Said I’d talk about my hanging plants… Well when we went to Chanticleer earlier this summer, they had the most wonderful hanging planters full of eatable things. So I thought I’d try some on a smaller scale. Off our deck I hung two wire baskets with that fiber stuff garden supply places sell to place in hanging wire baskets. We filled it with dirt and planted an assortment of herbs in them. The ones at Chanticleer were much larger and I think had holes in the sides of the fiber stuff with plants growing out the sides – they also had lettuce etc but I started after lettuce has gone by the way here in the mid Atlantic area! But still it was a terrific thing to be able to just go out on my deck and pick a bit of this and that as I needed it while cooking.

School has started so I’m busy with students. I’m working with my sophomores on lettering with a broad tipped pen. That’s where the oak ink I mentioned comes in. I took a lot of Oak husks from the English oak tree in my back yard and have been soaking them for a long time. They became pretty disgusting with mold etc but that has died down. I put them with water in an old large mayo jar my grandmother got from some place or other and in which I have stored hand spun yarn (another story). Then I read that I am supposed to use oak husks in the fall after they get all black and gooky – but the squirrels never let any last that long so… I’ll see what happens – perhaps this weekend but then Kevan and Erin and Cooper and Fletcher and Max are coming to visit and perhaps go down the shore with us – if its nice and watch the Ohio game on our little TV which they would rather be a larger TV… So it might be next weekend. Perhaps it will be very neat ink and perhaps it will be a big ol’ mess.

Even though it was not a hot weekend it was very humid and buggy. Thank goodness for “cutter”. I think a storm was trying to come our way and we do need the rain but it didn’t seem to get here. We planted things we purchased on a trip this week to Lancaster with Jane and Drew.

Tomatoes, and Basel, peppers – hot and banana, Yarrow, Pennyroyal and some Sage for me.
My Broom plants are blooming as are the flax plants I planted last week.

This weekend we did weed—and weed and weed! We also drove to Primex and bought salt hay. I like salt hay in my herb garden—it looks more casual. We do need to mulch as it:
1. helps keep the weeds down and,
2. holds the moisture during our hot dry summers.
We use regular mulch in the rest of the yard but I like the salt hay here.

I bought two flax plants. The blue flowers are so wonderful and having a garden with dye plants and other textile plants I need flax. I had some before but they died out. One year I bought some and another I planted from seed. (The bought ones were wonderful but the seed ones were wimpy.)

Bob also bought a Spanish Jasmine and an metal obelisk for it to grow on. We plan to put it in a planter so we can take it inside in the winter.

Jasmine reminds us of the Hotel San Giorgio in Lenno on Lake Como in Italy. Sitting in their garden; being served white wine, prosciutto with melon; looking across the lake; smelling the jasmine growing up the walls… we’re asking a lot from this little plant and its new obelisk!

Today is cold and windy. It is almost a month since I took the image in the heading of the Bloodroot blossom. The Blossoms are gone and the leaves are large and wonderful. The same with my Wild Ginger. Unfortunately the weeds are growing also – perhaps I’ll get a chance this weekend.