Good Things List No.101: Finished Road Hedge and Garden Update, Pillow Insert Covers, and Books

A monthly list of good things to do, buy, and read: summer and fall garden progress, keeping feathers in pillows, green tomatoes, and my favorite books of the month.

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I’d usually say something like, “Hello, fall” but other than the sun being lower and the leaves starting to turn, it’s been more like summer here the last few weeks! I mean, not hot summer, but high 70s – and one day reached 81 degrees – which is enough for me to keep wearing longer sundresses and flip flops. Since we had a cool end to the summer, I’ve been really enjoying this Indian summer. I had even packed away the porch furniture cushions because it has been so wet and cool, but I brought them back out and I’ve been spending as much time as I can out there since I know we’re coming to the end of the warm weather.

Which is a good segue to this month’s good things list, as I thought I’d do a recap of all the outdoor projects we’ve worked on and a couple fall garden wins that are making me happy. Oh, and the pillow insert cover you NEED if you have decorative feather pillows, as well as the best books from September and a new comedian I found. Enjoy!

Good Things List

Summer Garden Projects

The Long Road Hedge Finished

This was one of our major garden goals this summer, to take this area along the road in front of our house that I had haphazardly planted with shrubs and create a defined hedge area that didn’t need to be mowed and was on a watering system. Originally we were going to simply mow between the shrubs until they grew, but they never really grew due to deer eating them and long dry summers that we couldn’t keep up with hand watering (seriously, it would take hours…).

I dug and moved all the plants into a smaller area, we covered the grass, laid down a watering system (we just have to hook up a hose to it now, so 5 minutes!), and covered everything with wood chips from friends of ours (huge savings, since this area is 180 feet long!). Then we made sure that each had a cage to protect it from the deer (of course many of these are “deer resistant” – sigh. I’m hopeful that once they reach bigger sizes they can withstand some munching and won’t need protection).

The plants are already recovering well since we finished in July and have a lot more growth than I’ve ever seen. The goal is to have a row of evergreen and flowering shrubs that will bloom throughout the season – and cover all the utility boxes that line our street!

Landscaping the Side Porch

Once the ground was moist enough to work in again, we started landscaping the areas around the new side porch. This entailed renting a machine to haul fill dirt from the wooded area of our property to build up around the porch so we could create a long stair across the front and have finished areas to the sides.

On the left above you see the small garden bed to one side (it’s below our living room windows). I built this in a few hours using the same technique I’ve done for years to build a new bed (I used brown paper bags instead of newspaper, though, since we haven’t gotten a print newspaper in years!). The plan here is to use truly deer resistant plants I’ve found from from my garden – I’ve already planted boxwood, lavender, and heather and I’ll transplant some things they’ve left alone in our sunken garden (probably catmint, rudbekia, and maybe salvia).

On the right is the in-progress gravel patio I decided to create. This area has been a weedy mess and it wouldn’t work as grass since we’re building up areas around it and I didn’t want another planting area to keep deer and squirrels away from here. What was left was gravel and I thought it would sort of carry on the landscaping from the other side of our house that has gravel areas. Plus, it really would be a good place to put an extra table when we have guests. I’ll keep you updated on when it’s finished!

Garden Update for Fall

It’s the first time I’ve been able to pick LOADS of raspberries in the fall and I’m so thrilled! We have to move these canes before next season (for various reasons…), and I hope they do as well in their new area because I’ve been totally spoiled with fresh berries on my morning protein granola almost continually since last June! These are everbearing ‘heritage’ raspberries, producing a decent (but smaller than only June bearing) crop in June and then this fall crop.

The other thing I’m thrilled about is that row of spinach seedlings you see on the right. It may look small (the row is actually longer than shown), but it’s a big deal for me because the timing of getting fall spinach to grow is always tricky for me – and usually doesn’t happen well. About the only shout-out you’ll hear from me with our rainy, cool end of August and September is the fact that the spinach loved it. I’ve also got a number of ‘merveille des quatre saisons’ lettuces growing throughout three of my beds and they’ve been providing us with all the lettuce we’ve needed (it’s the red-tipped lettuce behind the spinach). And they will continue until frost – and hopefully beyond as well. I’m just so happy I haven’t had to buy lettuce for us since last spring!

The Pillow Cover I Needed

For literal years I have dealt with feathers all over the furniture and carpet from the living room’s decorative pillow inserts. I thought after awhile it would stop, but no. I would leave multiple covers on the inserts and that would help some, but feathers still came through (and usually to stick you somewhere in the back). I can’t remember where I read about these water-and-feather-proof pillow insert covers, but it was another blogger who said they finally stopped the feathers from coming out at all. You know I was all over that.

But I tested one out first before investing in covers for my seven pillows and the difference was night and day. I ordered the rest right away and now I do not have feathers anywhere. I totally had to get used to not picking up feathers from the couch and carpet! Not only that, but changing the pillow covers is so much easier without feathers flying everywhere.

If you have feather inserts (which I LOVE because you can refluff them and they don’t get flat like other pillow fill can – obviously since I put up with it all these years, lol), I can’t recommend these enough.

September Favorite Books Read

I started back into the Inspector Gamache series after a few years break and was reminded again why I liked them – it was nice to visit Three Pines and Canada again, to hear the food and decor descriptions, and to hear about Inspector Gamache, a truly good guy who loves his wife and family (often rare in this genre).

I started with #10, The Long Way Home, which is a normal who-done-it (not to gruesome or dark) focusing on one of the characters who’s been away from Three Pines for awhile and the mystery of what could’ve happened to him. I didn’t really know where this was going and was sorry about the ending for one of the prominent characters, but I enjoyed this genre again.

While I still enjoyed the next book in the series, The Nature of the Beast, it lost some of the impact for the improbable plot devices as well as the murder of a child (though not described, thankfully). There’s a giant gun that had apparently been there for many years and NO ONE had found it before a boy was playing in the woods. Then another is when Gamache plans to secretly let a psychopath out of maximum security prison- what?? But the other parts of the story were familiar and Gamache was truly broken up by the boy’s death while still dealing with his own recovery. There are quite a few loose ends that Louise will probably pick up later in the series (that psychopath for one…). On to #12!

One More Thing

That’s it for another addition of the Good Things List!

If you’d like to see more of what I’m enjoying, you can check out all the Good Things Lists here. I’d love to know what you think – if you’ve tried any of these or what you’d recommend. Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

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