Color my World (year 2)

Edibles aren’t the only thing happening in the garden! Flowers, in almost every color, are competing for recognition in all corners of the yard.

The day lilies are so easy to grow, I usually think of them as a weed (smiles). And yet, they are a show stopper year after year!

Purple coneflower (Echinacea) are also simple to grow and are a few weeks ahead of my Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) that haven’t bloomed yet!

Asiatic Lilies dot the landscape and naturally brighten many spots. I love how fragrant they are, too.

Nasturtium is climbing up one of the trellises at the far end of the lettuce raised bed, bringing a huge punch of color to an otherwise mostly green spot. Even though the leaves and flowers are edible, I wanted to include the flower in this selection because the colors are so vibrant! ❤

For less than one dollar, I bought a small petunia sleeve and put it in one of my hanging baskets. It has multiplied like crazy and the flowers add color at a different height in the yard.

Liatris are planted in clusters everywhere. They are 42″ tall. Long before they bloom, their magnificent stalks offer height interest. Their slowly opening flowers provide color for several weeks. I love my Hollyhocks and Hibiscus for the same reason.

Low growing and ground covering, Portulaca is one of my favorites because of the memories it ignites. My older daughter had loved them as a child and still loves the wide array of colors each plant produces. We love Lantana for the same reason.  ❤

The water lilies continue to open daily on the pond. I know this isn’t a garden flower, but maybe a water garden??  (smiles) Each week, different perennials around the farm, step into the spotlight and grace us with their magnificent colors for a few weeks.

My hydrangea are a bit slow this year; they are only thinking of opening now. The Althea (Rose of Sharon) have just begun to bloom, too. I have them in white, blush, fuchsia, and purple. Wow, I adore them. They are in constant bloom through August. And don’t forget about the Crape Myrtles! Gosh, the list could go on and on and on!  (smiles)

My world is more colorful because of flowers. I hope they color your world, too!

❤ Happy Gardening! ❤

 

 

 

Give ‘N’ Take

I have an update from the herb garden, but it comes with mixed feelings! (smiles) The Black Swallowtail caterpillars are growing larger each day; however, at the expense of my dill plant’s growth—it’s totally disappearing!  ❤   I know as soon as the caterpillars disappear (have morphed into butterflies) and the plant gets a chance to rest, new growth will begin to appear again quite rapidly. I suppose I could say that the dill and caterpillars have a symbiotic relationship, but, right now, only the dill is looking a bit haggard!  ❤

 

They’re Back!!

I suppose I have a confession to make: I grow Fennel and Dill for really only one specific purpose—-to host the Black Swallowtail butterflies (smiles). While I have been waiting and waiting for caterpillars to hatch/arrive, the fennel and dill have continued to grow, and grOW, and GROW! I was going to trim them back, but knew as soon as I did, the very hungry caterpillars would no doubt show up!

Two days ago, while inspecting the garden, I saw a teeny, tiny caterpillar!! I thought it was really too teeny to photograph. But, twenty four hours of munching must have made a difference, because last night I was able to do so with a comparison in size to my thumbnail.

The fennel and dill are almost FIVE feet high now! (smiles) I imagine in the weeks ahead, more and more caterpillars will hatch and begin their life’s cycle right here in my herb garden.  I can’t wait!………Plant it and they will come!  ❤

❤ Happy Gardening! ❤

 

 

Nasty Little Pests!

Not all pests have SIX legs; I have known a few to have TWO, four, or eight legs, too! (smiles) But, I won’t start that rant on this blog!  The main reason that I began gardening was that I wanted our food free from chemicals—that included pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.

Japanese Beetle on Monarda (Bee Balm)

But, what do you do when those nasty, destructive pests show up???? You get out a soapy water container, of course! A few times a day, I make a methodical inspection of the garden in order to stay ahead of the pests that show up to “eat us out of house and home!”  When I find one or MORE, I open up my container of sudsy water and plop them inside. So far, so good!! Because I grew veggies through the winter in hoop tunnels over the raised beds, my garden never really had a chance to rest. Therefore, crops have been constantly available for pests if I were to let them get out of hand.

Any container with a screw on lid. Sometimes I use large jars.

To give your developing plants a fighting chance to outwit the pests, crop rotation is a must. I rotate within the growing season, and most certainly from season to season. Last year my biggest pest was the vine borer. It destroyed the cantaloupe vines overnight! (I never even knew that they had arrived…I was clueless to know to look for them!!) Even though cantaloupe is a favorite of mine, I decided to skip this season in the hopes that if any were still around, they’d go hungry! In the meantime this year, I am being ever vigil with my other vine crops.

❤ Wishing you successful gardening! ❤

Red Rover, Red Rover…

“Red Rover, Red Rover, send (Cucumbers?) right over!!” was a game I loved playing as a kid. Of course, it wasn’t a cucumber that came running to break through the human chain of children holding hands. (smiles)

But, during this growing season, as I try to use vertical space whenever possible, I can’t help but occasionally hum that jingle in my head as I have watched the cucumbers climb higher, higher, and finally OVER their support trellis!

I’m not sure whether growing vertical is the reason, but we are loaded with cucumbers this year and by growing vertical, they are so much easier to find!  ❤

Garden salads, cucumber salads, pickles, and so much more have begun to happen…Yay! Summer is officially here!

Fresh is Best!

No matter what I end up fixing for supper, I know that starting with garden fresh produce will make the finished product taste that much better! ❤

Both excitement and anticipation in the garden are growing, too!! I do believe I am just days away from the starting point of being inundated with ripening veggies and fruits. Everywhere I look, trees, bushes, plants, and vines are heavy with produce. I canned lots of tomatoes and tomato products last year that carried us through the winter months. This year I hope to add beans, beets, and carrots.

BLT Pizza

During the seven years we lived in Neptune Beach, FL, our favorite spot to eat out was a pizza place on Atlantic Blvd called Al’s Pizza.  Just block from the ocean, the atmosphere was always alive and exciting, and the food was terrific every time! Yesterday, when I discovered that I had my first five tomatoes ready for harvest, even though they were cherry tomatoes, I decided to make my Al’s favorite on a much smaller scale (smiles) —-BLT Pizza!   ❤

I know it doesn’t count as pizza crust by any shape or form, but I grabbed a gluten-free toast and browned it for about 10 minutes in the toaster oven.

Next, I added vegan cheese (without pizza sauce) and popped it back in for another 15 minutes.

When it came out, I spread across the top a dollop of Vegenaise. Then I added fresh cut lettuce, tomatoes, and oregano from the garden. And, finally finished with two strips of MorningStar soy “bacon”.

My little mini pizza was wonderful and brought back so many great memories of our time spent at Al’s!  ❤

 

Goodness Snake’s Alive!

I know I mentioned in an earlier post about how we see our pond snake once in the spring and then a year passes before we see it again. Well, last week, after re-doing her room, my younger daughter decided to tackle the pond with me. The pond’s lily pads and water lilies were becoming too thick and even though I know they kept the water cooler, I felt the fish needed to see SOME daylight.

The narrow edge around the pond is probably 20″ below the water’s surface. Not too deep, but deeper than a muck boot is tall. So, Kelly donned garbage bags–a poor man’s attempt at fishing waders! (smiles) While dredging the pond and pulling up huge water lily tubers (they were truly enormous), we found a few snake skins. At first she was squeamish, but I assured her that the pond snake had left them behind months ago, if not YEARS ago.

We thinned and pruned about half of the pond, before we decided that the fish needed us to exit and let the pond silt settle back to the bottom. We figured we could re-evaluate what we had done and do a bit more later, if needed.

Not long after we had left the pond, we were inside looking out at our work. Lo and behold, to our SHOCKED amazement, we saw our pond snake come out to evaluate our work and get a DRINK?!! However, the fish didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by this turn of events.

After a brief drink or whatever it was doing, the snake decided to swim around the pond as if to check out the new freedom that the absence of lily pads now provided. As we watched, the frogs began hopping OUT of the water, onto rocks…

and onto lily pads!

The pond does still need thinning, but I think it may be a while before we venture back into the water!   (smiles)

Time for a Makeover!

USUALLY, when kids grow up and move away, their bedrooms are reclaimed as sewing rooms, TV rooms, home offices, fitness rooms, or additional guest rooms. Well, this past week, in between work schedules, my younger daughter and I re-did her room to make it special for her to return to —time and time again! (smiles)  ❤  A paint job and gallery wall made the list of priorities.

She had decided that a gallery wall would be a fresh and different way to display some of the photographs that she’d taken during her travels both in our country and overseas.  But, we had our work cut out for us!  (smiles)

The last time she/we had painted her room was in 2005—with the color choices and velvets to match her Phantom of the Opera poster! (smiles)  She was definitely due a make over. But, we had to start with Kilz to block out those previous colors. Some furniture we carried out into the hallway, some we worked around.

After the painting was done, we had to build the shelving. We used 8′ long planks, 1×4″ as the shelf width and 1×2″ as the lip–which how we placed it, was only 1″ high. We used finishing nails to build the shelves, but 3″ screws to mount them into the wall studs.  The shelves were painted to match wall color. She kicked around the idea of black shelves to match the  frames; but, with the furniture in her room, we knew it would be two very different looks competing with each other.

Originally, we were only going to make the shelves 6′ long, but decided the wall was large enough to be able to handle the 8′ lengths. The dresser usually has two matching mirrors attached, but she opted to remove them for an updated look.

She still has individual pictures, collage of tickets, and a collection of paintings to hang on the other walls, but for now, my work is done. The best part—-nothing broke, no paint spilled, and we are still friends!   (smiles)   I actually had a wonderful time!  ❤

He was Mocking us!

I have a farm story from yesterday that I just have to share, but first a bit of background info–Llamas are laid back, docile animals, especially when compared with horses or sheep. The llamas on our farm are usually the quiet ones, rarely getting into much mischief at all. But, occasionally when there is a reason, a herd llama will get worked up, transform to high alert, realizing something is amiss. Then, they let out a high-pitched shriek that carries across the hills and lasts up to 15 seconds or so each time they produce this sound.

Llamas that are confident to make this sound, stepping forward to warn their herd, are considered a good candidate for a guard llama. Imax had been our guard llama for over a decade! When he came to the farm, he was only 6 months old, so we certainly hadn’t expected that he’d someday fill that role—back then, I didn’t know even that llamas could play that role (at least not the way I witnessed years later).

But, when Imax passed away last year, I missed the sound of him trumpeting at intruders. His alarm sometimes sounded long before our dog would even realize a “stranger” (4-paws) was crossing our fields.

But, yesterday, while I was working, I heard a familiar sound. One of the girl llamas was sounding the alarm! It was coming from the back of the house. I instantly stopped working and ran out into the yard! Sure enough, Francesca was staring at the farthest back field and shrieking. This was a FIRST!! My eyes scanned the property looking for what she was warning about, all the while telling her how awesome she was; how proud we were of her (smiles). But, I NEVER saw anything!! After searching a bit longer and still seeing nothing, I headed back inside.

(not my photo)

The alarm continued to sound (sometimes sounding a bit odd) and I continued to go outside and look. She was still rooted in the same spot and staring at the fields as if it were obvious what she saw….Still nothing! But, I praised her nevertheless. About a half hour later or so, my younger daughter just got home and was walking up to the house from the driveway and happened to witness first-hand what all the commotion was about. Whether or not Francesca may have originally SEEN something was no longer the issue. Apparently, one of our many visiting mockingbirds was mimicking her shrieking sound, causing Francesca to continue sounding the alarm as she tried to figure out where that “other” llama was!!

❤  Happy TAILS to you!  ❤