Backlit Saucisson

Sorry, folks, this is a (not very) secret message. Regular programming will resume shortly.

(And sometimes a saucisson is just a saucisson. No bad puns, here)

The monarchs are here!

I walked into the garden a few days ago and saw...monarchs on the milkweed! Plant it and they will come. This is very gratifying.

The species above is Asclepias incarnata - swamp milkweed. I planted it first in Harlem and it moved with us. It is growing in-ground and is much less vigorous than Asclepias syriaca (common milkweed, the one I also eat), and I recently planted another in a large pot. This is an easier milkweed to control, if you are a neat gardener.

This smaller butterfly is on the common milkweed, which was planted late in spring 2016 and which came back very strongly this year. And not exactly where I was expecting it, either. If you have spreading anxiety in a very orderly garden, I recommend using a planting barrier under ground as a medium term control. I am not sure how it would work, long term. The runners are vigorous and shoots will appear many feet from the parent plant. Ideally, plant it in a wilder section or in a meadow. The pollinators - many kinds - will love you. Or, my top soapbox suggestion: Grow it as a farm crop. Because you can eat the shoots, young stems, tender leaves, buds, flowers and pods.

Or plant a different milkweed.

And this one is on the common milkweed pods. I may squeal with excitement if I ever see a caterpillar or even better, a jewel-like and green cocoon.

They also stopped on the Ligularia. (The milkweed is where they lay their eggs.)

It's been ten years...

Early evening. One of my favorite times of day.

Two anniversaries: I started writing this blog in 2007. It is ten years old. In Internet terms that is about 1,000! It grew from my first not very good photos, taken with a series of small, much loved Canon point and shoots. Hi tech, in those days. But these pocket sized creatures led to an almost obsessive interest in digital documentation and to a level of confidence I had never felt until then. The cameras were somehow a screen and filter, letting me move through the world without worrying as much about what it thought of me. I created the blog in a year that had begun very badly for me, where I was so despondent that I was prescribed anti depressants by a shrink who should have known better (he said he would not treat me if I was not on them. I never went back and ditched the pills after four weeks - I'm not saying they are not important for some people, but they were not what I needed, then. I needed someone to listen). A few weeks later I began to write.

My interest in photography led, a couple of months after I began blogging, to the Frenchman, who was waiting and waving at me from the west coast of this huge continent, in Vancouver, BC. Our July emails set off an electrical storm that culminated in his touchdown at Newark Liberty International that September. Four months later we were married.

I know. It's an old story. But I like telling it.

This blog, and its offshoots, on Facebook and now evolving on Instagram, led to new friendships, locally and across the globe, and these have enriched my life in innumerable ways, personally and professionally. My work changed, my skills improved, I was and remain challenged and inspired by what comes to me via 66 Square Feet.

Happy birthday, blog. You saved me.

Summer Tangle

From the depths of the thicket...

The time of the lilies

The daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva, the orange ones on the left) have just come to an end. We ate quite a lot of them! Very helpful for recipe testing. 

Now the Nicotiana mutabilis and agastache are flanking the big flush of July trumpet lilies.  On the right are 'Summer Palace' not liking the New York heat and humidity, I suspect. Their promised pink is quite washed out. June belonged to the elegant Lilium 'Regale' and also to the pure white Formosas (some are still blooming in pots)  - the latter were hit hardest by our early spring freeze and only a few survived. 

'Silk Road', so disdained the first time I received it as a bonus bulb from the peerless Lily Garden in Washington state, is now the flower I will always associate with my New York gardens. Our lease has just been renewed for another year (I was holding my breath), but there will be other gardens. Who knows where. [9 July 2020: Huh - read on]

'Silk Road' is tough and striking and reliable and tall.

And she smells good.

These, above, are about six feet three inches.

The agastache escort. 

The delicate turks caps of 'Madam Butterfly' are lovely. I should have planted them in pots, I think, as they are a bit lost in the jungle of the side beds.

And echinacea - this one a gift, now well established, from either Kirstin or Julia, both neighborhood friends with green fingers.

These are...what? They have 'Ice Caves' written all over them but emailed orders yield no confirmation; I am going to have to scratch through my saved printed invoices to check. 

And 'Silver Scheherazade.' Tall and late-blooming and needing some staking.

Like me.