A nice day for a little fall planting. 
Every place I’ve ever moved has had a “I never even considered that problem before” adaptation that’s new to me. This house, like many out here, has a drainage pond! The gutters and French drains all feed into those pipes, and all year there’s at least a small trickle coming from them. (The cake pan is there to turn the trickle into a useable wildlife water source!) When it rains, the pond fills up, but it usually drains quickly. It’s a good gauge for how saturated the soil is. 
If you’re curious about why I’m not trying to capture the rainwater … it just doesn’t feel necessary. Our neighborhood is on a well, and the pond water is seeping right back into our aquifer.
Anyway, this summer the chickens found something tasty living in the dry clay above the pond, and they’ve had entirely too much fun digging those holes. There are California poppies already growing there, but I added creeping thyme seeds down low and calendula up higher - and lemon balm, and catnip. Yep, I’ve set two mints free in the yard! Please, outcompete the shitty grass on the terrible clay hill, I beg you! It’s hard to see but I put strips of plastic coated chicken wire down to protect the area while the seeds get started. 
And I found permanent homes for two of the valerian plants that were in big pots. I tucked one in the orchard and one on the eastern end of the clover and hazelnut area. 
#gardening

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