Monday, February 01, 2010
A Steal
This is exactly how hubby and I felt after we purchased this large garden structure from Lowe's hardware store. I had planted a climbing rose last fall and had nothing for it to climb on when this summer came!
This was the only arbor remaining in their cold and dreary outdoor garden section and had been marked down for clearance to $60. It was made of cedar and completely put together and originally $200! Putting it together would have taken me all day! Now all I needed to do was bring it into our basement to dry out then take it out in the spring and do a little sanding and some sealing as it already had a nice gray patina.
We drove home and got our little pull-behind wagon to load our find.
Immediately after it was loaded Hubby shouted "Start the car! Start the car!"
Sunday, November 08, 2009
The Last Roses
The last roses of summer. They are like gentle and fragile old ladies with lace collars and fancy fans that smell gently of soap and sweet bath powder. They are high maintenance because they know they are beautiful and popular. Their heads hand low from fall rains. They are lovely even as they fade. I miss that they must hurry off, but their cruise ship is waiting. Late in November, while I will sit by the fire trying to warm my toes, they will be having tea and ginger cookies along the warm equatorial waters somewhere. They promise that they will send their favorite nieces and they will arrive in sweet pale dresses in the spring and if I show them love, they will stay for a long visit in the rose garden next summer.
The little gal has what is called rose bloom balling due to the cooler weather followed by days of rains. It still looks lovely even though it will never open. I have to move many of my roses this spring as they are in one of the side beds that gets way too little sun. Living in a forest is deceptive. Roses are greedy for sun and I am lucky that I have not gotten any serious fungal outbreaks this year. Come spring I will begin the spraying as these are the only plants where I use pesticide and fungicide for prevention.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Working for the Soul
We have now cleared the leaning and/or dead trees that rested against each other and formed a sheltered structure for the wild roses that in turn learned to climb to the tops of the lovely and healthy maples, dogwood, and holly trees and shaded them from sun. I pruned limbs and prickly vines and then piled them beside the road in the clearing. We had piles of dead wood and piles of scratchy brush all of which was later gathered in our arms and placed in the old wooden trailer we use for hauling large amounts of 'stuff'. Hubby bravely climbed on top and did the elephant dance to smash it all down so that we could grab more armfuls and put on top once again.
Frequently the angry roses would grab our butts and legs refusing to be dumped. I still have a tiny thorn in my arm that will have to fester its way to the surface.
Hubby and I argued about what wood to take to the dump and what to cut into firewood. We have enough firewood to last through the winter of 2012, so I was inclined to get rid of much of the wood. (This will ensure that global climate change really will be global warming.) This photo is just one of the long piles we have waiting for the first cold weather. The problem is that some of this wood is old and some still too new for burning and in our dedicated rhythm we were not as careful in stacking as we should have been.
The wrens and the flickers were not happy that we took away so much dead wood, but eventually forgave us when they saw how may broken tree stumps we left behind for them to poke through. They will have a rich larder of wood insects through the coming snows. We also left enough small bush areas for the mice and other small animals to find shelter.
The free crepe myrtle that was planted at the end of my flower bed two years ago got moved with the help of Pedro. He works for a landscape company and knows exactly how to dig and move small trees. The shape of the crepe was not long and lean but more like an umbrella-shaped weeping willow, and therefore, taking up too much flower bed space. We (actually Pedro and hubby did the work) also joined the two flower beds and I now have a good sunny place to transplant my scattered roses this fall. (More work!)
After these past three days, the old joints ache with fatigue and overuse and my arms are scratched as if I had wrestled with a mountain cat, but soaking in my jacuzzi in the late afternoon before starting dinner was a reward enjoyed so much more because of my hard work. I am thankful that I do not hate hard work. I am thankful that the goal is its own reward for me. Besides, now I don't have to do any exercises this week!
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Happy Harvest
Hubby spent time cutting the large pieces of wood into manageable size for our small wood-burning fireplace. We now have enough cut wood (some even split) for at least three winters. That is good, because much of this needs drying and aging time. I loaded each log into the wheelbarrow and pushed to the wood pile where I spent careful time stacking. The process is something like building a rock wall in that wood pieces must be selected according to shape and size before placing on the pyramid of wood. Once it is all stacked it makes an interesting wall.
This afternoon I am harvesting the last of the garden. We do not have too many more days of growing weather with the cool nights. I have made enough pesto, roasted tomato sauce, and frozen enough beans to make me feel very full of food already.
Our fridge is now full of salsa and pickled hot peppers to warm us in the coming cold nights.
My project this evening is shredding the 30 or so carrots that, while not very pretty, do have a reasonably sweet flavor and will make delicious carrot cake. (I have admitted defeat on the large box of spaghetti squash which is stored in our basement and will accept that the mice may get to much of it before us.)
Tomorrow I am going to try "Butternut Squash au Gratin" from a recipe sent by my daughter. Add enough butter and cheese to any squash and it becomes quite delicious if no longer healthy.
I think this is going to defeat the small weight loss from my Colorado mountain hiking.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Collecting Seeds
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Long Hot Summer Stilllife
I am guessing the summer has been too long and too hot when the vegetables lean back on the counter and start smirking at you...click on photo to see what I mean. Sigh. Smart aleck cucumbers. I have my grandson visiting all week, so may be to busy to blog much.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Snowballs in H***
When beginning my garden this year, actually re-beginning after the building of the deer fence, I read somewhere that planting marigolds around roses will help to keep insect pests away. It appears that insects do not like marigolds. Actually I am not a big fan of marigolds myself. I know, I know. We are supposed to like all of nature's bounty and marigolds have their place in this world. I would put them way in the back of the flower garden and in the shade. Their flower is nice, but they have no fragrance and they have no drama for me, common since my childhood.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Sharing the Munchies
An hour later and with the kitchen smelling strongly of garlic and with spilled olive oil across the counter and with green stuff everywhere, I finished two recipes of parsley dressing. One pungent with Parmesan and garlic and one sweet with gentle spices and balsamic vinegar and red wine. Guess we will be eating a bunch of salad this week. All this green has got to be healthy, right?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Balance
I have always been partial to hybrid tea roses. These plants are very temperamental and cannot be grown organically unless in a hermetically sealed greenhouse. I, therefore, knowing the challenges, had reasonable expectations in the failure and success of the new roses I planted in this yard. Of the five, one looked so bad this second year that I dug it up and tossed it. I did not expect my Olympiad rose to grow so well and so easily. The flowers are perfect in shape, last for days and make excellent cut flowers in arrangements and the plant has thus far been resistant to both bugs and fungus!
I had planted cosmos from seed and they have been somewhat slow to start, but flowers are now beginning to form. This was a surprise as the cosmos I see that is growing with little encouragement in the road medians seems to be very robust. I anticipate my plants will be robust in re-seeding and I will have to watch them closely next year so that I keep them in their place.
My sunflowers, on the other hand, have been so very sad. Several were eaten by rabbits until I sprayed pepper spray on them and also deer repellent around them. But even so, they are struggling to grow in this wet non-California climate. While this photo above was taken days ago and the plants are now over two feet, I must admit that sunflowers are not going to be something I try again.
The vegetable garden has rewarded us with spring crops and now we are harvesting our first tomatoes, cucumbers and raspberries. I find the most wonderful pleasure in getting all kinds of herbs from my herb garden that sits just outside the front door. This was something I dreamed about when I was living in the apartment in the city. These garden tomatoes above (our first harvest for this year) are garnished with basil and fennel...they look almost like a Christmas decoration.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Abundance and Respite
I feel somewhat guilty in posting this but we are on yet another vacation, heading on our way to a favorite spot at Hilton Head that we go to once a year. We have a lovely three bedroom reserved and no one who has time to share with us! So sad. We will rattle around and maybe sleep in a different bedroom each night!
Two days before we departed the yard clean-up included harvesting oak leaf lettuce and the remaining pak choi from the garden. I was washing huge heads of pak choi that had turned juicy and green from the recent rains. It was like the dance of spring watching sprays of water go everywhere across deep green broad leaf abundance. We also have bunches of oak leaf lettuce that is ready to eat along with the delicious arugula. We will be gone for a week and did not want this abundance to go to waste. Fortunately there is a nearby church group that gives away food and we have packed two large boxes of these healthy vegetables and taken them there.
I cannot begin to explain how wonderful I feel that something that has been a labor of love for me, is healthy sustenance for someone else.
I do not have a laptop, so unless hubby brings his, I will not be blogging until I return. This is a pre-planned post and I am hoping as I write this that the North Carolina fires (a similar experience to our trip last year) will not be a problem in our travel. It is somewhat hard for me to get into another vacation mode when I know there are people who are losing their homes.
I will be visiting one of my favorite places, Pinckney Island Nature Preserve, and taking bird pictures. Some I am sure I will post on my other blog. Also plan to eat at least once in Savannah! This will be our first visit here without family, so the only negotiating will be over the number of canoe trips and the number of beach sits!
Saturday, April 04, 2009
It Is Easy Being Green
We have two beds of this and may be tired of it after the next couple of weeks. But right now we pick a few outer stems from the larger plants and cut them up. Add some grape tomatoes from the store and then a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and you have a salad to die for.
(And of course, the garden looks so nice pre-weed eruption and pre-insect dining. But the blue bird is helping and I will post that on my other blog.)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Dischordant Harmony
Sweetmango wrote a post about how we must learn to live with nature and not try to transform or fight its natural flow. This is true and good advice, except for those of us who are gardeners. Our entire mission is to transform the soil, the light, the day length, and the habits of the natural enemies of each and every plant we place in the ground. We try to do this as organically as possible, but it is still an unnatural effort on our part to manipulate nature to meet our goals.
We were teased with a brief respite from the cold weather over the weekend and into early this week. Temperatures were 70F (21C) which is very inviting. We moved dirt to beds, added compost to beds, finished retaining walls, weeded (yes they are already peaking above the soil in the flower beds and strawberry beds), finished a wire fence around the vegetable garden (my hands are cut and bruised from twisting wire ties), finished tacking the rest of the wire to the ground and out about 8 inches to discourage diggers, finished the gate to the garden, planted pak choi, swiss chard, broccoli, arugula etc. into the raised beds, made two temporary greenhouse covers, hauled many wheelbarrows of landscape brick and sand to border the new flower bed, transplanted a few indoor plants, moved the citrus trees to the deck (temporarily) and welcomed a hot shower or bath to ease weary muscles at the end of each exhausting day.
My fingernails still have dirt under them after a long soak.
All this energy spent but in one accident of nature (a wayward deer or groundhog, a strong wind, a flooding rain, a very hard freeze), most of these cool weather plants can easily 'bite the dust' if you pardon the pun.
The deer fence goes in tomorrow and it will be interesting to see if this expense does reduce the tick population and the grazing decimation by deer. Today we saw five of them in the ravine eating the new growth on the wild roses which are considered an invasive species. So they do have a good purpose in the spring when they graze.
Is there a point to this ramble, you may ask?
In the photo above is a stray arugula plant that found a home just outside the garage door in the black gravel of the driveway last fall. We walked on this volunteer frequently and most likely drove over some of it at times. Yet, it lasted until the first freeze. My point is that nature is very mercurial and while we think we can control it the joke is on us.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Not to Put Too Fine a Point on It
They shred most of the small limbs into mulch that goes into the ravine and will be good for the rest of the trees and plants and bugs growing down that way. We have removed some food for the woodpeckers, but we have dozens of other trees that are dead or dying.
The work is dangerous and watching them do this gives me tremendous respect for the skills needed in this job. The large logs they are able to cut so that they fit almost exactly as they drop them not too gently into the back of their big truck. This is all done by eye.
It is interesting to see the different colors of the shredded material that comes out of the chipper. Some is rich and red, and other brown. We did not try to save this as mulch because there is so much poison ivy vine mixed in with it. We also sacrificed some of our future firewood because we did not want to interfere with their progress by trying to pick and choose. Everytime you talk to these guys it is money! ;-)
If my dad were still alive he would love watching this. He had worked hard all his life and had a deep appreciation for work that was completed by hand and machine. I miss the guy on days like this.
Now I must go outside and measure the edge of the final flower bed to see how much more landscape brick I have to save for. I need it this month...but probably won't be able to add it to the spring's expenses.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thus It Begins
I awoke at 6:00 from the demands of our Cardinal, Don Quixote, tapping at the window at the bedroom patio door reminding me I can never sleep in again.
I got up, made some coffee, and was blogging away when at 7:00 AM the phone rang and a man with a gravelly voice said, "Tell your husband we will be there to cut the trees tomorrow morning early unless it rains."
"OK." I said and hung up.
Five minutes later the phone rings again.
A young woman's voice, "Are you ready for the top soil today?"
"Uh, sure."
"OK, they are on their way now."
I call to hubby who can sleep through almost anything and he slowly but eagerly rises.
Thus begins the $500.00 broccoli project, followed closely by the $500 tomato adventure. We do love to garden. And thus on a fixed income we continue to support our local businessmen.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Isn't It Romantic?
Anyway, as is well-known, he got the flu big time last week and all had to be cancelled including the theater with the resulting loss of the pre-paid theater tickets.
So, not to be stymied, I had a fall-back idea. I had ordered something for him that I knew he was going to love. It was very expensive and I didn't realize how heavy it was until it arrived, and over three days, continued to arrive in various boxes! Thus, hubby had to find out ahead of time about the gift to help me lift and put the thing together.
I am sure any nosy neighbors across the river were wondering what kind of sex toy this enormous frame with chains, etc. represented since we put everything together in the bay window of the master bedroom. The directions said that it could be put together in about an hour. Well, that is assuming your husband reads directions and lays out all the parts ahead of time. He started pushing in plastic parts and it wasn't until we reached an impasse that I pointed out that the plastic parts were supposed to go elsewhere. (No you cannot comment on our sex life here.) This was about an hour into the project and we sighed in exhaustion and gave up until the next day. This morning hubby was determined to pull out the plastic end pieces and with some drilling and pulling and sweat he succeeded. We once again started the project. In about an hour the project was finished and looked pretty good.
Boy are the lights bright on this baby! Now we will worry about whether the neighbors think we are growing medicinal plants in the bedroom. We also will have to watch the timer as that might indeed have an impact on our sex life.
This unit has three long shelves that he gets to fill with spring seedlings and he is so excited he even said I could have some of the space. Cool huh?
Post Script: No I do not have shades or drapes for the bedroom. We are saving up for that, although with this recession that may be a long time coming. If anyone wants to watch two old farts walking around naked in their bedroom, here' s to em!
Post Post Script: I think this little project with its hundreds of pieces should count for good elder brain exercise. I haven't done something like this in a while.
PPPS: Yes we once had a homemade seeding unit (quite ugly), but we no longer have the patience to try to build something like that again. We are the kind of people that keep the gardening catalogs going.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Gene Pool
When this little gal was born all her elders played that familiar guessing game of who she took after. Many of us agreed that she looked very much like her paternal grandfather who is a handsome, sometimes funny, and usually simple and conservative man. But I am of the opinion that looks don't count for everything and children frequently become a blend of their elders good and bad characteristics. Therefore, I sometimes look for something of myself in her eager personality and activities.
My daughter took the photos below while I was playing a game with my grandson. As you can see, the gardener in me seems to have inspired the gardener in her. I am hoping this is a sign of the future where we can plant and cut flowers, grow and taste the freshest of vegetables, and perhaps, create little garden rooms of imagination and fantasy.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Fall Projects
We had saved up a sum of money to put in a patio under our deck this fall and we now realize that was better than leaving it in the market! For the past week or so we have been doing our little bit for the economy by employing almost 4 men full time to clear grass, put in drains, set paver stone, aerate the lawn and seed the destroyed areas. It was supposed to take a little less than 4 days, but I think that with economy slowing down the landscape firm was in no rush to have staff return to the store and sit waiting for another assignment and so the crew was actually here for 7 days which did not increase the cost of the contract.
During that time my husband and I began clearing the garden and moving ALL of the soil (he did most of the work as I have been fighting some illness) and now we will level the whole area and put in a series of raised container beds. We spent the last of the wad of money on cedar boards--the worst grade they had which is stunningly beautiful even so---for the walls of the beds. Hopefully with landscape cloth and mulch on the paths between the beds, we will get some control over the weeds next year.
They had to tear up the lawn with the little bulldozer, but also aerated and reseeded the areas and now we wait for the lawn to come up once again. We also had them take down some dead trees on the edge of the lawn in the front yard, and now, guess what? I get to put in ANOTHER flower bed. (I still haven't gotten the deer fence up but I tend to be more optimistic than realistic!) The far side of this bed will be for cut flowers. I love cutting flowers and bringing them inside the house to enjoy as I do my chores.
The new patio provides a rather large sitting area beneath the deck that will be handy during the hottest part of summer and also nice for fall when we want to sit around a small fire pit. Right now a fine layer of dust and dirt is everywhere --- on the window sills, the deck chairs, the potted plants and the brick. Thus the project today, if the weather stays warm enough, is to wash all of the outside before the grandchildren show up on the weekend. S'mores anyone?