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!

A Happy Little Surprise

First a little backstory...several years ago, a neighbor was given a big bag full of peony starts.  She planted all she needed and then offered some to me (thanks, Carol!)  Three of them were big enough to plant, which I immediately did.  The first one bloomed the very next year, another bloomed the year after and both of them have bloomed beautifully every year since.  The third start, however, had a different plan in mind.  The first year, it only put up one small stem, the second year, two stems, etc.  You get the idea.  Well, it's been about 12 years, and I guess that it finally feels like it's in the big leagues because...

...it's bloomed!  It's a lovely peony, a little different than any of my other ones.  Makes that loooooong, wet spring worth it.

BTW, its companion plant is Allium christophii, a blooming onion that is taking the admonition to multiply and replenish the earth very seriously.

In The Garden - May 14

 

You're looking at my to-do list.  lol.  It's about time to get that garden in!  At the moment, I'm taking a break while a little rain storm is wetting everything down.  I'm so excited to finally be getting the garden planted!  

One of the loveliest surprises in the yard this year is this little species tulip and its yellow cousin (which bloomed about two weeks ago.)

I planted the first of these over ten years ago around some stepping stones beside my patio.  They were cute, but they didn't really spread and multiply.  Whoa!  This year, they are all over!  We even discovered some coming up in the middle of a peony plant that we divided last year.  So, now I have cutie tulips in the front yard, near the patio, near the garden, etc.  The color is so lovely and intense.  Can't really take credit for any of this...it's one of those happy gardening accidents of design!

In The Garden - May 5

Between the aforementioned snow and a virus that laid me low, I haven't done much gardening over the last few weeks.  Luckily, all those seeds I planted indoors under the lights have been doing their thing so I'm not too far behind.  These little fellas moved outside today:

They'll stay on the patio for another week or two while they get used to the sun (and so that the frost doesn't get them. @$*&# weather!)  From left to right: eight Cinderella pumpkin plants, eight pie pumpkin plants, eight Sugar Baby watermelon plants and about a dozen morning glory plants in various colors.

We also made a trip to Lambert Floral today to get pepper plants (bell and hot), herbs and some flowers.  Most of which can't go into the garden yet, but I'll have them when the weather and I battle to a stand off.  I did plant the spinach plants that I bought as well as some cilantro for salsa.