Lisa is my new friend. She and her family adopted Amber, our yellow lab, when we moved to Thailand. She is not only a fellow animal lover, she is also an artist!
These photos show she is also quite a gardener, so we share a love of flowers.
Even though we live across the world from each other now, I want to keep touch and know her better
I love it when she sends pictures of her yard, her family, and her art.
Meet Lisa, my very special friend, a lovely person.
Filed under Gardening
My friend Lisa and her family adopted Amber when we moved to Thailand. Carla took Monster Cat (aka Jet) to help her rehome, and it looks like her home will be with Carla. 😊 This was the most important thing to me when we pulled up roots at the beginning of April and moved. I could breathe easy knowing my animals would be loved and well cared for.
Carla is a long-time, beloved friend. Lisa is a new friend I feel I know much better now, since we’re both art-loving people who love playing with color and trying to create. Lisa is also a flower lover, whose goal is to have wonderful pockets of flowers all over her land.
She sent me some pictures of her flowers today. I loved them, feeling something inside ME bloom as I looked at the pics, so I wanted to share their beauty and my feeling with you.
Filed under Gardening
I’ve just come in from weeding the trio of brick planters that divide our front yard from our driveway area. They weren’t as bad as the last time I tackled them, but I’ve been working hard for a couple of hours.
The temperature is only 81 degrees, so it shouldn’t feel so hot. My computer says the humidity is 58%, so it only feels like 87, but my BODY is reacting like the conditions are much more challenging.
I filled up a big trash can with weeds and pruned stuff before the job was finished. I’ll work my way around the yard, but the trio of planters was the worst. I’m beginning to see the end of the most important tasks now. YEA!!
I’m drinking a huge glass of ice water now, trying to cool off. I’m going to go sit in my recliner in the living room and relax for a bit with the ceiling fan on.
When I finally cool down, I’m planning to head up to my art room to reward myself with time to play. :0)
I hope that your day is going well.
The new mower was delivered about 12:30 today. The man called me and I warned him about the steep, graveled driveway. Happily, he had a really nice forklift type vehicle with a bed where the mower could sit while he came up the driveway from his truck.
We checked it out. It had enough gas in it that we could make sure it started. The man pointed out the grass height choice box, plus the starter, place where you put in gas, etc. My husband filled it up. We signed the paperwork, and the delivery guy was gone. I thanked him profusely for the great delivery and the fact he came within the 4 hour delivery period and called to tell me he was on his way to us.
As soon as he started down the driveway again, my husband was off. I went to the shop to get his hat and glasses.
He mowed quickly. The 46 inch mowing swath really speeded up the process. He said he only had the speed at 1/4 and that was plenty. He said the steering arms made for super-responsive steering, causing him to over-steer much of the time, but he said he thought he would be able to adapt to that quickly.
SO – we have a new lease on our mowing lives now. I noticed I’ll have to get out and do some weed whacking – aiming for tomorrow morning.
Filed under Gardening
Even with the weird summer we’ve had, the three elephant ear bulbs I bought are doing pretty well. The one above is the smallest. It’s in the shade much of the day, but protected from a lot of the wind we get up here. It’s had several rough starts, but it seems to be holding its own now.
This planter is on one side of our front porch. This elephant ear is starting to do what I wanted, which was take over the whole planter and fill out as much as it wanted to.
And this is the planter that is in front of our garage. It’s obvious doing the best. This one bulb looks like it will fill the whole planter. I just love it.
Filed under Gardening
I just finished planting the tomato suckers I’ve had on our dining area table for almost two weeks now. They are looking pretty sad, but they MIGHT make it. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I noticed I had more suckers on the main plants, so I’ve decided I’ll snap off some each time I’m harvesting, and go ahead and plonk them into the tomato sucker planter and see what, if anything, happens.
The bringing them in and planting them in cups and nuturing them inside didn’t seem to be very useful, and ANY plants that make it – regardless of the technique – are essentially FREE tomato plants, so I’m excited to see what works.
I just researched horizontal breaks in tomato skins, since I have ‘lines’ all the way around the two tomatoes I harvested this morning. The article says concentric breaks in the skin happens mostly to fruit ripening after a heavy rain, caused by big differences in the amount of water the tomato plants have received. I’m hoping that since the rains have stopped and the planters are on our irrigation system, the coming tomatoes will be nicer looking.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
These are the tomato suckers this morning. They are looking sad, as you can see, but they haven’t DIED. They are still green, so I THINK that means they are producing ROOTS, the thing I need in order to transplant them into the garden in another week or so – if they live. I can snip off some of the straggly tops and plant the important part down low in the garden planter and then keep my fingers crossed they grow and thrive.
I haven’t loss everything if this experiment is a bust. I can start again, making some tweaks in my techniques, or I can try to simply plant suckers immediately into the garden when I snip them off the main plants and see if that works. It’s exciting to try something new that MIGHT work!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Whew. My husband came out to help with the irrigation system shortly after I went out. The unit for the back yard planters came on and we soon found we had a spewing leak in the hose. I finally managed to turn off the system so we could fix it. It turned out to be simply a blown connection, rather than a break in the hose, so it was quickly fixed. It took me quite a bit of time to get the unit on again, running it on ‘manual.’
Soon after, the 2nd unit, the one for the front planters, came on. All was good except for a kink in the hose going to one of the planters beside the front porch. My husband was able to make it workable while I checked the rest of the planters. He says he still needs to work on that, but I insisted we come in, get something cool to drink, and rest. We were both wringing wet.
I did turn on the part that will water the tomato suckers when I find and replant them, hopefully tomorrow morning early.
The temperature is 97 right now with a heat index of ONLY 106, rather than the 115 they were predicting. I feel as if I should feel cold…
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Wow. I’ve just come in from working in the yard for about an hour and I’m deciding that maybe I’m getting a bit long-in-the-tooth for this. I went out EARLY (for ME – 8:30) and the temperature is 82 with a ‘feel’s like’ of 92, with heat index in the 100’s for the rest of the weekend. It isn’t even officially ‘summer’ yet! (Officially, summer starts June 20th).
I did harvest the tomatoes above. I also weeded both tomato planters and then mixed up fertilizer with water for both. I sprayed the plants with EIGHT to try to protect the tomatoes from whoever is eating them. I went around the rest of the yard with the EIGHT.
I then mixed up a container of KillzAll. I’ll need to do a combination of weed whacking and spraying with the plant killer in order to make it easier for my husband to mow. He is an extremely stubborn man. He will continue mowing until the job is finished or die trying. THAT’S the part I’m worried about with his age, his attitude, and this heat. I got most of the areas in the back yard done before I was simply too hot to continue. I’m now in, resting, have turned on the a/c, and am drinking some ice water.
I’m planning to do one more session out there today to at least finish spraying the KillzAll, if not more. This humidity really gets to me quickly.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I’m going to head out almost immediately to take care of our tomato plants. The heat index for the foreseeable future will be in the 100’s or higher with little chance of rain, so it’s lethal to stay outside in the sun long.
Yesterday I finished weeding our trio of brick planters that run end-to-end between our front yard and our driveway. I’m making good progress on the weeding, but I’m having to be really careful not to get over-heated. I did convince my husband to wait to mow the back yard until around 5:00 yesterday afternoon, rather than when the sun was at its strongest.
Today I’m going to spray the tomato plants with EIGHT, since ‘someone’ is helping themselves to the tomatoes before I can bring them in. I’ll harvest any ripe tomatoes, weed, and water.
I’m not sure if I’ll get back out a second time to spray KILLZALL for the weeds and areas my husband can’t mow.
I’m going to scoot now. I hope you have a wonderful day, staying cool.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Since it’s not supposed to rain today (Yippeeeeee!) I’m planning to finish the weed whacking I started yesterday plus do some serious weeding. It’s only supposed to get into the high 80s today with lower humidity, so it should be MUCH better than it was yesterday where the heat index was 100+.
The tomato plants don’t look ‘neat,’ but they are full of green tomatoes. I fertilized them yesterday, so hopefully they will stay happy.
We have a break in our hose setup for the irrigation system, and I’m hoping my husband will try to fix the break we know about soon, now that the lawn is mowed.
This is bulb #1 of my new elephant ear plants. The bulbs were huge, so I planted the three of them in three different planters, hoping to get the elephant ears all around the yard. This is the largest one so far.
The second bulb is in a tall planter beside the front porch. As you can see, we have small leaves unfurling!
This is bulb # 3, in a planter to the east side of the civilized part of our yard. It’s the smallest, but it looks like it will make it.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Yesterday it rained about 9am (after raining overnight) so our plans to mow and weed whack had to be delayed – hopefully to be done today before we’re due for more rain this afternoon into the evening. It’s still too wet to mow or weed whack, but there are other things that can be done.
I’ve just come in from checking on our tomato plants. I had to prop up some plants, wire some others, harvested some ripe tomatoes, watered with fertilizer, and then sprayed the plants with EIGHT, since there were tiny grasshoppers on some of them. Hopefully the spray will have a chance to work before the rain today.
Here is today’s harvest. I had to throw one tomato away because the grasshoppers had gotten to it, but I’m pleased I could bring these in.
Guess what will be part of our dinner tonight! :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Several weeks ago I planted three elephant ear bulbs. They were HUGE, so I planted them in three different planters. Absolutely nothing has been happening until I walked around the yard this morning and saw sprouts! I went back and got my camera so I could share.
Our weather has been so volatile I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went out to check on my spinach and tomato plants. (The lettuce bolted due to the hot weather several weeks ago and I had to pull it out.) I only have a couple of spinach plants at this point that MAY produce leaves large enough to harvest, but the tomato plants seem to be doing well for such weird weather.
The plants are looking lush. I would like to spray them with EIGHT, which will protect them from bugs and tomato worms, but we’ve been having so much rain I’ve held off. Oddly enough, they also need a good watering.
I’m happy we have anything out there, so I’ll see if we’re still supposed to get severe weather and storms this evening and then decide whether to go back out or wait until tomorrow.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I was disappointed yesterday to see my lettuce plants had bolted. Some were about 3 feet tall suddenly. It was clear that our season for fresh lettuce is over.
Our spinach is almost over. I’m going to get out again in a few minutes and harvest a bunch of it.
The happy thing for the day is that our tomatoes seem to be happy, and are producing lots of green tomatoes.
One of our favorite things in the world is ripe, fresh tomatoes sliced to eat with our lunches and dinners, not to mention cut up for salads. The only tomatoes I buy at the store anymore is cherry tomatoes, just for some color in our salads.
I love the fact that we can enjoy fresh spinach cut up in our salads.
We can also saute it as a side dish, or freeze it for cooking later.
This is just a bonus picture of my husband’s favorite flower, clematis. It’s blooming right behind the lettuce/spinach veggie planter, so I snapped a quick pic to share.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Lettuce
Spinach
Head Lettuce
It looks like my lettuce is coming to an end. I’m seeing signs of bolting already, due to the temperature getting up into the 80s most afternoons now. Lettuce is a cool weather crop, and we have about 4 days of spring between too cold to plant with overnight freezes to too hot for lettuce…
I’m going to work in the veggies today, pruning, weeding, tweaking, and I’m hoping to finish the last two brick planters.
We have a stunningly beautiful morning here, and I’m looking forward to working outside for several sessions.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
We live on top of a ridge line outside city limits. It’s a very wooded piece of land, and we had to really work to clear enough for our house, the driveway, and our shop when we built here. We constantly have to hack, saw, and dig up things in order for Mother Nature not to reclaim what we have considered “ours” for over 37 years now.
We share the land with several ‘critters’ and we try to live and let live within reason. I have our pest control people treat us for everything including elephants when they come to spray inside and out quarterly. Even though my husband points out that some snakes are good, I have to admit that I lump them all in the same category and do not want them anywhere around me.
We don’t have any choice about sharing our yard with moles, voles, and other ‘oles’ of all kinds. Yesterday I was trying to viciously cut back a bush that lives in a planter beside our front porch. I walked across the yard to dump a whole trash can full of stuff I had removed from the bush and found myself SINKING into the ground, my footsteps “squishing” as I moved each foot. This was due in large part to all the rain we’ve had. The ground is quite saturated and we’re still due for more.
The other reason is all the tunnels all the ‘oles’ have dug. We attempted to kill the grubs that all the oles eat, thinking that if we removed much of the food they want to eat, they would go elsewhere. We threw a lot of money at the problem, but it didn’t really make any difference. So now we try to co-exist.
Our dog, Amber, doesn’t like them, either. I find holes she has dug, trying to get to them, all over the yard. Filling in holes is on the list as a regular part of my working in the yard. I mainly do it to keep my husband from falling into one with the wheels of the mower.
The pictures I find of moles and voles are kind of cute, but what they do to our yard is NOT. CUTE.
Filed under Gardening, Pet Peeves
It just started raining suddenly as if someone had turned on a faucet full blast. I think it’s stopping now, but it was really impressive.
I managed to get outside this afternoon and weed whack. I did three sessions and finished the whole yard. If the rain stops and things clear up a bit, I’ll take my husband out for an ‘oooh’ and ‘aaaah’ session later. :0)
There are still lots of things to do outside, but I feel better that I trimmed things up where my husband can’t go with the mower. I’ll spray some KillzAll when things dry out to keep it all from just resprouting seemingly overnight.
I hope you’ve had a happy day.
I’m feeling devoid of any energy right now. Just drinking a cup of coffee and trying not to fall asleep, hitting my head on the monitor on the way to La La Land…
Here’s a picture of last year’s crop before we had the truly horrible winter that killed off the bulbs –
This is a planter on one side of our front porch. I had planted some iris in it. They bloomed, but the planter looked ‘unfinished’ or ‘unplanned,’ to me, so I decided to dig up the iris and relocate it. There is room for growth on either side of this planter. (Besides no one comes in our front door anyway. Everyone comes in through the garage.) I’m hoping the third bulb is happy here, growing its heart out.
Here’s where I relocated the iris. (As you can see, Amber – including her feet – was helping me.) There is a Rio Samba rose plant in the center, which has bloomed once this spring. I pruned it so I hope it will bloom again soon. My SIL told me about two phone apps that may help me identify what the perennial is with the little spikes of purple flowers. It’s on my list to see how the apps work and see if one of them will help me. Fingers crossed.
I spent a total of 2 hours working in the yard yesterday. I re-weeded the trio of planters that run between the top of the driveway and our front yard, and pruned things more harshly –
If the rain holds off, I plan to spend quite a bit of time outside today, too. I want to weed whack where my husband couldn’t get with the mower, spray KillsAll to help me have to weed whack less and make it easier for my husband to mow, and then tackle another planter –
I hope your weather is such that you can enjoy being outside, too.
Filed under Gardening
I fertilized everything. Looking good so far. We’re really enjoying the spinach and lettuce in salads. I also have a couple of HEADS of lettuce doing well. :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I have ONE of THREE elephant ear bulbs planted now. I’m trying to cut stuff off OVER and around the planter, and then dig up stuff IN the second planter for the second bulb. There is a tree or trees behind this planter, and I’m having to reach way up and lop off branches, then catch them before they fall on me, and then throw them in a pile to haul off when I’m finished.
If I didn’t like the idea of changing the focus of these three planters so much, spreading the elephant ears around the front yard, I would just declare this a dumb project and regroup. I can SEE how the elephant ear plant might look in the 2nd planter, so I’m taking a break, drinking a bunch of water, resting, and then will go out for another session.
One of the problems of living in woods is that the vegetation would like to go back to where it was, not only encroaching on what we laughingly call the ‘civilized’ part of our yard, but totally engulfing it so that it looks like we were never here -even after 37 years. Half or more of what I do every year is hack stuff down.
I need to remove enough stuff that the elephant ears have the room they need to grow. I can continue hacking at stuff around this planter, but I want to clear enough area that I don’t have to come back right away.
Happily enough, if I can finish with this second planter, the third one won’t be as much work.
Filed under Gardening
I’m excited. The elephant ear bulbs I ordered a while back were delivered this morning. They are HUGE and GORGEOUS!
After seeing how large they are, I’m planning to put one in the regular 8 foot brick planter in the rock bed in front of the house where I’ve been planting them for several years. I’m going to plant the second bulb across the yard in the middle of another brick planter that is beside the well house, and the third in the middle of a planter that runs in front of the other end of the house, spreading the wealth all across the front yard. :0)
I may need to move some things, and maybe prune some others, but I think it’s time for a shake-up, changing the focus of a couple of our planters. I love spring because it’s full of possibilities.
I’ll tackle this after lunch. There won’t be anything to SEE until the plants sprout, but we’re due for rain tomorrow, so it would be good to get the bulbs in today.
Filed under Gardening
I had a nice harvest from our little garden this morning. I just finished washing it and putting it in gallon bags for the fridge. We’ll have some of it tonight in a chef salad for dinner.
I’m going to look online for cooking fresh leaf spinach because I’ve never done that before (even though I’m older than dirt, there are lots of things I haven’t done yet :0) )
I still have some pruning, supporting, and weeding to do out there. I’ll do another session soon.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
We had super heavy rain in waves from about 8pm until a bit after 11 last night. We were lucky. We were under a tornado warning – with Greenwood actually mentioned as ‘in the path’ but – other than it becoming ominously quiet at one point – the bad stuff passed by us. I watched the TV coverage until I could see the yellow and red blobs, along with associated tornado rectangles, had passed us. (I need to do a harvest of the lettuce and spinach this afternoon.)
I walked around the yard this morning to see if we had any damage. I found one rose bush branch was broken off, but that was all. The garden is still looking good. They certainly got the watering they probably wanted, and then some, but all looks good so far. (The lettuce plants here are head lettuce, and the heads are forming!) I’ll bring some bungie cords to put around the supports to give the tomato plants more to hang onto.
I’m planning to go out later – weather permitting – and see what needs more support, rearranging (in the case of the tomato branches) and what needs harvesting (lettuce and spinach.)
The clematis bloomed suddenly. The blooms are looking a bit battered after the storm, but I’m hoping they’ll perk up. I’ll bring my husband out later, since these are his favorite.
And this is the first bloom of our Stella de Oro lilies. You can see there are several buds, so I’m hoping we’ll have a nice display.
My sister-in-law sent me some phone apps suggestions that might help me identify my mystery perennials. I added them to my phone, and hope to make the time to see how they work later today. She also sent me a Kindle book on flowers and veggies. Isn’t she wonderful?
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
These pics are from a couple of days ago. All the plants seem happy right now. I really need to harvest lettuce and spinach, but will have to wait until the rain leaves us.
I was excited to see a couple of ‘heads’ of lettuce forming when I looked at things quickly yesterday!
I’m hoping to be able to get up close and personal with my plants tomorrow, doing some harvesting, pruning, and supporting. I also have four planters left to weed and lots of things to cut back…
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I had a WONDERFUL massage this morning. I had no trouble finding the new place where Lynn is doing her massages now. I got there a bit early. There was NO rain! It was really dark and looked like it was going to storm, but didn’t. Lynn was waiting for me in the foyer area when I walked in. When I finished, I took Lynn back to meet my friend Linda. Two such beautiful people should know each other.
I had a great visit with Linda, with lots of hugs and a few tears. It’s sad when life gets in the way and makes it almost impossible to see people. I basically am with my husband 24/7 except for my once a month haircut and once a month massage. Linda understands my situation now, but it’s still hard.
I’m thinking of gifting her a 30-minute massage, since it is right in the retirement place where Linda lives now. I think she would enjoy it, and Lynn would help her with the physical needs, I know. I’ll see if I make this happen.
It didn’t rain on me on the way back from the massage, either, and in fact seems to be clearing up. I may be able to work on another planter today.
Before
I also took the loppers and cut low-hanging branches that were making it so you had to bend over to walk on the sidewalk past it to the front door.
I should have enough time – if the weather holds – to at least tackle another planter today. We’ll see.
Filed under Gardening
This was the ‘before’ on the 3rd of the trio planters I’ve been weeding and pruning.
Now that the weeds are out and the wisteria/forsythia greenery has been pruned back, my husband will be able to easily mow and I can plant some annuals.
It looks like someone lives here now. Today I’ll try to do at least one more planter in the yard. We built 14 brick planters around the yard, so I still have several to do, but things are beginning to look a bit better now.
The ‘rains’ are supposed to start overnight and continue intermittently – plus the chance of severe weather this weekend – until further notice. It will be a challenge to get outside between storms to continue to get things under better control.
Filed under Gardening
Happy Earth Day. I hope that the weather is such that you can get outside and enjoy our planet today. In that vein, I wanted to share a magnificent photo by J. Picot via Anthony Sider – @BudgetDude on X – that celebrates our Earth.
Yesterday’s yard project was weeding and pruning the middle 8-foot brick planter in a trio that runs between our front yard and the top of our driveway.
Today I’ll tackle the 3rd of the trio of planters, trying to make it look like ‘someone cares’ instead of ‘the people moved away,’ as it looks now.
Enjoy your day.
Filed under Gardening, holidays, Mother Nature
This is a line of three 8-foot-brick planters that divide the top of our driveway area from the front yard. There are lot of perennials in there, but they are in a death fight right now with the weeds that have exploded in the last few weeks.
My husband always looks at things, throws up his hands and announces the weeds have won, there is NO way the flowers can have survived, we might as well just burn it all and start over. (This is only ONE of the reasons that HE mows the grass and I handle the flowers.)
Yesterday I weeded the first of the three planters. I cut back the rose bushes, cut out a lot of dead stuff, weeded, and then cut the overgrown greenery from the irises and the Stella de Oro flowers at the opposite end of the planter from the taller rose bush. Things are much better now. In fact, when I insisted my husband come and ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ last night, he was ‘astonished’ (his word) at the difference. :0)
Here’s another view of that planter.
Here is today’s project – the middle 8-foot planter.
A little daunting at the moment, but I’ll tackle this as soon as I finish writing the blog posts for the day.
I hope that your weather is such that you can spend time outside, soaking up a bit of sunshine, breathing in the air, and enjoying life.
Filed under Gardening
So far, things are good. Something was eating my spinach and lettuce, so I mixed and sprayed EIGHT on all the veggie plants earlier this week. I love that stuff because it’s safe for humans and our pets, but kills the pests.
Here you can see the holes in the spinach leaves. Hopefully, I’ve now stopped the pests at least for a while.
I’ll probably do some harvesting of spinach and lettuce later today.
Here are 4 tomato plants along with a few more spinach and lettuce plants. I’m see several yellow blossoms on the tomato plants now.
This is the other tomato planter with another 4 plants. I nipped off suckers and cut off branches that touched the ground earlier. I need to make sure all the branches are supported well. This can change from day to day, and growth can happen quite suddenly, so I want to stay on top of things before I can’t manipulate the branches through the cages anymore.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Things are looking good so far in our garden this year. Yesterday I harvested, cleaned, and packaged spinach and lettuce. I fertilized, then mixed and sprayed EIGHT bug killer to hopefully get rid of whatever is eating the leaves. Finally, I watered.
By the time I came in, even though I hadn’t been out there too long, I was wringing wet – I guess due to the humidity. I took a shower, got a big glass of ice water and did some serious relaxing.
The forecast is for possible severe storms this afternoon and evening – with the threat of large hail – so I’ll cover up the three planters mid afternoon.
Before that today, though, I’ll try to get outside to tend our tomato plants. I’ve read that pinching off – or clipping off – the ‘suckers’ (the little branches that sprout in the middle of the “Y” of two branches) will increase the tomato yield and keep the plant healthier. Also, snipping off any branches or leaves touching the ground, plus any below 12 inches as the plants continue to grow. The plants really grow fast when the temperature, sun, and watering are right, so I’ll need to pay attention to keep up with the 8 plants.
I hope that you’re enjoying some nice weather where you are.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
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