Blooming in My Garden Right Now

Having a daughter into photography often leads to surprise photos on your camera. Sometimes they are just odd, but often they are fun surprises. Here are a couple I found recently.

Some blooming sedum from the garden:



And someone seems to be finding time to enjoy our fall leaves:

Blooming in My Garden Right Now...

It's Columbine time again!

Cyrus had a rough night a couple nights ago because of an ear infection and went down for an 8 am nap the next morning, which gave me a chance to take some photos in the early morning sunshine. The columbine are popping up all over my perennial garden. These are one of my favorite flowers. Very dainty and airy. My perennial garden is very tightly packed, the but columbines hardly take up any room. They also self sow, so new ones show up and surprise me every year. I even found one in one of my flower pots this spring. I think it was probably planted there by Maddy, though. She enjoys collecting flower seeds and spreading them around our yard.

The Crocus

Beneath the sunny autumn sky,
With gold leaves dropping round,
We sought, my little friend and I,
The consecrated ground,
Where, calm beneath the holy cross,
O'ershadowed by sweet skies,
Sleeps tranquilly that youthful form,
Those blue unclouded eyes.



Around the soft, green swelling mound
We scooped the earth away,
And buried deep the crocus-bulbs
Against a coming day.
"These roots are dry, and brown, and sere;
Why plant them here?" he said,
"To leave them, all the winter long,
So desolate and dead."



"Dear child, within each sere dead form
There sleeps a living flower,
And angel-like it shall arise
In spring's returning hour."
Ah, deeper down cold, dark, and chill
We buried our heart's flower,
But angel-like shall he arise
In spring's immortal hour.



In blue and yellow from its grave
Springs up the crocus fair,
And God shall raise those bright blue eyes,
Those sunny waves of hair.
Not for a fading summer's morn,
Not for a fleeting hour,
But for an endless age of bliss,
Shall rise our heart's dear flower.

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

More Blooming Branches

After the fun with forcing my forsythia into bloom, I decided to try some other blooming branches from my yard. I have no idea what the tree is that these came from. One of the fun things about bringing the branches in is how much more closely I can pay attention to the progress of the opening blooms. These ones, in fact, were prettiest and most interesting right before the blooms opened.

Each bloom cluster started as a single bud, which then opened up into a cluster of chartreuse green balls, each of which later opened up to become a flower. I have a weeping cherry and a regular cherry tree that I want to try next. The daffodils and crocus have all started to open, as well. I love spring flowers!

Welcome March!

Never mind, March, we know
When you blow
You're not really mad
Or angry or bad;
You're only blowing the winter away,
To get the world ready for April and May.
-unknown

I took a short walk around the yard yesterday, to assess the state of my garden's soil and visualize changes to my flower beds, and was delighted to see the very first tips of crocuses and daffodils showing through the soil and buds fattening on tree branches. That, and the change in calendar to March, has really gotten me so enthused to be outside in the garden again. I am really looking forward to this month and trying to accomplish quite a few things. I've been mentally making a list of them, and decided if I write them I will be less likely to forget them:

Cyrus: I have a party to plan! His birthday is coming up on the 13th. I can't believe he is turning one already! He just started walking this past week and learned to say "dog" in sign and English at the same time. He already thinks he's a toddler, I guess. I'm also working on sleep training with him. I know, I know, I'm very slow starting. You'd think by my 5th I would have known better and done it months ago. But, I'm a tired, lazy, wuss. So, there. This will probably take all month to do, because I don't do "cry it out". (Not that I think those who do are making the wrong choice, it's just the wrong choice for me. See previous wuss remark.)

Elsie: I am working on doing better routines with her for meals (the girl would snack all day long if I let her), and other activities like reading time and art time.

The Girls: Why is it that these two so often get lumped together? We just finished reading another book together, and are starting a new one tomorrow night.

Marvin: We need to get him progressing more on scout and Duty to God stuff. He's also starting track up again, which means lots more driving, but also visiting time.

Family Scripture Study: I am hoping by the end of the month this has become part of our regular evening routine.


Holidays: St. Patrick's Day, first, then Easter. The basket stuff is ready, but I need to think about clothing and Easter dinner. Saved items already on hand? Buy? Sew dresses again? I'm hoping I will find the first in my clothing boxes. We are also planning on an Easter Primary Activity that I have been mulling ideas on. We want it to be fun, but also help the children focus on the true reason for the holiday. Any ideas?

Garden work: I traditionally plant peas for St.Patrick's day, quickly followed by other early cold hardy veggies. I turned the soil already in preparation, but I would love another crack at it, to turn in some composted manure. Have I ever mentioned I love digging in the dirt? I also need to start the pruning: butterfly bush, perenials, and raspberry canes. I also have plans for my front and back foundation beds. I'm still formulating plans, but there will be tearing out and transplanting shrubs and widening beds most likely involved. So, I am sure to get some digging in one way or another!

Spring Break: I want to make sure our break isn't full of boredom and sibling rivalry. We used to go camping at Zion's National Park every Spring break. We have yet to develop a spring break tradition here. Although we have enjoyed visiting the zoo. Any suggestions?

In addition we have Spanish class, Photography class, Wednesday night activities, dentist apts, my educational coursework, replacing the winter decor with spring decor and I'm hoping to get my kitchen painted. It should be a fun and busy month!

UPDATE! We have had a sunny warm day, with temps in the 70's. And purple crocuses are opening. Yay!

Seedfolk and Garden Planning

It may be snowing today, but my thoughts have turned toward spring!


My two oldest daughters and I just finished reading Seedfolk by Paul Fleishman.

We started reading together in the evenings again. I wanted to spend more quality time together, read more good books, and jump start reading scriptures better as a family. We had tried at bedtime before, but with a cranky tired 2 yr old, it didn't work out. So, I'm putting Elsie to bed a little earlier, and then starting to read books with the girl's to get a habit started. Soon, we will read books AND scriptures and get the rest of the family to come join us. That is the plan anyways.

So, back to the book. It's the story of a community garden in Cleveland that brings together a diverse group of neighbors. It is told in the voices of 16 people, each with a different background and life story. We really enjoyed reading it and discussing it together. It allowed my girls a peek into a world very different than their own. Unfortunately, it wasn't until after we were done that I found this teacher guide, complete with discussion questions. It also made me excited to start planning my garden for this year!

(Warning: The book does introduce a couple themes, drugs and teen pregnancy, that might be too much for younger children, but are a good spring board to the subjects for older ones.)

So, I've planned our food garden. We will be growing:

Maestro Peas
Mesculen Mix Lettuce
Buttercrunch Lettuce (New)
Mediana Spinach
Detroit Dark Red Beets
Blue Lake pole beans
Gurney's Pride Zuchinni
Spirit Hybrid Pumpkins
Straight 8 Cucumbers
Mammoth Dill

Plus tomatoes, bell peppers, basil and oregano plants bought locally.
And the already planted, strawberries, raspberries and cherries, of course.
Next, I need to plan for the flower beds, decide on a replacement a shrub that died last year, and put away all the snowmen decorations!

Two Cool!

I have two cool things to share today!

FIRST- Remember when I said I expected forsythia blooms in a few "weeks"? It was more like a few "days"! The first blossoms opened a week after bringing them in.

SECOND- I just discovered blog slurping by Blurb. Blurb is a self publishing site where you can create and publish your own books. Blog slurping is something new that they have introduced that allows you to import your blog and have it published as a book. What is great, is the flexibility you have in making it the way you want it, and at the same time how user friendly it is.

Select which posts, whether you want comments included, and if you want hyperlinks included as foot notes. There are 14 or so different themes to choose from (similar to a blog skin) and over 75 different layouts. Don't like the layout of an individual post? Select another template and it will automatically arrange everything for you. Or, for those more creative than I, you can manually do all your layouts yourself.

When you are done, you have it printed. A 40 page soft cover book is $13. But, there are hard cover options, and the possibility of a book 440 pages thick, as well. And you can include it in their "bookstore" if you'd like. So all your loyal fans (friends and family?) can order a copy of their own.

I recently was worried about the future of my blog and whether it would "last" or eventually disappear into cyberspace. And I have done such a lousy job of scrapbooking or making baby books for my kids. Now I can make a "real life" copy of my blog, and even make individual books for my kids with the posts that pertain to them. I am very excited about this!

Learn more here.

Forcing Forsythia

I love forsythia in bloom, which is good because we have five of them around our yard. They just say spring to me. And I am ready for spring. So, I am cheating and trying to get some blooms early by "forcing" them. I cut some branches and brought them inside. I've never done this before, but if it all goes as planned, I should have a nice display of bright yellow blooms in a few weeks!

Raspberries

Not the slobbery on your belly kind. The luscious, juicy red kind.

My favorite thing I grow in our garden is the raspberries. Not only are the just about the tastiest thing I grow, they are also one of the easiest, and the best value for my efforts. If I had to buy my raspberries from the store, my family would rarely get them because they are so expensive!

Picking them was so much fun with Elsie this year. There is just something satisfying about seeing your 2 year old delightedly picking and eating berry after berry until her mouth and fingers are stained red. I really should have put down the berry bucket and taken some pictures, huh?



Raspberry harvest is over now, and I had accumulated a large stash of cleaned, smashed and frozen berries. So, yesterday was jam making day. I finished with 64 cups of raspberry and raspberry pear freezer jam. I ran out of freezer containers and even used a couple baggies. It was either that or sippy cups. And believe it or not it will all be long gone before the tasty berries are back next year.

And in case anyone was wondering, some if it will soon be found in a freezer in NJ...

New things in the past few weeks...

Peonies in bloom...


These are my all time favorite flower.

Rug and Furniture...


I love ebay! These antique chairs were found during the restoration of the former mansion of the first Senator from West Virginia. (And no it wasn't Byrd!) $35 each. The rug was a "like new" for $85.

Green paint...



We finally got the family room painted. I'm still not sure I like the shade!

Blooming in my garden right now...

The Columbine Fairy Song

Who shall the chosen fairy be
For letter C?
There's Candytuft, and Cornflower blue,
Campanula and Crocus too,
Chrysanthemum so bold and fine,
And pretty dancing Columbine.

Yes, Columbine! The choice is she;
And with her, see,
An elf in piper, piping sweet
A little tune for those light feet
That dance among the leaves and flowers
In someone's garden.
(Is it ours?)

Yes, it is!

I Love Topiary

I love topiary! I think it is a perfect meld of my love of gardening and my taste in design. I would love to have a classic European garden. It would have lovely shaped boxwood edges, vistas of fountains and statuary framed with evergreen, and secret rooms walled in by hedges older than I, and entered in through green arches. Maybe even a labrynth for playing hide and seek in. Of course, I'd need a legion of gardeners with hedge trimmers in hand to achieve that. Instead I try to create my own much more modest versions.

The heart one above is one I've done more than once. It is really easy, just a metal coat hanger shaped into a heart. I don't even untwist the hook of the hanger. I just straighten out the hook and poke it into a pot of ivy. I then wind the ivy around the wires. Ivy is a great houseplant for those who are watering challenged like myself. They actually like to dry out between waterings. This one I water just once a week, despite its tiny pot.

I made a globe shaped one once by reshaping the wire hanger off of a hanging plant. To cover the wire "stem" I twisted the vines smoothly around it, removing the leaves along them till they reached the globe section.



This is my biggest version. Purchased wire topiary forms can be expensive, so one day at the hardware store I had an inspiration. I picked up a tomato cage that was proportional to the pot I planned on using. First, I tied the three wires that usually poke into the ground together with a bit of wire. (It actually was the wire out of a twist tie!) I heated the wire tips over a flame on my stove and used needle nose pliers to curl them under. Then I spray painted the whole thing with flat black paint, stuck it in my pot and planted the ivy. The whole thing cost me $2. Unfortunately, I had to leave it behind in Utah when we moved. (Which also explains the poor picture of it.)

My next topiary project is a pair of these:



I want to try trimming them into spirals when they get a bit bigger. I'm adding ivy around the edges to hang over the sides. The trimmings are actually coming from my heart topiary above. Ivy cuttings root really easily. I just stick the ends of them into water till they have enough roots to plant.

Maybe, someday I'll be brave enough to try a chicken. Or an elephant. Emily would love that. (She keeps asking me if she can have a pet elephant.)

Overwhelming...

When I return from a vacation, I am always amazed to see the growth that has occurred in my garden in my absence. This is what I found this time. They are radishes. Some are 4 feet tall! I had no idea they could do that. They were overwhelming the peppers and basil trying to grow behind them.








And I found these had started to bloom:





We also discoverd the cherries were ready to harvest. I took this picture yesterday morning. But, by the end of yesterday, the birds had had a feast and they were gone. My only consolation is the fact that they were pie cherries and I'm not terribly fond of pitting enough cherries to make a pie. Okay, that was a lie. I would happily have done so, because, well, I like pie THAT much. Darn birds.

Next year we need to plan our vacation time better. We left in the height of the strawberry harvest and had to sacrifice the last pickings to the neighbors. So, I won't be making as much strawberry jam as I had hoped. I'm not going anywhere during the raspberry harvest. I guarantee it!

Of course, the posts on the blogs I read had grown much like my radishes. Getting caught up on everyone is taking some time. I missed two Works for Me Wednesdays, and the idea of going through all of them is also overwhelming. But, if I don't, how will I know if I am posting an idea that has already been posted? And what if I don't read and miss something that would've completely changed my life for the better? The laundry was less intimidating.

We had such a great and bloggable time on the Cape. I have a myriad of posts milling in my head, and pictures, and I don't know where to start. I am really excited about sharing about so many things that I love. Of course, they may be very boring to others. So, if you don't like beaches, the sea, history, architecture or antique clocks, I apologize in advance!

Strawberries, Rain and a Break

The Strawberry Harvest has begun! This was our first real picking, a bowlful last Saturday. We've had about 5 smashed cups each day since. We chose to celebrate by making Strawberry Shortcake for Family Night treat. Yummy! Unfortunately, we've had a lot of rain, which is great for the rest of the garden, but has given us some problems with fungus. It seems to like the ripest berries, so I've started picking them a bit earlier than usual to try to get them first. I'm hoping to make several batches of jam, so I've just been throwing a batch amount of smushed berries in a freezer bag and throwing them in the freezer. Once the harvest is over, I'll thaw them out and make the jam.

But, summer rain can be so fun. It's been warm enough that the girl's can play in it without getting chilled.



Also, Wednesday was the last day of school for my kids. So, I am going to take a blogging vacation for a bit. I'll be busy either making jam or making memories with the kids for the next couple weeks. I hope everyone is having a fantastic summer!

Plant Garden. Check!

240 square feet of garden, half of it berries.

We got the garden planted today. I decided to do it all at once this year. I am watering handicapped. I enjoy digging the dirt and planting, but then I get distracted with life and forget to water. This works fine later in the season when watering is less needed or, sometimes around here, not needed at all. I figure by planting it all at once, I will only need to be watering viligant for a short, but very intense time. This means I will either get garden satisfaction sooner, or my garden will die all at once in one spectacular wilt.



Elsie was very cooperative. She ,thankfully, felt like sticking close. I gave her some water in her very own watering can to play with. She loved it, and playing with the empty flats and picking all the flowers. (That'll just make them bloom more, right?)



The kids each are in charge of part of the garden. It was nice spending one on one time with each one as we planted their own little plot. At one point, DH was teaching Marvin how to remove a lawnmower blade after hitting a metal post. At the same time, Emily and I were discussing faith, how seeds grow, why the sky is blue, and the three divisions of the federal government, all while planting beets. It is for such moments that I live.

If you're curious, and even if your not, here's the list:

vegetables
sparkler radishes (Marvin)
Sweet Treat Hybrid Carrots (Marvin)
Detroit Dark Red Beet (Emily)
Ruby Queen Beet (Emily)
Derby Bush Bean (Maddy)
Jung's Tricolor Blend Bean (Maddy)
California Wonder Bell Pepper
Jalepeno M Pepper
Jung's Kaleidoscope Mix Lettuce
Evergreen Bunching Onion
Burpee Pickler Cucumber
Sweet Burpless Hybrid Cucumber
Roma Tomato
Million Cherry Tomato
Better Boy Tomato
Jelly Bean Hybrid Tomato
Early Perfection Pea (planted earlier)to be followed by Golden Acre Cabbage (Emily)
Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach (planted earlier)

Annuals for front of house
Lemon drop marigold
Petite Yellow marigold
Scarlet Starlet marigold
Dwarf Cherry Rose Nasturtium
Bonfire Salvia
Vermillion Terrace Vinca
Victoria Blue Salvia

Annuals for perrenial beds
Blue Moon Lobelia
Hot Pink Snapdragon

Annual vines for porch railing
Heavenly Blue Morning Glory
Scarlet O'Hara Morning Glory
Giant White Moonflower

Herbs
Purple sage
Hot and Spicy Oregano
Logee's Blue Rosemary
Italian Large Leaf Sweet Basil
Mammoth Dill

Maddy also helps with the raspberries and Marvin is in charge of the strawberries. The vegetable focus this year is on pickling. Other than the cucumbers, though, we are staying away from the cucurbits (squash and melon family). We were devastated by verticulum wilt carrying cucumber and squash beetles last year, so we are pulling back and regrouping.

I also repotted 3 houseplants and finished planting the containers. Final spring garden tasks: Finish pruning the forsythia bush and thin the raspberries. Anyone need some raspberry starts? For now, I'm taking my sunburned neck to bed to dream of blt's and berry pie.

Yes, this bush. Large enough for a small house into which the girl's have happily moved into this spring.