fall weather has made it easy to gradually ready the yard for winter, rather than breeze through like a whirling dervish to complete everything over one weekend. It also has allowed for me to collect seeds from the various annuals I planted.
One of the most interesting vines I planted this year was the Egyptian pea vine. The seed is a very interesting black pea with white tips, and the vine is spectacular, shooting tall branches into the air with purple flowers littering the top. I planted it around the mailbox and in the corner of the chain link fence, which added beauty and grace to the yard.
The seeds were easy to collect, with large pea pods containing three or four seeds each. The pods were purple when forming, and turned a shiny brown as they dried. I have many more seeds than I can use. Maybe I will try to sell some of them…
Another plant I am collecting seed from is morning glories. I know it’s not necessary because the morning glories reseed themselves like weeds, but I really like them. The vines, dotted with purple and pink flowers, covered a large section of the fence and a makeshift trellis against the house. I also had a couple of blue flowers from seeds I collected at least three years ago. I dropped a couple of the seeds near the other morning glories hoping they were still good.
I also planted marigolds from seeds I collected about the same time as the blue morning glories and they grew to a wonderful hedge sporting yellow and orange flowers around one of my flowerbeds.
I haven’t decided whether I am going to cut down the 10-foot-tall sunflowers or just leave them so we can sit in the living room and watch the birds devour the seeds without having to create a bird feeder. I’ve also been thinking about using the stalks to make paper…
Today, I will be planting more sedum, collecting seeds and starting some compost with the leaves in the yard. I constructed a new garden using the lasagna gardening theory, which is basically sheet composting. I used the green tomato plants in one layer, leaves in another, kitchen scraps and wood ash and compost in another layer, followed with another layer of leaves and topped with peat moss. We will see how ready the bed is in the spring.