The feathery foliage of the yarrow I grew from seed this year, in a container in the kitchen garden. It's a bit crowded in the container at this stage, and come the fall, once things cool down, I will probably transplant some into the front-yard borders. It won't bloom this year, but next year I hope it will. I love its lacy wild-carrot-like flowers, but the foliage itself is quite textural and beautiful.
It's eight degrees cooler today than yesterday, which is not at all unwelcome. 89F is not exactly chilly, but it's a little more livable than 97F.
On today:
*dog walk
*reading Icelandic sagas (I probably won't watch another class until after our trip, but then again, I might have some time today or tomorrow)
*trip details, checking in with dog sitter, etc
*dinner of some description
*possibly an editorial meeting --- I need to reach out, as they say, and remind my colleague that I am leaving town on Friday
The backyard is far less jungly than it was, thanks to the husband's work with chainsaw and hedge trimmers. Not that I really mind jungly, but the big volunteer mulberries were blocking a lot of sunlight, without giving us mulberries, which was the reason we'd let them grow to begin with. There are lots of areas I'd like to clean up more --- we have overgrowths of vinca major everywhere, and the invasive English Ivy, and I have grown tired of battling them, but I think at some point we just need to blast some of our borders with the weed whacker and start over from bare earth. That probably wouldn't eliminate the invasives entirely, but it would give other things more of a fighting chance.
Right now I'm thinking that, thanks to the clearing that's happened, I could plant more blueberries all around the outer perimeter of the kitchen garden, as a first step. I was going to plant a couple of rows in the garden, but I think what I'll do, at least for next year, is just put more containers at the far end that was shaded, until the other day, by the mulberries. I also want to get a tomato cage for every container, regardless of what I plan to grow in it. My grape tomatoes are producing wonderfully, but it would be a lot easier to access things if they weren't sprawled all over that part of the garden. In a limited space, vertical space is truly the answer, and I need to invest in making that happen next year. Note to self.
Wearing today:
*Secondhand Wool& Sierra dress (S) in Washed Navy, bought November 2024, last worn June 28 (though I quickly changed to a linen dress because of the heat that day --- we'll see how today goes). Wears in 2025: 14
*Secondhand Xero Z-Trek sandals, year 1 of wear
Ready for whatever today. I really did not expect to like and wear this dress as much as I have done --- it came to me with signs of wear that I thought would probably mean I wore it for housework, gardening, hiking, and not much else. Instead it's been --- despite those signs of wear --- a total workhorse of a dress. This heavier fabric does make me reach for it less in the hot weather, but it's so fun and simple and swingy, just the thing when I don't feel like making an effort.
Onward.
ADDENDA
Some morning garden shots:
Things are still messy, and we're in a midsummer phase of various produce plants finishing their season. I can't do much new until August, really --- just have to deal with the raggedness until it's time to clean up and replant for the fall. But you can see where, potentially, we can put things in around the outer perimeter of the kitchen garden next spring . . .