Sunshine and D. Landreth Seed Co.

Today was the first day in a few weeks taht the sun did not blind me on my morning commute.  Winter is on it's way.

Also today, the D. Landreth Seed Co. Heirloom Bulb Collection: Garlic and Flowers arrived.  Wow.  This company is the oldest seed house in America, purveyors of fine seed since 1784.  Wow.  That's awesome!  Their catalog is beautiful, and they give dates for varieties where known, which is quite useful to those of us into historic gardening.

Here is the Wikipedia page about our favorite topic!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_gardening

Fents

So here's the repairs to the fence. 

The center post is the one that got ripped out by the floodwaters.  But the post is set, the wire strung and all closed up tight.  Some of the boards you see on the ground have been mounted, but i'v put off a couple while i plan the gate.  it was going to be here, to the right of center, but with the way the flooding has been that's not always a good spot to be entering, so i'm thinking it will go down the left a bit, between the second and third post. 

The gate is certainly something that needs work, and i've been thinking about it stylistically.

This 15th cen french illumination from the Roman de la Rose does demonstrate many key features of medieval gardens, the fount, the walls, two types of fencing and a stone wall, turftopped benches, raised beds, etc, but i'm not too fond of the shape of the gate, though the idea of a tall gate in a shorter fence will be the look i'm going for.

This however is a delight. 

 I like how it echos the architecture of the period.  Stylistically this seems more 'medieval' to me than the previous picture.  What do you think?

oh, and bonus points if you know what the title of this blog is from (without consulting the oracle Google)

Deer

The deer have breached my defense.
Last weekend, or the one before that rather, i reset the post which was upset by Irene (the hurricane, not my dear neighbor)  As I was not about to put tight wire to an unhardened post, i just kind of bunched up a lot of old fencing, and my deer neighbors were able to get in fairly easily.  So i tighened that up a bit, which seemed to work.

except, now they knew where the cookie jar was....

they found another say in (admitedly another weak point in the fence design, or more accurately the gate design.  Or rather where the gate should be...)

but now it's all buttoned up again.  the beans will recover, the lone charentais melon is completely eaten, the corn is still ok, i'm not sure if the pumpkin will recover.  the skirrets seem untouched....

Last medieval harvest?

So here pictured are some shallots which I had picked last week (or maybe two by now)  This is probably the last 'medieval' harvest, as most of my 'period' plants have perished at this point.    I braided them together to let them dry out completely, so they will store for a while and be ready to eat when I am ready to eat them.

There will still be plenty green beans, corn, pumpkin and potato, but as these are all new-world crops i'm not as likely to talk about them here. But we will be eating them.