By the looks of a stubborn delphinium in the Rose Garden, I’m not the only one who would prefer to think of the winter solstice as the official start of summer. But winter might actually be here at long last. A cold blast over the past weekend froze the pond into a scattered ream of ice sheets. (Why does water sometimes freeze in rectangles?) The nicotiana and pineapple sage are finally, in the words of Miracle Max, “mostly dead”. And it really seemed like it was finally time to do the final cut back.

Gail and I went up to the Rose Garden today to trim the whips on the roses (we never do a hard pruning this time of year, rather a light cut back of the extra long canes so they won’t break in the wind or under a snow-load) and not only did we find that diehard delphinium but a lot of the roses are still budded and ready to bloom the next warmish sunny day. It’s almost as if they knew that the cold would be followed by more of the gentle weather we’re all getting used to. So we decided to let them be one more week. Some of us might prefer snow but I’ll definitely take roses for Christmas if they’re being given as a gift.

I’m actually still glad to have an excuse to continue doing the putting-the-garden-to-bed chores in stages too. I love having an excellent reason – besides taking pictures – to be out in the garden. A friend of mine recently remarked on how much she was enjoying the long fall because she was still willing to go outside. It’s true for most of us probably that once winter hits it gets harder and harder to convince ourselves that bundling up and going outside is a better idea than staying inside where it’s toasty, and there’s a kettle going on the stove… and we are already in our pajamas… But so long as the weather outside is comfortable (not frightful) we gardeners know we’ll find joy out in the garden.

May your holidays be joyful – inside and out!

Ever since Gail and I went on a bus trip to Wave Hill – eight or so years ago – we’ve been coveting hypertufa troughs. A year or two after that trip we each made a couple, then a year later a couple more. After that, Fred and Dan made some, including the thyme bench seat in the herb bed and an enormous trough that might never leave the container bed. But we have wanted more. And there’s nothing like wanting something to make you notice it everywhere. They’ve been showing up in every magazine; there are books full of ideas; we’ve noticed them tucked into gardens and out in front and center displays, and they’re all over Kathy and Chris Tracy’s Avant Gardens Nursery, in all shapes and sizes filled with the most luscious combinations of plants.  We’re talking serious trough envy here.

So we hatched a plan to make a bunch more to fill our Display Garden stone bench bed (an abundance of anything in one place can make a gardener feel rich) and if we have enough left over, we’ll tuck them in other beds here and there. We might even leave some on display in front of the pump house because they’re so sweet against the cobbles.

For anyone who isn’t already familiar with hypertufa, it’s a Portland cement mixture that is meant to mimic something called tufa, which is a precipitated limestone (according to wikipedia). Being porous and high pH both real tufa and the ersatz version is a perfect container material for alpines among other little lovelies. It’s also sturdy enough to stay outside over the winter and not quite as heavy to move around as straight concrete.

Gail and I obsessively researched recipes – there are many possible variations – and for our first go we tried two. Both included Portland cement and peat. One batch had perlite, the other vermiculite. To those mixes we also added a handful of microfiber concrete reinforcement and then a whole lot of water. We also obsessively collected molds, everything from a saucer sled to nursery pots to trash cans to jello molds to cardboard boxes.

Now that we’ve done one batch and are preparing for another morning spent wearing rubber gloves and dust masks, we know what we’ll do differently. This time we’ll go with the vermiculite mix – it feels smoother to the touch and more elegant. We’ll also line more of our molds in plastic bags. Even molds heavily greased with vegetable oil didn’t want to give up their stuff. Luckily, almost all of the pots and troughs we made were sturdy enough after curing for 4 days to knock out of their molds. (Only one will live inside its aluminum jello mold forever.) The cardboard boxes were the easiest to release and those troughs are actually pretty cool looking.

Our recipe: 1 part Portland cement; 1.5 parts peat moss; 1.5 parts vermiculite and a small amount of microfiber concrete reinforcement. Add enough water to make mud the consistency of cottage cheese.

Have you made any hypertufa pots or troughs or garden ornaments? Do you have any helpful hints to share – or maybe a different favorite recipe?

In the last post I mentioned that Gail and I just picked more vegetables for the East Bay Food Pantry. It’s no accident that we still have veg to pick. Back in the middle of September we took a little gamble and seeded down a big quilt of lettuce, rows of super-sweet and tiny early Napoli carrots, spinach, and Scarlet Queen Red Stems salad turnips (meant to be eaten raw!) It was late to be seeding but we also put row covers over the lettuce and spinach just in case, and the gamble (more of time than money since seeds are cheap) paid off big time. Given that the weather has been so mild with no real killing frost yet, we wouldn’t have even needed the row covers – uncovered lettuce in the raised beds is fine. When we cleaned out the vegetable garden in October we also left other tough-as-nails cool crops standing, like kale and Swiss chard. What’s truly surprising to me is how surprised the folks were to receive more fresh veg now, this close to winter. Granted, this is the first time we’ve made an effort to grow vegetables past summer but is it truly unusual to take advantage of fall?

I’m no vegetable gardener but that might have to change. Spending that hour or two harvesting at the end of November was like a little revelation. This is doable. And especially this time of year, when fresh veg tastes like a luxury (if you could see the crowds of people at Bristol’s new winter farmer’s market grinning over the gorgeous clubs of Brussels’s sprouts, bales of lettuce, carrots and enormous sweet potatoes you’d think none of us had ever had eaten well past August) a little extra effort at the end of summer – even if it’s a gamble – seems more than worthwhile.

This harvest has inspired Gail and me to make a resolution (a little early for New Year’s but what the hey) to get back out in the vegetable bed in March to at least seed down peas and greens in the raised beds under row covers. And who knows, maybe next year we’ll shoot for a four season vegetable garden à la Elliot Coleman.

Are you still eating from your garden?