Guest Garden in Williamsburg

Mitchell and I have spent the past week hanging out in Williamsburg with three of my best friends from college - Elizabeth, Abby and Dora, and their husbands when they wanted to join the fun!  It was a heavenly R & R for me.  Good food, catching up on the news, a wine tasting (of course), a bit of shopping, and a lovely concert.

Elizabeth's husband is an excellent drummer and they journey nearly every year to Williamsburg so he can attend a week of "adult band camp" that ends with a concert by the Williamsburg Consort.  It leaves her pretty much alone in a hotel or wandering by herself for five days, so we decided to piggy back a week of vacation and play, too.  Dora and Abby live in Williamsburg, so the rest of was easy.

But what caught my eye and I wanted to share with you was a darling kitchen garden - literally! - outside the kitchen of a lovely little Thai restaurant.

At the back door of the restaurant and surrounded by parking spaces is a lovingly attended herb garden.  It is filled with basil "bushes" and unknown - but I will bet firey hot - peppers, lemon grass and even two persimmon trees - one full of green persimmons.  A passing "regular" told me in all seriousness that they are the best persimmons in town ("Even better than mine", he said enviously. "I don't know what she does differently.")  There are tomatoes tucked here and there and roses around the edges.

 

When we arrived a lady was cutting a handful of peppers and other seasonings, and when we left a second was doing the same.  I couldn't help but think that the women and cooks who lived here in Colonial Times, would be very happy to know the Thai ladies are continuing the kitchen garden tradition.

Lunch was good, too!

Of Plans and Deadlines

It seems like life - at least my life - is just a series of plans and deadlines.  I have both for work, both for the garden and both for my personal life.  For the most part, there's no reason to share the first with you.  Work is work and nothing special.  Altho I do love my job, I am happy every afternoon to walk away from it. 

See the salvia on the left?  I thought it was an annual variety.

Plans for the garden are big for me, and I just assume that you are every bit as interested!  Plans for the personal life are a bit less definite most days.  Actually, I think Mitchell is in charge of those!

Ah, but deadlines.  It seems to me there are two types of people when it comes to deadlines.  There are those who look at a deadline and then file it away until 24 or 48 hours ahead.  These are the folks who pull all-nighters to write term papers or study for final exams or prepare a sales presentation for the big clients.  When I sold for Xerox all the most successful salesmen were in this group. 

The same salvia came up in the perennials this spring.

The other group looks at the deadline and then looks at the task and breaks it down into smaller tasks, assigns interim deadlines, starts today, and has the project done two or three days early so that they have time to let it sit and then take a final look at it.  All of the successful saleswomen at Xerox were in this group.  Actually, I have often wondered what it was about their hiring practice that caused that dichotomy.

I am definitely in the latter group.  I have already laid out my plans for the fall garden:  re-do and then seed the cutting garden, re-do the area where the crabtree came out, take out an overgrown section of daylilies and move some of them to the front yard, plant new perennials to replace the daylilies, and deadhead, deadhead, deadhead.  

Now, suddenly, I have a deadline.  It all has to be done by October 4th.  Wow!  What can be put off until later?  The deadheading definitely can.  Moving the overgrown daylilies can also wait, but I really do want it done now.   But, then I can wait on the re-planting until spring.  And, the cutting garden is a "must be done".  And, good news.  I finished re-planting around the crabapple today.

I moved five of them out of the pots on the deck and into the garden - where the crabapple used to be.

There it is, then.  Re-do and plant the cutting garden and clear out the over-grown daylilies now.  Wait until spring to replant in the cleared space and to deadhead.  I love a plan!

Oops!

Somehow I published two posts on my old blog site.  So sorry!

Here's today's.

And, here's yesterday's.

You may have already seen them.  How confusing.

The Last Weekend of Summer

... at least here in the States that's how we see it.

A last trip to the beach before the children go back to school.

A last weekend of super sales.

This is pretty much how I have seen it.  A half inch yesterday and one the day before.  Hope for another one today.  Only a gardener would prefer rain to sun for Labor Day weekend.

But, thanks, Mom.  The garden and I appreciate it.

Hope you've gotten what you wanted this weekend, too.