In The Garden - August 9

Everything is changing quickly in the garden now!  I can see changes from the time I check the beds in the morning until I check in the evening.  I don't even want to talk about how fast the zucchinis are growing!

The apple crop is huge this year, which may not be a good thing.  Not only do we have more apples than we need, but we may have more apples than the little tree can sustain without damage.  However, I'm not the gardener in charge of thinning them, so I guess we'll just see how this all ends up.

On our larger peach tree, the peaches are beginning to blush a bit.  The peaches are still a bit small, but seem to get larger every time I water the tree.  Ben is looking forward to a fresh batch of 'sploosh' this year.  Looks like we'll have plenty for that as well as pie!

This hibiscus is such a show off.  Never content to unfurl one bloom at a time, it opens a whole party of the lovely fancy-dress blooms at a time.

Each bloom is about 10 inches in diameter and such a beautiful pink.  I'm so glad that I found this variety!

The Rudbekia 'Goldsturm' is especially floriferous.  And so bright in color!  I'd like to have some more clumps of this in the yard, but I'm not sure if all 'Goldsturm' is this amazing.  I may just need to wait until these are ready to divide rather than risk being disappointed.

Pumpkin Watch 2012

Whoa!  It's pumpkin season again.  I planted 'Rouge Vif  D'Etampes' (the Cinderella pumpkin) and 'Jarradale' pumpkins this year.  The vines have been huge for a couple of months, but suddenly, the pumpkins are getting big, too.  And some of these guys are starting to scare me a bit!

This one is actually ripening in the asparagus bed (that's the ferny stuff that you can see) about 10 feet away from where the plant is actually rooted.

 This is actually the darkest orange pumpkin in the patch.  It's not quite a foot in diameter.

This is 'Big Mama'!  This one is nearly twenty feet away from the first one pictured, actually at the end of the bed and almost to the fence.  It's also, so far, the biggest of all, about 15 inches in diameter and still growing. By Halloween, this one might actually be big enough to make Cinderella a coach from without any magic required.

This is one of the 'Jarradale' pumpkins looking not quite so festive.  They are still quite green, but will eventually turn grey blue.  This type is supposed to be a better long-term storage pumpkin which will be quite a feat as the Cinderella pumpkins usually stay good into February in my experience.

Just a note to my little pumpkin-loving buddies: No matter how many pumpkins Granny grows, we still have a date for the pumpkin patch this fall. That is one of the highlights of the harvest season! lol.

Catching Up Again

Last year's catsup project was a smashing success.  The finished product was delicious on everything that we tried it on.  We even went through a tater tot jag as they were extra, extra yummy with the homemade goodness on them.  So, when I planted tomatoes this year, I planned for plenty of tomatoes to make a new batch.  I began with 24 pound of tomatoes...

added 3 pounds of onions...

After blending them all up together, I had over two gallons of tomato smoothie...

which I cooked down to about 7 pints of catsup-y goodness.

I ended up with an extra half cup or so that we'll try with our burgers tomorrow.  Eight hours total effort.  I know...but it's worth it, I think.

A Noteworthy Day

No rain for weeks. Wildfires all over the state of Utah. And now, this...

Starting raining about three hours ago and it's still coming down.

I was working in the yard, pulling weeds and putting down mulch, when the rain began.  I'd be totally happy to have to call a halt to yard work until tomorrow if I have to.  Love, love, love the rain!

In The Garden - June 28

The garden is growing like a, well, weed. Thought I'd post an overview picture to show just how grand this gardening season is.

The chili pepper plants are still a bit wussy even though I've been giving them the every-other-week Miracle-Gro treatment.  There are, however, a few tiny peppers, so I will be making something a bit spicy soon!

This is not a pic of some lovely new perennial flower, although I do have a few of those, too.  This is my potato patch.  I've grown these 'Carola' potatoes before, but they have never, ever looked like this before.  I'm just hoping that the potatoes under the ground look as good as the vines and flowers are looking above the ground.

This picture doesn't really begin to portray the size and scope of the the pumpkin/corn patch this year.  Those pumpkin leaves are about a foot across.  Every morning, I spend some time heading the pumpkin vines back into the bed.  Pretty soon, they'll be all over the whole garden at this rate!

This is one of the lovely 'Moulin Rouge' sunflowers that I have planted every year for the last several years.  Last year, the volunteer sunflowers were just a bit red with lots of yellow as they had crossed with the native sunflowers.  I was very dedicated in removing the volunteers this year, so thus far, the sunflowers are all very red.  However, they are also incredibly early.  The main reason that I plant this type is that they seem to attract some small orioles that are traveling south every year in September.  I'm worried that the flowers will be completely done with blooming and will have dropped all their seeds long before the little yellow visitors get here this year.

A new perennial, planted last fall.  I really love yarrow, but often have a hard time keeping the colored flower forms alive.  They quickly revert to white-only flowers.  We'll see how this one does long term.

A brand-new conflower (purchased from Willard Bay Gardens and planted yesterday).  Called 'Secret Romance' it is very double and very pink.  I love coneflowers and have several types:  tall ones, short ones, pink and other colors, big-flowered, small-flowered and now double flowered.  I love these for many reasons, not the least of which is their ability to attract butterflies and hummingbirds.  This new lovely is going to live in the bed near the deck, so I hope that it will attract many visitors to the yard.

Firsts of the Season

We've had a few firsts of the growing season this week.

I ate the first tomato of the season on Thursday.  No picture as I pounced on it and gobbled it up before I even thought about taking a pic.  It was delicious, a little 'Sungold' cherry tomato from the plants in the barrel on the patio.

I also ate the first ripe apricot of the season on Thursday.  I've eaten about a dozen since.  They are very good this year and a good size, too.  I'm either going to need a ladder to pick some of them or need to find a tall boy to help.  Oh, Ben....

Jess brought over a large bag of very delicious sweet cherries this week, so we've eaten our first cherries of the year.  Thanks Jess for sharing!

Last, but definitely not least as this will last all year, I did the first canning of the year.  I made 7 jars of strawberry currant juice yesterday and another 7 bottles of straight currant juice today. 

Between the two batches, there was about a pint leftover that Mike made into strawberry currant lemonade.  He and Ben seemed to have enjoyed it, so I'm guessing that it's a good year for juice.

It is also an early year for juice.  I made juice about a month later last year and almost two weeks later the year before.  Our mild winter and very warm spring apparently got the currant bushed working hard to finish their crop before the real heat hits.

Going Retro or...

how everything old is new again.

I have wanted a clothes line for years.  First, I couldn't think of a good place for it, then not all family members thought it was a great idea.  Finally, once we got the deck and pergola finished, I had a great place.  I researched retractable clothes lines for quite a while before just picking one.  So far, I'm really loving this one.

For the past month, I've been using the line for more loads each week.  It is NOT big enough for all the laundry at once, but I can get about 1 1/2 loads on it at one time.  Now that the weather is quite warm, I can dry a load on the line outside almost as quickly as I can in the dryer downstairs.  I do need more clothes pins, too, as I run out of those before I run out of things to hang.

I still dry our bath towels in the dryer so we're not sandpapering our skin when we dry off.  I also tumble dry most of our colored clothes so that they don't fade, although I'm not sure it would make a big difference as most of the drying time is in the morning when the sun is blocked by the house.

I'm not sure how much money this process saves me.  I'm not sure that saving money is the point anyway.  I know I do look forward to laundry day in a way that I haven't before.  That's probably just because I'd always rather be outside than in.  lol.