Success At Last!

When my grandmother moved to Cottonwood Arizona, she immediately set to making the yard at her home as lovely and floriferous as her home in Tempe had been.  One of the most show-stopping additions was a patch of 'Heavenly Blue' morning glory near the big gate.  (Never mind the fact that morning glories are illegal in Arizona.  lol.  Little things like that never stopped Grandma from doing anything that she wanted to.)  I've spent the last twenty or so years trying to grow them here.  With absolutely no success.  *sigh*

Until this year!

'Heavenly Blue'

'Flying Saucers'

 

They've been blooming for a few days, but it's hard to get a good photo as each flower only lasts for a few hours.  Aren't they lovely?  A beautiful tribute to Mable Alice Jenkins Clow, if you ask me.

And BTW, morning glories are legal in Utah.  ;)

 

Pumpkin Watch

It's time again to check in on the Coffey pumpkin patch.  We have high hopes this year as last year's crop was so delicious!

This sugar pumpkin is about the size of a softball.  There are literally dozens of these in the patch.  *crosses fingers*  Hope they all make it to maturity.

This is a Rouge Vif D'Etampes pumpkin...also known as Cinderella pumpkin.  There aren't nearly as many of these.  Hope several make it as they were definitely the best tasting pumpkins we had last year.

And to all the little people in my life, don't worry.  We'll still make a trip to the BIG pumpkin patch, no matter how many pumpkins Granny grows.  That trip is way too much fun!

Serendipity

I like to think that I'm a good gardener and a pretty good garden designer.  And every time I get to thinking I'm a great gardener, the Master of all gardens and everything else shows me that He still has it all over me.

I concede.  Permanently.  He is the best!  I had no idea what color this daylily was when I put it next to the coneflower.  And if I had, I never would have put these two colors together, but they are absolutely magnificent in full bloom together.  

And for an encore...

These daylilies used to reside in my front yard.  They were short and pale pink out there.  I moved them to this spot beside our deck last year.  They are taller, bigger and more intensely colored than ever before, finally able to fulfill the measure of their creation.  I love them!

Why I Garden

I groused to Mike over the weekend about the amount of time that I spend in our vegetable garden.  All that weeding, watering, fertilizing, picking, planting and tending takes a huge chunk out of my week.  The truth is, though, that I consider my vegetable garden as my summer 'job'.  It's the reason that I'm able to be a SAHW and why I was able to be a SAHM for so many years.  We have producedmany thousands of dollars of vegetables and fruits over the years!  If you also factor in the savings provided by the canning and freezing of all that produce, the cost savings over buying all that food at retail is quite substantial.  That said, that's not really the bottom-line reason why I garden.  This is...

This is my lunch.  Or it will be after I make it into a frittata.  No matter how high-end the store, no matter how expensive the produce, no matter how well-known the grower, no produce tastes better than that fresh-picked moments before cooking/eating. 

I had an interesting on-line conversation with some former gardeners several weeks ago.  They declared that it was far cheaper for them to buy their produce at discounters like Winco than it was for them to try to grow it themselves.  While I don't agree to the cost savings they claim, my big disagreement with their argument was the lack of taste and freshness of their choice of vegetables.  Absolutely nothing compares to the taste of the first tomato of the season.  Nothing.

Currant News

Although I've already posted about my currant-juice-making adventures (here), I want to update as to the quantity of the finished product.  This year, I bottled 20 pints of strawberry currant juice total.  Last year, we ended  up with 12 pints so this year's harvest was substantially larger.  And that's including the few pounds of currants that the grandkids ate during a recent visit.  lol.  Normally those berries are waaaaay to tart to eat plain, but the berries were also larger and sweeter than in past years.

So to recap, this year's currant harvest was bigger, sweeter, later and juicier than in years past.  *insert big grin smiley here*

My Wish List

Ever since I came up with the idea to add a wood deck to the backyard, I've wanted a portable firepit to use on the concrete patio freed up by moving the table to the deck.  We spent a lot of time looking at firepits in person and online without much success.  I'm pretty picky, I guess.  Finally, Mike and I found one that we could agree on at Lowes and it was on clearance!

(pardon the pergola shadows!)

We had our inaugural marshmallow roast this week with the grandkids.  Other than an unfortunate wind shift that had us all wheezing, the event was quite a success.  I look forward to many more!

In The Garden - July 18

The much anticipated first tomato of the season.  Mmmmmm.

It's That Time of Year

You know.  The time when I go absolutely nuts trying to can, freeze and otherwise preserve all the goodies that my garden is producing.  Some of the first fruits, so to speak...

Strawberry currant juice.  Fourteen pints, so far.  I was trying to get a photo with the light coming through the jars.  Meh.  Didn't work so well, but they are really beautiful in person.

Strawberry freezer jam.  And yes, I ate this example as soon as I checked to see if the picture turned out okay.  lol.  This year, I did a little something different than in past years.  Instead of chopping the berries in my food processor, I just mashed them with a potato masher.  The jam is much chunkier and, in my opinion, very tasty.  I think I'm going to do that with the strawberries from now on.

When the Cat's Away... 2011

...the mice will paint.  lol.  Yep, Mike was away at Boy Scout camp this week, so I was painting like a mad woman all week.

Before:

It's been almost 25 years since this pink paint went on those walls.  It was high fashion when I decorated it, I'll have you know!  Now, not only is it out of fashion, but really beat up and grungy looking.  You'd think monkeys lived in this room rather than two stodgy old people.  That wallpaper border was NOT dry-strippable.  It came off in little bitty pieces even with the assistance of Piranha wallpaper stripper.  Took two $@&% days to get that stuff off the wall!

After:

This picture in no way does justice to that lovely, new blue.  I spent months looking for just the right blue.  This one looks like the sky on a hot day.  I wasn't looking only for a specific color, but for a specific quality, too.  The paint needed to appear to be lit from within.  Josh told me there's a name for it, but I can't remember the exact phrase.  Sub-surface luminosity or something like that.  Anyway, this paint has that quality.  I love it.  It's cool without being cold.  Restful without being static.

Now I just need to finish decorating by finishing up the quilt that I've been working on for the bed.  I have pictures to put back up, but I'm so in love with all that blue that I may wait a while.

In The Garden - July 9

This cool wet year has made some real changes in the way that some of my garden is growing.  Some of the changes aren't all that thrilling...like the spinach that bolted before it ever produced an edible leaf. Some plants, however, have responded to the cooler, wetter environment with gusto.

I've been growing hollyhocks in the backyard for about 15 years.  The seed came from plants that had naturalized in my parents yard in Cottonwood Arizona.  The first couple of years, I planted new plants from seed indoors, setting them out when the spring weather warmed up.  I haven't added any new plants in many years, but because the hollyhock population was dwindling in both size and numbers, I'd planned to add some this year.  It proved to be unnecessary.

 

The largest plant has bubblegum pink flowers.  The fence is six feet tall, so I estimate the height at about seven and a half feet.  It lives in the path in the garden which makes it a bit difficult to maneuver around , but is so lovely that I make it work.

 A white-flowered plant growing up through the middle of my apricot tree.

A pale pink version conveniently growing in an actual flower bed.

A dark pink plant that dwarfs my one-year-old plum tree.  I'm particularly fond of this color!

There are nearly two dozen smaller plants tucked here and there in the orchard and garden. With a little luck, they should spread their progeny far and wide. We'll have a hollyhock thicket again!