New article up at the Examiner, on threadleaf coreopsis, a beautiful, hardy and easy to grow perennial!http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/perennials-for-spokane-gardens-threadleaf-coreopsis

New article

New article up at the Examiner, on caring for your gardening tools in autumn!http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/fall-garden-tool-care

New cat

So. We seem to have gained another cat.

Colin’s neighbor’s had several cats, who roamed the neighborhood. Colin fed them on the porch, as they always seemed famished. Then, the people moved away, taking two of the cats with them, but leaving the female – she was fixed, thank deity, unlike the males. But it’s been getting cold here, and one of Colin’s cats is an older, now chronically ill, grumpy female. He really didn’t want to risk bringing another adult female cat in, since in my experience at least, that’s combination least likely to get along.  He was getting upset, not wanting to take her to the shelter, not daring to bring her into the house, feeling terrible about her out in the cold- she was in his garage, with a bed, but it’s not heated.

We said we’d take her if he took her to the vet and have her checked out, including a feline leukemia test, we’d take her. He said if we’d take her, he’d not only do that but would help with the food, too.

Yesterday he brought her over. Clean bill of health, vaccinations, wormed. So far she has spent a lot of the time hiding in the crafts/storage room, but has been out and about a fair bit. She eats faster that Silver (which I did not think was possible) and shoved her head into his dish after she finished her own, which he did not know what to make of. She’s spent the last few hours on the books stacked on the headboard, gazing out the window- no doubt reconnoitering for making an escape. Silver has been sitting on the bed gazing at her, with a ‘WTF’ look on his face. The other two boys have met her without a great deal of interest.

Natasha has not met her yet. That is apt to be a very ugly confrontation. Natasha hates most everything in the world. The three boys live in horror of her, even though she is half the size of them. This cat- Luna, btw- I’m sure will represent all that is bad and wrong in Natasha’s world. I’m equally sure they will meet in the middle of the night, just for maximum drama.

Luna is long haired, unkempt, and gray. Apparently since Marmalade died there has been a rule written somewhere that we shall have only cats that can be printed in grayscale.  No pictures as yet.

New article!

New article up at the Examiner: a review of a book on garden soils!http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/secrets-to-great-soil-garden-book-review

New article up at the Examiner, on making pumpkin pie from a fresh pumpkin!http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/pumpkin-pie-from-fresh-pumpkins

New article up at the Examiner, on protecting your evergreen shrubs from winter snow damage!http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/protecting-evergreen-shrubs-winter

New article!

New article up at the Examiner, on how ethylene gas affects stored produce!http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/produce-storage-and-ethylene-gas

New article

New article up at the Examiner, about the online plant guide/finder on the Fine Gardening website: http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/plant-finder-online

Give it a try! It's fun!

New article up at the Examiner, on rose breeder Ping Lim and his roses: http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/ping-lim-s-roses

Ice crystals

While the snow yesterday wasn't deep enough to hide the junk and turn things into a thing of beauty, a few days ago we had a hard freeze when the air was very moist, and the resulting frost had huge ice crystals that hung onto things until quite a ways into the day.

I wish the sun had been out; it would have made it all sparkly!

New article!

New article up at the Examiner, a review of the book "Monet's Passion", about the artist's gardens and instructions for using his design techniques in your own garden:http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/monet-s-passion-garden-book-review

New article up at the Examiner, on naturalizing bulbs!
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/naturalizing-bulbs

New article

New article up over at the Examiner, on overwintering carrots! Have fresh carrots all winter!http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/overwintering-carrots-spokane

Harvest

Have spent the last few days harvesting vegetables. The nights have been down in the 20s, and they keep threatening us with snow, even down at our altitude, and we *did* learn something after last year’s epic of hacking carrots out of frozen soil. So we have a house full of buckets of potatoes, carrots, parsnips and onions. No big onions, mind you, as we never have luck getting them to make bulbs, but lots and lots of what are basically glorified green onions. I did find some radishes we’d missed; they are the size of baseballs. I left them out there as I hate to think what their texture would be like! We still have to get the kale, kohlrabi, cabbage and a little bit of broccoli in but that shouldn’t take very long. The tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse are still producing, but it won’t be long before it gets too cold in there, too.

We also have a large box of catnip stems drying, which of course the cats won’t stay out of. They don’t seem to understand the term ‘deferred gratification’. I don’t care; less for me to pick off the stems and put away!

Now to see if I can take advantage of the return to standard time and continue to get up ‘an hour earlier’ or if I’ll follow my nocturnal pattern and slowly slide to getting up later as usual.

Oh, I made bloomers! They were supposed to be made for Steamcon, but that fell by the wayside. They’re nice for sitting around in the evening, with stripey thigh highs. They’re black cotton with white lace at the bottom of the legs. Did you expect any other combination from me?

New article

New article at the Examiner, on growing pumpkins!http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/growing-great-pumpkins

Dear Cats;

Please stop taking the gladiola bulbs out of their buckets and batting them around the floor. I had them separated by color, and would prefer to keep them that way. I do not trust your design talents when it comes to mixing colors.

Yours,

The Human