Harvest

The plants before you are gifts from the soil. The soil was hauled in from a garden that shut down. The tomato was so happy here that they came of their own accord. Best way to grow a plant I think. 

 The tomato plants yielded the first pretty little red tomato yesterday. In fact there were just enough for each of us to have two on our supper plate. The round ones are deep within the foliage.

 These are little golden tear drops.

Very pretty in salads.

 Looking close at the leaves you can see the white has heat damage on leaves. We had high heat fluctuation over the last week or so. The yellow/dark green variegation of leaf is a soil deficiency that called for some Epsom Salt sprinkled on the soil. Avoid the leaves getting wet during heat wave.

wild flowers in bloom

propagating a fern

 My sweet old fern was just busting at the root with rhizomes.

It could not even take a drink.

 Upturning the pot one can see why.

The roots were so tangled and full of little future ferns.

 Slowly and purposefully each root got untangled and stripped of its little jewels.

 Each and every root was carefully drawn through my fingers as the bulbs snapped off to the ground below.

 With dry roots the processes was accelerated.

At one point I thought to cut the root ball into two, no chance.

 Potential ferns.

 My reference gave little detail on the process of doing this.

Following instincts, trusting the process the roots were then transplanted into other pots.

Circling the pot and covering only and inch or two.

 The other old fellow will get the chance once my husband pulls the huge pot from the garden.

From the beige pot above to the huge old black garden pot.
The root ball filled it up!

My sweet lonely lab approved

:)

He misses his Rena Girl (our Golden Retriever) she passed away earlier this month.

Home made bird food

Try this bird food recipe to attract your feathered friends!

• 3 parts melted fat (suet preferred)
• 1 part cornmeal or finely cracked corn
• 1 part peanut butter or other nut butter
• 1 part sunflower kernels or chopped nuts
• 1 part brown sugar
• 1 part chopped dried fruit (currants, raisins, prunes, etc.)

Combine all of the ingredients with enough water to get the consistency of cooked oatmeal. Cook in double boiler until well blended. Put into small containers like tuna fish cans that can be securely attached to feeders or  a tree

Those weeds in the midst of beauty

Click any image to enlarge it

 Have you ever notice that when there is beauty weeds of life come to distract your eyes from it?
Best bet is to yank those weeds early for the longer they linger the more likely they will disturb the roots that hold fast the beauty around and within us.

 It may not look like much yet. 

The poppy's are coming up and soon the color will burst~

The large center bed is coming along. One end of it gets too much shade and is not growing very well. One the spring solstice comes the sun will come more upon it.

 The sweet peas and the bachelor buttons are one the trellis. It will be so pretty as the blue bed comes into color.

 they are so pretty

just into the entry walk the close up is sweet

this what company will see as they come to the door

 Now the back yard flowers are sorta sad. Asylum is bursting, two of the self sewn tomato plants are still alive after the frost. We are having a winter with many more frosts than normal. As is the whole continent

 The broccoli it gone to bolt into flower.
You should see the BEES!
Must of been 100 of them easy.

This gets pulled up daily for the hens.

The hens love it.
Just hens having fun, kids too. They watched them as they debugged the compost.
Some happy birds, and kids. The hens got hold of a VERY large larva of a hummingbird moth.
Oh they fought over it

Weeded the bed a little. So not what I had hoped for and worked too hard on. Remember this is the garden I alone dug down 6 inches of stones. Removed them and trucked in all the soil that fellow gave me. I think it was his tomato plants that came with the soil. It will be fun to see what they are. They look as a bush variety so far.

Remember to pull those weeds in your life and in the gardens early. Don't let them mess up all the beauty within and around you.

Getting ready for the spring garden

Today will be a rainy day
checking my lists for what goes in next
the compost is doing well and so I will need to dig in the treasure
broccoli is needing to be harvested today

Saving Seeds

 This is Kale seed. Last year the healthiest plants were let to bolt in the hot weather at seasons end. When they had grown a healthy seed the seed heads were plucked to dry. They have dried well over the long hot summer. Now at falls planting they are all well ready. Now in the other climates this is done in springs end into their summer. We have the seeds here in late spring. Getting ready begins with keeping eye on the healthiest of each of your crop.

 Tossed last week these are already germinated into a promise of good harvest a few weeks out. Love Kale, so good for using in those dishes that call for greens that won't just wilt out.

 The process of shelling seed is one that the day was spent on. Many others had already been accomplished. Alas I was behind on this duty.

 This is seed of a orchid tree. One that was a volunteer on my side yard. It is so pretty now. Perhaps I could do a seed swap with some of you if your interested.

 This is the snapdragon the husk is really hard and the seeds tiny. Even if you go for a walk all you need to do is collect a few seed heads, just ask them first.

 Now some seed is so tiny. Oh the variety of shapes and sizes amaze and amuse me.

Remember to save seed and trade seed. Keeping those old heirloom varieties going.