And what is so rare
as a
day in June?
Then,
if ever,
come perfect days…
Category Archives: 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons
Not in Minnesota anymore…
Tredessa took a vacation.
We were all surprised and happy because, to put it mildly-she is a bit of an over-worker-super-achiever at times. But she is choosing to let God do a new thing in her life and it is good.
IKEA virgin no more.
So- a week in Minnesota with good, lifelong friends (The Bierers – people we adore!!) included lounging by the pool and shopping (she has heretofore been a somewhat militant non-shopper) at The Mall of America. She is no longer an IKEA virgin! Quite the vacation for Tre-Tre!
Tredessa comes back in spite of a tornado.
7 days later it was time to come home. Her plane was due to land at DIA at the exact same time a tornado was barreling through. They put them in a holding pattern for so long their fuel got low. They ended up landing at Colorado Springs to re-fuel and wait in line to be able to get back to DIA.
She finally got back – just in the nick-of-time for a family dinner to celebrate her life (as she will be out of town again on her actual birthday this weekend).
We got together. There were hugs and kisses and flowers and presents. There was laughter and a few tears of love. There were 5 energetic grandkids (who played dress-up all night) and grilled chicken. We ate corn on the cob and strawberry cheesecake. Edward was invited to be adored. A hot competitve Twilight game was played way into the night. It was the fam and a few friends.
Stef and Wrex, who had been out of town, rushed back to “crash the party” for Tredessa. They wore orange so well. That is one of the reasons we love them so. We did a mini-birthday-celebration for Wrex, too.
Tredessa in Transition
Besides her birthday, Tredessa is in transition in her life right now. There are lots of things changing and things she just doesn’t know some details of her future right now. But I hope she knows, at the very least, how much we all cherish her (especially becuase of that awesome poem I wrote for her)!
Welcome home, TreTre. Love ya!…mom
Early Bird
You know it is going to be an exquisite day, a day of sunshine and fruitfulness when the birds wake you up at half past four in the morning, already in full song, trumpeting God’s greatness.
- I have finished planting the straw bales (3 are dedicated to zucchini and summer squash; one has a paste tomato and a tomatillo; one is the holder of the watermelon seeds – getting a late start, but they are on the south side of the house, so hopefully the bale and the sun will help me out. And the final two hold 4 unique and beautiful tomatoe plants. I sunk them in on Monday and I have never seen such happy tomatoes. Truly. They are just plum delighted.) Even the seeds I plopped in 6 days ago are sprouting very happily.
- Dave is filling the pool.
- I have completed almost all of my potted plants (still have a few things to buy).
- I have planted more radishes and lettuce and peppers and beets (beets because of Dwight on The Office – more of a joke…hopefully we’ll actually find something good to do with them).
- I painted numbers 1-5 in white on the little black grand-bebe breakfast bar stools. So cute.
- I painted my cherry end table black (which I have wanted to do forever!).
- I had lunch in the cool breezy shade with my amazing husband (who is tanning up nicely).
- I sewed four new cushion covers for the patio chairs.
- I got sidetracked a lot. And watched part of a crime show.
- I helped Dave a little with the swingset/play thing he is building the grand-bebes.
- Now I am off to birthday and celebration meal shop for Tredessa, who arrives home from vacation tomorrow.
Oh, that all days were as abundant…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Hang the “Our Father” prints, sew more cushion covers – tonight…??
Pretty good day so far…Jeanie
Frankengardener
I have determined my gardening style to be “experimental.”
I don’t like doing the same thing twice. I like to grow things in unexpected places. I like French intensive gardeing, square foot gardening and am really in to this straw bale gardening right now. I’d even like to try hydroponic gardening sometime, despite the fact that I have grave doubts about the quality and flavor of things grown in water (I believe in soil).
I have to admit, I rolled my eyes a lot when I first started seeing these upside-down gardens on TV. I checked out their website and good grief: people are really doing this thing!
Therefore, I am going to have make my very own topsy-turvy-upside-down tomato grower. Why? Because that is the experiment part. I don’t want to buy “their” cheap-looking plastic aparatus. I want to make my own ghetto version…from a big, plastic paint can. Yes, I do.
I’ll post pictures. I think it is going to be pretty cool! It’ll be like tomatoes raining down on me from heaven above!
Mmmmmmm….Jeanie
pictured: people’s purchased topsy-turvey planters
Happy 6th Birthday, Gavin!
Today is Gavin’s birthday ~ what a day to celebrate!
Six years? How is that possible? That is when I first became a grandparent. Time flies and the days get richer!
Gavin-the-Gardener
Gavin wanted garden plants for his birthday. His mom specified that they should come in a pot that he could tend to himself (as I did not raise a gardener in Steph…yet). Well, how could I refuse that? Gav is my garden helper. He plants and waters and listens to everything I tell him about growing things. Flowers are OK to him, but veggies (especially tomatoes!) are better: truly a man after my own heart.
So, last week on a beautiful, sunny day, we took Gavin to my favorite garden center just outside town (Horiuchi Brothers Nursery – great stuff and generous-they always give me free stuff!). Gavin was so excited as we were turning into their drive. He told us, “My mom and dad never take me to the garden center. I always want to go here, but they say, “No – let’s just go to church.'” Hahhahahhha!
I hope he is not somehow equating a passionate indulgence in gardening as a sin or some opposition to good church-going folk??
Anyhow-he’d have turned his entire backyard into the garden of Eden if I hadn’t made him choose just a few favorites!I ended up with a bunch of specialty pepper plants in my own 4 x 4 because he just had to grow them!
Oh the miles of smiles you’ve brought me, Gavin! You are my heart’s joy and delight! You opened the door that turned me into a Nonna! You are exuberance and curiosity. You are a good-finder and glee. Your love and zeal for all things family and gardening and learning at school and Wii and Xbox and cartoons (especially Spongebob) and your sisters and cousins and building and running and jumping and playing? Inspires me! I want to enjoy life like you do!
You’re 6 now, Gavin! Happy Birthday!…Love, Nonna
pictured: Gavin with his 2 birthday pots; a pot of flowers for the front porch (marigolds, purple petunias, purple salvia and white wave petunias which will soon cascade down the side of the black Malaysian pot; a grape tomato plant for the patio with a couple of marigolds to keep it company.
Vermiculite Sighting
If you are just start your large beds for square foot gardening, you really need the giant 4 cubic foot bag of vermiculite. It will loosen your heavy soil and improve drainage. But these days, I only need a small bag per year to get seeds going (vermiculite is like a sponge and keeps moisture right around that seed where it needs to be!).
Several people e-mailed asking where to find it. I used to get the big bags at Home Depot annually, where the garden manager told me they only ordered 4 per year. Now you should be able to find the smaller bags for about $3.50 at Home Depot, Lowe’s or WalMart – usually in the houseplant area. However, Home Depot has let a lot of people down this year providing only Perlite which is not as good and looks way less natural in the soil. But Lowe’s has it in stock.
Weird, but true find
I was passing by the winter clearance at Lowe’s, as well and found something labeled “Realistic Ash Bed.” It further explained:
For vented logs, place realistic ash bed material in burner pan and completely cover burner. May also be used to decorate fireplace floor.
And guess what it is??? That’s right folks: vermiculite. It doesn’t say it anywhere on the bag, but trust me: I know my vermiculite! It was about 99-cents a bag.
Good luck on the search…J
VERMICULITE: A mined mineral that expands when heated. Resembles mica in appearance. Great for seed germination, a clean, suitable source for rootings and cuttings, and good to use in potting mixes.
Left Behind
Remember how I told you not to worry about the garden and how you weren’t behind and everthing would get done little by little, 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there?
WHAT WAS I TALKING ABOUT??!
Just before mid-May, the time you should really start the planting your head off here in Colorado, Dave and I spent the better part of a week in Estes Park. But I was calm. I was cool. I thought all the better – now when I garden I can be sure it isn’t too early.
Then I came home and got butt-kicking sick (sinus infection, cough like a sailor, bronchitus – yuck!). Eleven days now of I-don’t-feel-good-I-can’t-breathe-nose-blowing-raspy-voiced yuck.
Now – I am behind in the garden. I know it is my own standard, but if I don’t have absolutely everything done by June 1? I have failed. It makes me crazy!
I will not have everything done by June 1. I am drowning in the swirling pit of my own failure in the garden. Please feel sorry for me.
Gardeners the world over have left me behind…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: maybe 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening will help me get it all done before I leave for Kentucky…
pictured: Gem Gem the Garden girl-just after we harvested a bouquet-full of Red Belle Radishes
Garlic Gone Wild
I am losing the battle to tame the garlic chives that insist on not only seeding themselves e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e, but that are growing heartily…very heartily – despite my best attempts to subdue them.
If I can stay steady before the flowers (and the obvious seed heads from those) bloom, maybe I can win.
God save the queen!
Straw-Bale Gardening
Farmer Wrex, the King of the Show-Goats, brought me 7 bales of straw. Yaaaaaaaaay!
I can’t grow my tomatoes in their usual place because, well, the word is out to all pests that I have great tomatoes there. This year I have to confuse them. The problem is I don’t have space to create another garden anywhere – what with trees and bushes and green grass for the dog to poop in (that does seem to be its’ main function, sadly) and grandkids swingsets and slides and the pool. But I can tuck in a bale of straw here or there and grow something.
The web is full of info. Here is some good stuff. And I found this blog I L-O-V-E about it.
I will basically treat them like I am square-foot-gardening, just doing it in a smaller area. So, I’ll do 2 tomato plants per bale, 2 zucchini or squash plants per bale. I may do 3 or 4 pepper plants in each. I don’t know. I had originally just wanted to do tomatoes, but then I found out you can grow anything and everything. I am so confused! In a good way, though.
I am sure my neighbors have the phone in their hands, ready to report me to the HOA for having straw in the backyard. But oh, they’ll change their tune when I share my bounty late summer! Oh, yes, they will.
pictured: google image
Delish for the Dirt
Compost.
Seriously. Compost.
It’s green, it’s environmentally friendly, it’s guilt relief (when you end up throwing away a drawer full of rotting produce you forgot to use). It’s rich and warm for the roots. It breaks up the hard mountainous soil making way for air and nutrients. It’s the most important soil amendment possible, at least 1000-times better than peat moss. And, unlike peat moss, it is readily renewable-fast! But the magic word? The word that makes it all seem to make sense? Or-ganic. Organic!
God composts, you know.
God? Yes. In a thick, green forest, when leaves and needles fall to the ground and are undisturbed, they decompose and enrich the soil below. They become their own mulch and then compost and then fertilizer for the trees above (and the roots below). Ashes to ashes, my friends.
In suburbia, we rake leaves up as soon as they fall (or vacuum them now sometimes, geesh). Then we go buy chemical fertilizers trying to make things look healthy, lush and green. We want healthy, lush and green – we just want to control it. Or, in my case, my homeowner’s association wants to control it.
In my last house, I had no association giving me ‘friendly suggestions’ AND I had a giant backyard. I had a compost sytem made of pallet wood. Wondrous!! I found this example recently. (This one is really nice and the blog post totally worth the read! Great tips!)
Paying Hundreds of Dollars to Decompose My Scraps
For the past 6 years, I have had to buy it. Buy it! Compost-rotting stuff! So I have been looking into these composters you can buy now and you have to add so much of their product (worms and starter and generating powder, etc.) it is ridiculous. What a scam aimed at middle-American, white-collar, home-owner-associated, bourgeois suburbanites. (It takes one to know one)
Homemade Compost: Back to Compost Basics
I am thinking of trying the poor man’s version, but keeping it pure. You can, you know! I found this possibility out there on the web: a homemade composter made of an old trash can. Hmmmm……Imagine, a useful and actually very valuable place for old coffee grounds, crunched egg shells, saw dust, dryer lint, untreated grass clippings,shredded newspaper, straw or hay, prunings, leaves, old plants, banana peels, really any fruit or veggie peelings…and etc…
Don’t know though…may have to wait to start until after Heaven Fest – maybe late August…stay tuned.