The Much Anticipated Lettuce Harvest!

Weather means more when you have a garden.  There's nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.

~Marcelene Cox

Much of my vegetable crops are still in their baby stages of a cold spring.  No way will the “corn be knee high by the 4^th of July” in my yard, but already I’ve harvested some snap peas and asparagus stalks, several artichokes and finally my lettuce is ready!  I have 8 heads of an heirloom green leaf with sturdy leaves on the left, a few of the diminutive butter head Tom Thumb in center, so soft and delicate the quickest to grow in my collection with a 34 day maturity and a new one this year…Rouge d’Hiver - this beautiful red Romaine type with a 48 day maturity on the right. 

I pick a few individual large, outer leaves off each head of the Heirloom variety.  That way the plant will continue to send new leaves out from the center.  You don’t want to harvest the whole plant like you find at the market.  You will get a much longer harvest this way. But for the red Romaine here it’s way too soon for the heads to have matured and formed into what you’d recognize as a long, lean Romaine head so I’m picking out tiny whole plants early in order to thin out the bed.  That will make room for the rest to form full heads.  As you can see, I didn’t have time to grow and plant individual seedlings, I just scattered seed over the soil surface.  Kinda messy looking but successful none the less.  I could also just treat the red leaves like a Mesclun mix and snip leaves off with clean scissors, being sure to cut well above the growing point so the plant will send out new leaves again.  Known as the cut-and-come-again method, you just grasp several leaves and cut.  Or if you prefer you can individually hand pick the biggest leaves for your daily harvest like I am doing with the Heirloom.

Did you know that if you harvest your lettuce at temperatures over 65 F (18 C) degrees it will often have a bitter taste?  That’s why you will often see advice to pick your lettuce in the morning hours.  At the cooler morning temperatures the plant is hydrated, not stressed, and the sugars of the plant are at their peak.  Morning harvested vegetables are crisper, juicier and sweeter.  This is a good rule of thumb for all your vegetable harvesting…not just lettuce.

To wash fresh garden lettuce I just dunk the leaves into a sink of cold water with about a cup of plain white vinegar added.  The vinegar will kill any bugs and gnats that you don’t want to find in your salad bowl later.  They will drop to the bottom of the sink so I give the leaves a second dunking in plain cold water.  I wouldn’t want to live without a salad spinner with as much lettuce as I grow.  Getting most of the water off the leaves allows the salad dressing to coat the leaves better. 

You get the most nutrients if you eat it the day you harvest it but when I get too much I store them in the refrigerator drawer for vegetables.  I never put veggies in regular plastic bags, but rather the green plastic bags made for refrigerating fruits and vegetables.  They truly do prolong freshness in the fridge.  And the bags last a long time.  I keep using mine till a seam gives way and tears.  One box lasts me more than a year.

 

Happy Harvesting!

In Bloom in My Garden Today: Alpine Strawberries, Armeria, Baptesia, Bletilla pink, Chives, Columbine, Daylily, Daphne caucasica ‘Eternal Fragrance’, Dianthus, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Hardy Geranium, Hosta ‘sum and substance’, Huchera, Kniphofia (torch flower or red hot poker, Lavendar, Nepeta ‘six hills giant’ (catmint), Peas, Peony, Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Primrose vailii, Rose, Salvia, Saxifraga andrewsii (irish saxifrage), Sedum, Schizostylis ‘watermelon’, Thalictrum rochebrunianum (meadow rue), Tomato

Author’s photo

Sometimes The Garden Must Wait

In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them." 

~Aldo Leopold (American ecologist, 1887-1948)

It’s June and by now the lilacs are finished blooming here in the Pacific Northwest.  I have 3 medium sized trees and by now I would normally have been up on a ladder amongst the branches cutting off all the old bloom clusters before they form seed heads.  It makes them not only look considerably better, it also sends the plants energy into new growth sooner rather than giving it over to seed formation.

I won’t be doing that this year though.  The pace of my schedule has ramped up this year and some tasks of the garden simply must be left undone.  Ignoring some garden jobs can cause untold disaster, like letting weeds get out of control.  That I won’t allow, but skipping the lilacs doesn’t worry me.  Leaving the seed heads will not affect the tree’s blooming performance next year.  What it will do is provide food for birds during winter’s dearth and that’s a good thing.  A neighboring garden has a beautiful double flowering white lilac tree.  It is far too big to teeter on a ladder to clean it up so it is never dead-headed.  And because of that, every winter on the bleak gray days, I smile as I watch the Chickadees feast on every last morsel offered by that tree.  This winter they’ll have more with my trees adding to their buffet. 

In Bloom in My Garden Today: Alpine Strawberries, Armeria, Baptisia, Bletilla pink, Blueberries, Chives, Columbine, Daylily, Daphne caucasica ‘Eternal Fragrance’, Dianthus, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Hardy Geranium, Hosta ‘sum and substance’, Huchera, Kniphofia (torch flower or red hot poker, Nepeta ‘six hills giant’ (catmint), Peas, Peony, Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Primrose vailii, Rose, Salvia, Saxifraga andrewsii (irish saxifrage), Sedum, Schizostylis ‘watermelon’, Thalictrum rochebrunianum (meadow rue), Tomato,

Author’s photos

Garden Tool Care

"To dig in one's own earth, with one's own spade, does life hold anything better?"
  ~Beverly Nichols, 1898-1982, British author of Down the Garden Path

As in any endeavor or hobby, having the right equipment in good condition makes the difference between enjoying your activity or not.

The winter months are the perfect time to get your tools cleaned and sharpened for the season ahead.  In a perfect world I’d be doing this in January, not mid April but alas…such is life, isn’t it…the best laid plans and all that? 

Imagine this, a steaming cup of your favorite beverage, jazzy tunes on the radio, all in your large garden shed complete with wood burning stove to keep you warm while the winds howl and snow swirls outside and you, cleaning, oiling, and sharpening your myriad of garden tools all neatly stowed on their proper wall hooks or in their tidy drawers…yeah I wish.  Something to aspire for but my reality is this.

No room for a wood stove but I do have the jazzy tunes going.  One wall gets all my larger tools in our little drafty garage.  A few drawers get the smaller trowels and weeding forks.  All this shared with piles of pots, bags of fertilizer, bee stuff, car stuff, bikes, oh and a car, which is why we have a Mini Cooper.  Crazy tight but it all shoe-horns in somehow.

Believe it or not, gardening tools are meant to be sharp.  Just as a dull kitchen knife makes chopping and slicing more difficult, so does a dull shovel make digging more strenuous. 

Naturally digging in the dirt, rocks and grit will dull your shovel, making you work harder.  The more you dig the more you may need to sharpen the edge.  In the case of pruners (secateurs) you could sharpen them after each full day of use or more likely on a monthly basis.  Sharpening frequency depends on how often you use the tool.  Once sharpened you should feel the difference.

Mostly people ask what edge gets sharpened?  If your new tool comes with a sharpened factory bevel right out of the package, take note of which edge and the angle of the bevel and only sharpen in the same way when you sharpen it again.  The angle of bevel will determine how sharp the tool is.  The more delicate pruner will have a sharper bevel angle than a shovel.   Also the sharper the angle the more often it will require sharpening.  A shovel is typically at a 45 degree angle on the top side of the edge.  A good average bevel for a hoe is at about 30 degrees, again on the top side of the edge. 

This is my stirrup (aka wiggle) hoe, my favorite tool for the weeding of large areas or mixing in compost or fertilizer at the soil surface.  (All organic fertilizers must be lightly mixed with your soil in order for the soil organisms to break down the fertilizer, making it available to the plants).  With a push/pull motion this hoe is designed to skim across, just under the top layer of dirt, slicing the leaves off from the stem or root of weeds.  Mine was not sharp at the point of purchase but in order for ease of use they need to be sharpened on both top edges of the flat, horizontal blade.  This one actually had blunt, squared edges so I used an electric bench grinder to get it to sharp edges.  Now that I have two beveled edges, I can just use a hand file to do the job.

I’ve tried several different ways to sharpen tools over the years.  The electric bench grinder is good for shovels and hoes.  You can get different stone grits, depending on how dull or nicked the blade is you need to sharpen, though a flat file will work well if it’s not in too bad of shape.  

For more delicate work like pruners I prefer this pocket size Corona tool.  Taking apart pruners is good practice once a year so you can really clean all the metal surfaces with steel wool and sharpen the full length of the blade.  But for the monthly touch up, I want a quick tool like the Corona tool. This is not a paid endorsement or any kind of endorsement other than I like it for its ease and pocket size.  I discovered this little handy sharpener at the greenhouse were I volunteer.  They keep several of them around.  Sharp pruners are a must.  Dull cutting edges will tear leaves and stems.  You always want a nice clean cut, otherwise pests and/or disease can enter the plants vascular system with the potential of death.  Additionally, a dull hand pruner will put added stress on your hands and wrists.

The long file shown below is too clumsy for me to use on small pruners.  The circular stone, which is inserted into a drill like a drill bit, works great but you need to take apart the pruner to get all the blade’s edge.  It works great for grass shears and the standard flat hoe. 

Don’t forget to lubricate the moving parts of your tools to keep them working well.  My favorite lubricant is a Teflon based synthetic oil lubricant, found at bicycling stores made for bike chains.  It’s slick and doesn’t attract grit.

The wooden handles need care too.  Barehanded, I rub the wooden handles of all my tools with linseed oil.  It is a natural, non toxic oil which smells wonderful.  Once it absorbs it protects the wood from drying out and leaves a nice feeling finish that water won’t penetrate.   In the kitchen linseed oil is known as flax seed oil.  The difference being the linseed oil at the hardware store is not strained enough or processed for consumption.

I prefer wooden handles for most of my tools, but I must confess to breaking two garden forks with wooden handles so for that particular tool I keep to the fiberglass handle.  One thing to note…if you live in the USA and can get to a Sears store, they still offer the life-time guarantee on their entire line of Sears Craftsman brand tools…that includes gardening tools.  I’ve broken a few wooden handles in my work and yes, I do take advantage of that guarantee.  Buying and replacing cheap brands is not frugal when you can get free replacement and a quality product.  You don’t need to keep receipts…Sears Craftsman tools have their brand name stamped on the handles.  (No endorsement here either, just good information)

Lastly, do your best to hose the dirt off your tools and let them air dry before you stow them away after use.  Rusty tools are long-lived tools. So sharpen your tools now and have a more enjoyable time in the garden this summer!

In bloom in my garden today: Alpine Strawberries, Anemone nemerosa ‘robinsoniana’, Bergenia ‘winter glow’, Brunnera macrophylla, Clematis alpina ‘jacquelin de pre’, Daphne caucasica, Daffodils, Clematis alpina ‘frankie’, Erythronium revolutum (fawn lily, trout lily, dogtooth violet), Fritillaria pallidiflora, Geranium phaeum ‘lily lovell’ (mourning widow), Hardy Geranium, Heather(Erica carnea ‘springwood white’), Hellebore, Hyacinth ‘blue jacket’,Kale, Pansy, Skimmia, Primrose (double English), Tulipa ‘gavota’

Authors photos

Snow Covered Smorgasbord

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
~Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719), 'The Spectator'

Birds need food and water every day, just like us gardeners.
When your very own personal bird sanctuary looks like this…

…most of their natural food sources may have been covered under a blanket of snow or ice encrusted and inaccessible.

That is when I just start tossing loose seed over the snow.

In the winter months I forgo the seed feeders in favor of suet cakes. We have so much rain in winter that the seed often gets wet and molds before the birds eat it all so I put out a few of these instead. This is a flicker, a cousin of a Woodpecker.

Hummingbirds get assistance too.

The Anna’s hummingbird over winters on this side of the Cascade Mountain Range so they are year round in my garden. When the temps dip below freezing for any length of time I make a thicker sugar syrup (with NO red dye ever) and wrap the feeder with 3 or 4 layers of bubble wrap. For the most part the syrup does not freeze, unless we get prolonged temps, day and night in the teens. If that happens I bring it in for the night and put it back out for the day. For our most recent icy blast it was fine and stayed liquefied. I did notice though that the little yellow ‘bee guards’ filled with snow and iced over so I did remove them. They are really only needed in summer months anyway.

Also, when the night temps start to dip below freezing I always put a heater in the birdbath. It has a thermostat so if the temps go above 40 F degrees (4 C) it shuts off. Other wise it keeps the water thawed so they can drink. There are many styles out there but the best I’ve used is the Nelson Blue Devil 200 watt heater. I’ve had it for many years.

Be sure to watch your water levels, as you don’t want the warm steam evaporation to leave your heater high and dry.

These simple measures keep the birds coming all winter to my garden, where they also eat lots of bugs and grubs year round, helping to keep down the pest population. Most of us know that hummingbirds consume nectar, but did you know insects provide the protein in their diet? That’s IPM folks, one of the many simple things that can be done for Integrated Pest Management that can greatly reduce and even eliminate chemical pesticide use and keep our gardens organic.

In Bloom In My Garden Today: Helleborus, Sarcococca confuse, Heather (Erica carnea ‘springwood white’), winter pansies


Author’s photos

Rutless in 2012

A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.
~Welsh proverb

Ruts are easy to fall into.
I don’t mean the kind along the road but the kind that keeps you from trying new things.

Today as I am watching the snow fall on my Tuscan kale and Brussels Sprouts, I am deciding which new and which old favorite varieties of vegetables to grow this year. So far I’ve got 3 new to try.

With our Pacific Northwest growing season, there are many things to consider when selecting what to grow. For one thing, we have a short growing season so varieties needing over 100 days to mature are not necessarily going to make it before the season changes and the plant begins to decline.

Another, being only a mile from the water, the temps in my garden don’t necessarily get hot enough to ripen many vegetables like in those gardens more inland. With both those factors, melons, peppers and many others just will never produce and ripen for me. Some veggies need a certain number of heat units for full maturity. Some summers that isn’t a problem but for the last two it has been.

All that to say we are unpredictable in the weather department so tried and true varieties take much of the frustration out of gardening. Not a bad idea, as a matter of fact I’ve said many times on this blog that learning what works and what doesn’t from the more experienced gardeners around you is a great way to go.

However, experimentation can lead you to find something you’d never have found otherwise. For instance I’ve settled into only growing Stupice tomatoes for several years now. Stupice, with 65 days to maturity, is an heirloom variety that grows and ripens consistently in both sunny, warm conditions as well as in our often wet, cloudy and cool summers. That’s early for a mid size tomato so I’m getting ripe fruit sooner than most. While perusing my Nichols Garden Nursery catalog this year I’ve decided to try Willamette, a hybrid developed by Oregon State University for short season areas like ours. A medium size tomato with a 70 day maturation, it claims “good production in spite of false springs, late chills, damp or dry summers”. How can it fail I wonder, so I’m going to plant it instead of Stupice this year and see what I think of it.

Over this past winter I also have been preparing more squash for our meals. I’ve never been a fan of squash, with the exception of zucchini (courgettes) but Shari’s blog has peaked my interest in cooking with squash since she writes about how healthy it is. I’ve found I like acorn squash more than delicata and butternut, so I thought I’d try growing Sweet Reba, an acorn bush variety with a 90 day maturation.

I’m also going to try cucumber Rocky which I found in Territorial Seed catalog. At 48 days this hybrid is a tad earlier than my old standby Marketmore at 55 days. Rocky is a one bite size seedless variety.

Last but not least…the bees. This year I wrapped the beehive against the coldest of winter temps. The only warming efforts I’ve taken in winters past is to strap on a plywood wind break and plug in 2 strands of Christmas lights (the old style that heat up) under the box for some bottom warmth. It’s not a lot but it can add a few degrees to keep a tender perennial alive so I do it for the bees too. Beware if you try this, you may get laughed at by some beekeepers but I didn’t care when they laughed at me. Mine survived that winter when many of theirs didn’t. Dale, my beekeeping friend down the street convinced me to try a wrap this year. He found 4’ x 8’ (1.21 x 2.43 m) sheet polystyrene at the hardware store that cut down would be perfect to use. I opted for the 1 ½ inch thickness. Hive wrapping is a common practice in the upper Midwest and Northeastern U.S. but not so much here. In our temperate climate with mild winters, depending on who you ask, some beeks will wrap and some adamantly will not, believing a wrap gives the bees a false sense of warmth with detrimental results. I’ve never done it, even told new beekeepers not to do it because of the death stories I’d heard. That said, I have given it much thought over the years. If you consider the natural cavity of a dead, hollow tree is probably inches thick and that is a natural cavity honeybees will use in the wild. The standard Langstroth hive body box is ¾ of an inch (1.78cm) thick. The BeeMax polystyrene hive bodies available from Dadant claim better insulation in both summer and winter, and are thicker than a wood hive box but I can’t find the actual dimension in the catalog. Sooo… I decided to give a wrap a try. I may only leave the wrap on in the most frigid of temps…that is yet to be determined.

It’s a new year. What will you try new in your garden?

In Bloom In My Garden Today: Sarcococca confuse, Heather (Erica carnea ‘springwood white’), winter pansies


Authors photos

Rose Hips. Winter's Gems

"Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!"  ~ William Arthur Ward

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day were a stellar days here in the Pacific Northwest! They were crisp, cold and gloriously sunny with just a few wispy clouds overhead. The blue skies gave promise of joy in the New Year.

As we started on a long, hilly walk Saturday I noticed a squirrel in my rose bush in the front yard. It was eating the rose hips. I’d noticed some birds doing the same thing last week but I can’t say I’d ever seen a squirrel eating them. It stayed for quite a while before moving on to the seeds of my neighbors lilac tree.

When I started gardening I was told you must keep rose hips from forming or they would take strength from the rose, weakening it year after year. Now I believe quite the opposite. Rose hips are simply the seed pods that form once the flower is finished. For the plant it is one method of survival to form seeds to drop and grow more of itself. In fall when the day length shortens and temperatures drop it is also a signal to the plant that it’s time for it to power down for a dormancy period…like winter. A dormant plant will not succumb to winter’s damaging temperatures, or at least will have a better chance of survival.

The key is to know when to cut the faded flowers off and when to leave them to form hips. Keeping your roses deadheaded does indeed keep the blooms coming. I deadhead my roses all spring and summer, but once fall is well underway I stop deadheading. Let the flower whither on the stem, let the petals fall and in time you’ll see the rose hips forming.

Not all rose varieties have showy hips. Some are very small and not colorful. As you peruse the catalogs and nurseries, look specifically for reference to hips in the plants information tag if you want the lovely winter jewels for your garden. Some are as big as cherry tomatoes as seen in this picture. This is not my rose but I believe it is a Rugosa variety.

These are the lovely orangey hips from Bonica.

These are the hips the squirrel and birds were feasting on. I often tuck stems of these tiny bright red hips into my Christmas decorations.

You may have heard of how high rose hips are in Vitamin C. They are often used as the main source of Vitamin C in commercial supplements. I’ve eaten one once and found it bitter. My friend found it rather tasty. Now I know we picked it too early, as they sweeten after the first frost. Rose hips are used in many recipes of jellies, jams, tea, purees, sauces and syrups. Culinary rose water is made from the flower petals however. Harvest your rose hips after the first frost and prepare them by trimming off the stem and blossom ends, cutting them in half and removing the seeds then washing them well. I must stress how important it is to grow your roses organically whether they are used for your food or allowed as food for wild life. Chemicals are not needed to grow great disease free roses and many pesticide chemicals are systemic, traveling through the plant’s tissues. They cannot be washed off.

Minimal fall garden cleanup such as this gives a bounty of seeds and berries and hips in my garden for the wildlife to feed on during the winter months. And it provides endless hours of entertainment for me. Bird watching aside, I’m also getting ready to start some seeds on the window sill for spring planting. Oh and by the way, thus far the bees are faring well.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am unable to post as often as I had previously or would like to but I plan to keep this blog active and someday hope to pick up the pace again. Sorry for the long lapses in posts, I hope you’ll stick with me. You can receive new posts via email if that’s more convenient for you by using the email button in the right hand column.

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to a new year of gardening with you.

In Bloom In My Garden Today: Heather (Erica carnea ‘springwood white’), Geum, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Daphne caucasica ‘Eternal Fragrance’ and ‘Summer Ice’, winter pansies, Alyssum, Sarcococca confusa

Author’s photos

Tyler Street Bees

“First find your bees a settled sure abode…”
~Virgil, The Georgics, IV

Honey bees swarm. It’s a fact of nature. When their colony gets too big for their space they will raise a new queen to stay with the original colony and the old queen takes off with a portion of the bees to find new digs. It’s an amazing sight to behold and hear as the buzz from that many bees moving in unison is loud.

Sometimes their new home happens to be in your home. I’ve never heard of a case where the homeowner will actually go for that. Hmmm, what to do? Mostly the freaked out homeowner will just get a can of nasty spray poison and be done with them. It is understandable but unnecessary and undesirable from any viewpoint.

Happily this was not the case with a homeowner on Tyler Street. Her’s is an older home, not insulated like they are today. Homes used to be built with just big air cavities between the inner and outer walls. To remedy this holes are drilled into the outside wall and loose insulation is blown in. Then the hole is patched up. Or at least it should be. In this case the hole was not patched, nor was the cavity filled with any insulation which left a nice, protected, warm, perfectly sized space for some bees looking for a new abode. When the bees moved into this house, the homeowner wisely contacted her local beekeeping club to find help. And naturally my challenge-loving-dad answered the call.

We went out to look the situation over. Dad decided to try the cone method of removal, where he formed a cone from aluminum mesh, attached it to the house pointing up (bees naturally move upward), and provided an empty bee hive up close to give them a place to go. The worker bees can leave but they can’t get back in, so they eventually move into the hive close by, which we ‘baited’ with 2 frames of sealed brood (developing pupae) and 4 frames of honey. The queen on the other hand will not leave, which poses some problem which is why the wall must be opened up. You could leave her in there with the handful of bees that won’t leave her, close it up whereby they’d die, or you could take the wall apart after most of the bees are out to capture and transfer her into the baited hive that now contains the rest of the bees. That’s what we did since neither of us liked the idea of leaving the queen with a handful of her loyal attendants to die.

This kind of swarm capture obviously involves some structural tear out and repair to remove the bees. You may have trouble finding a beekeeper that is willing to do that because all kinds of liabilities get in the way but if you have a handyman or handywoman to work with the beekeeper, the bee removal can go quite smoothly. Such was the case with the Tyler Street bees. The homeowner had a handyfriend up for the challenge and he went to work on the wall after most of the bees had now moved into the baited hive.

And that’s what the inside of a natural honeybee colony looks like. Sheets and sheets of overlapping wax comb in which they store their honey and raise their young. Incredible sight isn’t it?

The white arc across the top is capped cells of honey. The tan cells in the center are capped brood which is the term for sealed pupae in stages of development. That is typical of how bees arrange their combs in the wild.

After the wall was opened up the sheets of wax were cut out and dispersed. The wax with brood was put into the bait hive so they could emerge and join their colony, as was some of the wax with honey. The remainder of wax with honey was put in my hive. By laying it out horizontally over the frames of a hive, the bees will clean out the honey and store it in their frames we beekeepers use in our standard hives. Then the cleaned wax was removed and melted down to sell to local entrepreneurs who make lotions and salves with beeswax.

Bees are truly remarkable. Maybe I’m just a bee geek but I never get tired of seeing these kinds of amazing situations when bees and people cross paths. All in all this whole process took over a month to complete. Once we transferred the queen and her handful of remaining bees we moved the entire colony in their new hive to my dad’s apiary. Presumably the handyman patched up the wall and made sure that hole was closed this time.

So if your path crosses with a swarm, please grab the phone and call your local bee club instead of grabbing a can of poisonous spray. You’ll do the world a favor.

In bloom in my garden today: Armeria, Ajuga, Calluna vularis ‘dark beauty’, Canna, Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’, Caryopteris, Cyclamen, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Kniphofia, Agastache foeniculum (anise hyssop), Alyssum, Begonia ‘bonfire’, Borage, Daphne caucasica ‘Eternal Fragrance’ and ‘Summer Ice’, Echinacea, Fuchsia, Lobelia, Kirengeshoma palmata, Nepeta, Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Russian Sage, Salvia, Schizostylis ‘watermelon’, Star Jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides), winter pansy, Rose, Eupatorium rugosum ‘chocolate’ (joe pye weed)


Author’s photos

Garden-y Baby Hats

I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden.
~John Erskine

Not all the love of gardens has to do with digging in the dirt. Being a follower of Cindy’s blog I love reading about her beautiful and creative knitting and this summer she designed the most adorable newborn caps in the style of vegetables! Lucky me, we have a new baby about to enter into our family, so I just had to order two for our new forthcoming nephew.

Aren’t they adorable? One has two actual green peas in a pod and the other is a lovely aubergine color for an eggplant. Both are complete with calyx, stem and leaf. The yarn she used is soooo soft too and the colors vibrant. How she fashioned a leaf complete with vein is beyond me but she did it.

Mom-to-be, an accomplished knitter herself loved them as I knew she would. Who wouldn’t? They are wonderful. I can’t wait to see them on baby. Yay for bringing the garden into more aspects of life!

In bloom in my garden today: Armeria, Ajuga, Calluna vularis ‘dark beauty’, Canna, Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’, Caryopteris, Cyclamen, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Kniphofia, Agastache foeniculum (anise hyssop), Alyssum, Begonia ‘bonfire’, Borage, Daphne caucasica ‘Eternal Fragrance’ and ‘Summer Ice’, Echinacea, Fuchsia, Lobelia, Kirengeshoma palmata, Nepeta, Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Russian Sage, Salvia, Schizostylis ‘watermelon’, Star Jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides), winter pansy, Rose, Eupatorium rugosum ‘chocolate’ (joe pye weed),

Authors photos

Harborside Gardens

Human beings find less rest in idleness than in a change of occupation…just try it. Instead of collapsing in an easy chair, try tackling your hobby. Or write that neglected letter, or help Johnny build a radio receiving set. Activity – especially creative activity – is better recreation than loafing.
~Gardner Hunting

Lately our summer weather has been glorious!

So we took the opportunity to get the kayaks out of their dusty moorage from under the front porch and put them afloat. There must be some rule somewhere that says kayaks should never be idle long enough to accumulate dust!

It was a beautiful day, low 80’s F (27 C) a slight breeze and not a cloud in the sky. Wanting to stay somewhat close to home we put them in at a local harbor not 30 minutes away. I took the opportunity to test out my new, way-too-expensive paddle which proved to be worth every penny. As we paddled around a harbor seal actually followed me around for awhile (but proved camera shy)…how cool is that?

Mostly though, as I dodged mindless, dingy (no pun intended) boaters who didn’t seem to see anything without a motor, I perused the local harbor-side homes for their gardens. I must say I was disappointed. You’d think homes facing a peaceful waterside paradise would have oodles of plants and landscaping in which to engage in peaceful tranquility. As far as I’m concerned peaceful tranquility requires gardens. Oh, there was landscaping yes, but mostly of the green shrubby sort. Lots of Nandina (heavenly bamboo), barberry and box, grasses and a hillside of heather that must be beautiful when in bloom, but not much in the way of color or artfulness. And nearly every deck that had flowers had pots of red annual geraniums. What gives? With the plethora of flowering plants available why not focus your perennial landscaping so that it will provide color, fragrance and seasonal changes? But alas out of dozens of waterside garden potential oasis’ there were only a few I felt were photo worthy.

After this disappointing lack of garden creativity I consoled myself as we docked for lunch. I can’t tell you how fun it is to ‘dock for lunch’. That’s the point of my kayak in the lower portion of the photo.

After a delicious rest we paddled again around the rest of the harbor to view gardens on the other side. Many had lounge chairs on their dock…ahhh, nice.

This one had a chiminea on the patio.

All in all a great day, and throw in participation of a group water rescue (I rescued their paddle and a water jug) of some poor tourists who somehow managed to flip over their rented canoe and I’d say the day was “very satisfactory” (as Nero Wolf would say).

In bloom in my garden today: Ajuga, Calluna vularis ‘dark beauty’, Caryopteris ‘longwood blue’ (bluebeard), Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’, Cyclamen, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Kniphofia, Nandina, Agastache foeniculum (anise hyssop), Alpine Strawberries, Alyssum, Begonia ‘bonfire’, Borage, Crocosmia ‘george davidson’, Daphne caucasica ‘Eternal Fragrance’ and ‘Summer Ice’, Echinacea, Fuchsia, Geranium ‘mavis simpson’, Gladiolus callianthus (formerly Acidanthera), Lavender, Lobelia, Mullen chaixii ‘Album’, Nepeta, Oregano, Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Rose, Salvia, Schizostylis ‘watermelon’, Star Jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides), Tigridia (Mexican Shell Flower), Tomato, Zucchini

Author’s photos

Corn on the Cob on the Grill

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.
~Douglas William Jerrold, about Australia, A Land of Plenty

Have you ever grilled your corn on the cob? I’ve read about it several times but never tried it. Mainly because I’d read you have to soak them beforehand for a few hours and I never managed to be that organized to get it done. But I love grilling in the summer and today’s the day, the corn in the garden is ready.

Every year I grow my own corn from seed. When I decided to try growing it in my own garden I asked a local, long time gardener what variety she recommended. Without hesitation she said “Bodacious, that’s the only corn I’ll grow”. Local, first hand advice just can’t be beat so I figured why inquire further? Off to the store I went to find a seed packet of Bodacious. I’ve been growing it ever since. The corn is sweet, juicy and the skins are not tough.

I start the seeds indoors in April and am sure to plant them outdoors by June 1. Since there’s only two of us to cook for I grow between 6-8 stalks. Each stalk will generally produce 2 ears. Sometimes you’ll only get one ear, sometimes 3 but usually 2 is the standard.

My normal corn on the cob cooking method is no doubt atrocious to the gourmet cook so I decided this year to read up on it in my Joy of Cooking cookbook. They recommend boiling the shucked ear 2-3 minutes only or grilling in the husk. For grilling they say you don’t necessarily have to soak it and you’ll get a different flavor if you don’t. Nor do you have to shuck them or mess with the silks if you grill it. Wow, how easy can that be…just pick it off the stalk and lay it on the grill.

So that’s what I did…picked two off the stalks and after tearing off just the dried silks at the top (I thought they might burn and smoke) I grilled them for 3-4 min on the med setting, turning it on 4 sides. That equates to 12-16 minutes total. I have to say, I think closer to 10-12 minutes rather than 16 minutes would be perfectly done. I have several more ears to experiment timing with so next time I’ll try it on the low setting. Ours isn’t a sophisticated grill, just the small, portable gas type that’s great for camping and tailgate parties. It only has low, medium, and high heat settings so I don’t know any actual temperatures.

This is a brilliant way to cook fresh corn from the garden. Quick with no dishes to clean and no waiting for a big pot of water to boil! Just snap it off the stalk and lay it on the grill for 12 minutes, turning every 3. Yay!

In bloom in my garden today: Ajuga, Calluna vularis ‘dark beauty’, Caryopteris ‘longwood blue’ (bluebeard), Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’, Cyclamen, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Kniphofia, Nandina, Agastache foeniculum (anise hyssop), Alpine Strawberries, Alyssum, Begonia ‘bonfire’, Borage, Crocosmia ‘george davidson’, Daphne caucasica ‘Eternal Fragrance’ and ‘Summer Ice’, Echinacea, Fuchsia, Geranium ‘mavis simpson’, Gladiolus callianthus (formerly Acidanthera), LavenderLobelia, Mullen chaixii ‘Album’, Nepeta, Oregano, Phygelius ‘new sensation’ (cape fushia), Rose, Salvia, Schizostylis ‘watermelon’, Star Jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides), Tigridia (Mexican Shell Flower), Tomato, Zucchini


Author’s photo