The Plan

Pictured are young cabbage plants that have sprouted in rather cold temps from stalks that previously produced substantially-sized cabbage heads. The green cabbages sprouted from a stalk thrown into our compost that rooted laterally. I stuck the purple cabbage in the front flower bed since it’s so ornamental and just let the heads rot because we had way too much cabbage in the veggie garden. One of the heads split and instead of rotting like the others produced a kale-like rosette (not pictured). The constant change and surprises are what I love so much about gardening.

I was walking around the hillside again. With all the grasses and weeds drying up there are places we couldn’t reach in the Summer that are accessible once again.

We have heard and seen quite a few pheasants in these tall grasses. Heard more than seen. There have also been plenty of hunters in the hills lately. Jake doesn’t like the noise, but he hasn’t taken to slinking off the way he used to. Now he just makes his way to the porch or under a car or nussles up if we are crouched near the ground planting or pulling weeds or working on the mower. Seems like we are crouching near the ground quite a bit.

We have about 10 old shag bark hickories on our property. Too bad I didn’t a photo of the yellow fall foliage. A couple are dead or dying, which has made me realize I’d hate to lose any more. I’m hoping seedlings will germinate on their own and without grazing animals grow tall enough to ensure survival of this lovely species. Gathered hickory nuts to plant in the spring just for fun. Not many were viable, as I found out by putting them in a bucket of water. Apparently the floaters are no good. You can’t buy native trees like this in a nursery. The IA DNR sells them in quanities of 500 for a song, but you have to agree to plant them all on your land and can’t sell them or give them away. After the 40 odd holes we dug (namely Al) last weekend to plant the cartload of Russian sage, Meadow sage and ornamental grasses I got for $5 at Lowes, I can’t imagine digging 500, even with the help of an auger.