Golden-Crowned Kinglet and Moths

Birds are migrating.  Insects are slowing down.  The last flowers are blooming.  The last vegetables are being harvested.  Here are a few pictures.

Two weeks ago I saw this golden-crowned kinglet hopping around the crabapple tree.

I am not sure what kind of moth this was, but it let me get close as it gathered nectar from the marigolds today.

This little moth was taking shelter under a nasturtium leaf.

We still have a monarch butterfly hanging around the zinnias.  When the zinnias are covered with fall shade for a while in the afternoon the monarch moves to the pole beans.

Nearby a grasshopper was moving slowly.

I think this is a black cricket, also on the pole beans.

The coral mums have been blooming for a while, attracting a lot of bees and flies.

A closer look at the mums.  I think that is a hover fly, though it could be a bee…

The pineapple sage is blooming wonderfully, but the hummingbirds have left to fly south now.  I think there are still a variety of small pollinators enjoying these red tubular flowers.

Just a few gaillardia flowers are still blooming, but the bumble bees really love them.  The white flowers are alyssum.

The ‘morning light’ miscanthus grass is at its peak now and is at least 6 feet tall this year.

Seed heads of ‘little bunny’ pennisetum grass

Strawberry flower and little strawberry.  You never know what you will find around the garden.

We are gradually adding brussel sprouts to our soup each Sunday.

I took a look today and there are a lot of green tomatoes in the garden!  I don’t see frost in the forecast, but I will keep my eye on the weather report.

My Arab neighbor friend is back from Jordan and came to gather a bag full of collard leaves.  Quite a few of the collard leaves are chewed by worms, and she did not want those, because I think she uses them to roll up a spicy meat dish.  We totally welcome someone to share these greens with.

Last Saturday was my first day with a volunteer team of around 20 people that were cutting brush and burning.  We were almost exclusively cutting back Eurasian bush honeysuckle.  We had two big bonfires going.

Today Dan and I just took a wonderful early morning walk through the prairie and forest at Spears Woods in the Palos forest preserve.  We bumped into the volunteer crew as we were leaving. They were getting ready for another productive day.  By clearing the invasive shrubs they are opening up the ground for native plants to thrive, which in turn provides habitat for a greater variety of birds, insects, and other wildlife.  With habitats diminishing everywhere for so many species this is valuable work, in order to maintain healthy ecosystems.

Berries and Goat’s Beard

After a poor start on the strawberries, I got ahead of the birds and bugs by picking strawberries once or twice a day.  We ate out first raspberry on Friday.  We are working through the cool weather vegetables now, eating a lot of lettuce and kale, starting on the collards, and enjoying a few peas.

I picked this small bowl of berries yesterday and ate them with a little vanilla ice cream.  Yummy!  It includes strawberries, raspberries, mulberries and service berries, also called June berries.

We tied the raspberries canes to the fence and they are just getting started bearing fruit.  Once the raspberries are eaten we will cut back those canes and tie up this year’s new canes that will have raspberries next year.

Aruncus dioicus Goat’s Beard.  Since we have moved the goat’s beard to this location it keeps getting bigger each year and I can enjoy it from my office window.

Close up of the goat’s beard flowers which have been attracting a lot of pollinators, especially some really big bees.

So far it looks like we have one red hot poker flower coming.  A month ago in Washington state I saw a lot of these blooming, so maybe that climate is better for them.  You can see one small blue petunia on the ground.  The rabbit nibbled down all the petunias when we first planted them.  We finally got rid of the rabbit, for now, so the flowers are getting going again.  Also in the picture are gaillardia, spike speedwell, ‘little bunny’ pennisetum fountain grass and Russian sage.

Spike Speedwell Veronica spicata ‘Royal Candles.’   These plants are on the decline in my garden, but I enjoy them for a little while each year.

We have a little bit of leaf lettuce in the yard, but we are mostly eating romaine lettuce these days.  I love eating fresh lettuce in my daily salad.

Curly kale.  We just made some bean and vegetable soup.

Wild kale.  I bought the seeds for the wild kale from Seed Savers Exchange.  I don’t like the flavor of all the types of kale so I weeded out those and was left with the mild kale I like.  It is blooming now, since I planted it last fall, but I just keep taking off the flowers.

Pea flower.  I think these are sugar peas.

The pole beans are just starting to climb.  We should have flowers on those before long.  The compost pile in the back has shrunk way down.  It is probably soon ready to spread around the garden.

Build Compost Pile and Spread Horse Manure

It is clean up time in the yard.  We mowed the lawn with a mulching mower that chops and gathers all the leaves along with the grass.  The compost pile was basically flat, so now is the time to build it up before winter.

It is still sunny and windy enough to put a few clothes on the line, but time to pull in the clothes line soon.  You can see how much the house casts a shadow and we still have 6 weeks to the winter solstice.  In the back you can see the compost pile starting to form, and the dark brown color on the garden from the horse manure.

I know this is not a beautiful picture, but I am always trying to understand what makes good soil.  I understand that organic matter is a reservoir of nutrients and water in soil.  It aids in reducing compaction, and it increases water infiltration.  Humus is what you get when the compost is completely decomposed so that is not going to decompose much more and has become stable.  That is the black stuff that looks like good dirt that is the end result of the compost pile.  In researching the value of manure I read that it adds nitrogen and helps the soil food web by encouraging microbial activity.  All of this improves soil structure.  I think I will need to study how soil works a lot longer to really understand it.  I went to the local horse stables where they have horse manure and straw in various stages of decomposition.  I shoveled up the most decomposed stuff and stuck it in buckets in the car trunk and brought it home for free.  Maybe I will do it again in the spring.

The top leaves on the brussel sprout plant.  Really cold weather is projected later this week so I might have to eat or harvest the brussel sprouts more quickly.

I finally got a shot of a chickadee in the crabapple tree.  I have been hearing the chickadee song all week and seeing them every day in the yard.

Viburnum dentatum – Chicago Lustre.  The viburnum bushes are just starting to turn color and are currently hosting a flock of sparrows, though other birds fly in and out, too.  We planted two small bushes in the fall of 2009, I think, so it has been 5 years.  They were planted with the centers about 6 feet apart, with the idea that they would grow together to form a large bushy area.  They can grow up to 8 to 10 feet, I understand, which was the goal, but they get kind of leggy, and in the spring I will need to prune them to keep them growing nicely without falling down on the lawn.

I dug back in my old photos and found a picture of the two small viburnum bushes against the back fence in the spring of 2010.   They were a little over 3 feet tall and now are maybe 7 feet tall.  The garden has gotten messy since then, but I have had a lot of fun experimenting!

Fall color on fothergilla bush.  I don’t know if you can see, but there is a branch in the bottom front with larger leaves.  That branch grew from below the grafting line and is a different cultivar.  The color is redder and the leaves are bigger.  I am not sure whether to cut the branch off and hope that a new branch will fill in from higher up, or just leave it as is.

Miscanthus ‘ morning light’ seed heads.  I was looking at this grass more closely today and saw that the red seed heads were turning into the fluffy white stuff that the sparrow like so much for their nests.

Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘little bunny’ fountain grass.  This is the largest the little bunny grass has gotten over quite a few years.

Here is what little bunny looked like in August with rudbeckia – black-eyed susans.

Almost all the plants have been cut down in the bed by the patio, except for this huge parsley plant!  Now we will be able to see the yew bushes from the kitchen window throughout the winter.  Under all the leaves is dragon’s blood sedum ground cover.  I need to chop it back some as it starts to cover the patio….

Hicksii yew bushes.  This is a shot from when they were planted in the yard in September 2011.  You can see how much they have grown since then, in three years.

I am not that fond of house sparrows, but it is interesting to watch their social behavior.  How many birds can yet get in a bird bath?  I can count at least 6 here.

Finally, we went for a walk on the newly paved Cal-Sag bike trail this morning and came across this hornet’s nest.  Dan told me a story of when he was a little boy and took a hornet’s nest to school.  Once it got into a warm classroom the hornets started to come out and they had to get it outside quickly!