Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday: Dad's daisies

Wordless Wednesday

Experiment in house plants

I am not good with house plants. Seriously. Over the years, I've had one house plant survive longer than 6 months. It's actually thriving, but that's because it's the type that deals really well with neglect and abuse. Drama Queen and Man in Plays gave me a beautiful azalea for Mother's Day, and it lasted about 2-1/2 weeks. I sure loved it, but obviously didn't know how to take care of it. Now, I'm trying with perhaps one of the hardest-to-keep-alive houseplants of all time: a Gerbera daisy. Wish me luck.

Fought the brave fight

As many of my valiant readers know, we love to garden. We love to plot out what we are going to plant and where. We are, however, not opposed to volunteer plants making an effort to grow (except maybe squash; they have a tendency to take over the world). We have about six volunteer tomato plants growing among the peas and carrots right now. Imagine our surprise when we found a tomato plant growing in the crack below our front door step. We decided to let it flourish, if it could.

Yesterday, I noticed that it is now starting to wither. I'm afraid that the lack of regular water and the amount of concrete surrounding it has made its lifespan a short one. I'm now upset with myself that I didn't get pictures of it in all of its healthier stages. However, here is one from yesterday.

Rest in peace, little tomato plant. We're sorry you didn't make it, but we were wondering how we would use the door if you made it to a full-sized plant with fruit.

Gardening 2012

As any ardent follower of this blog knows, Mr. Perfect and I are devoted gardeners. We love fresh vegetables, and we especially love them if we've put some of our own sweat into growing 'em. This year, we enlarged the garden (yet again), and started the peas and radishes on time! Way to go, us!
We have

• peas
• radishes
• carrots
• beans
• tomatoes
• beets
• pumpkins
• Hubbard squash
• acorn squash

We did go easy on the squash this year. Only one hill of each kind, including the pumpkins.

To help draw the bees to the tomato plants, we also planted marigolds and petunias. The roses have also started blooming, so our yard smells great!

I have discovered

Mulch. Mulch is a beautiful thing. It takes tired, dried-out-looking flower beds and gardens and makes them look healthy and lovely. And the best part about it is that the mulch actually makes them healthy and lovely. With the help of our dear neighbor, King of England, we became the proud owners of a huge load of mulch from the local landfill.

Pre-mulch:

Post-mulch:

It's even more spectacular in natural sunlight, but we didn't finish until about 9:00 last night.

Here's Mr. Perfect showing off his amazing muscles.

Now, isn't that worth all the hard work of shoveling and grating and weeding? I think so, too. Just wait until the tomatoes start ripening in August. Yummmm!

(Yeah, we know that the last picture looks like it's snowing. It wasn't. The lens just needs some serious cleaning.)

Mama Carrot and Baby Carrot

A few months ago, I posted about this massive carrot we pulled from our garden (anyone remember Papa Carrot?). Well, last night, Mr. Perfect found the rest of the family. Say hello to Mama Carrot and Baby Carrot. I think nature is fascinating and amazing.

Now all we need to find is one growing ringlets.

Papa Carrot

So, I've been making mini carrot bread loaves to give out for Christmas. I found this amazingly wonderful loaf pan at Orson Gygi (highly, highly recommended store, and no, they are not paying me to say this). It makes 9 mini loaves at one time. And they all bake at the same speed! Just look!

Well, as you may have read, we had a bumper crop of carrots this year in our garden. We weren't able to harvest all of them before the cold weather, but Mr. Perfect knew what to do. You cover the plants with leaves or tomato vines and you can pick them throughout the winter. In fact, the ground wasn't even frozen under the mulch. Hurrah for our side!

And so it was that I discovered the father of all carrots. It was HUGE! Not just huge; massively huge. Well, at least for us. In the following photo, the red pen next to it is just a standard sized pen.

Isn't he a beauty? And don't worry, I picked enough that he was not sacrificed to the deliciousness of carrot bread. He will probably end up as sticks or slices for a salad.

Signs of fall

Everybody sing:

The weather, she's a-changing. She's a-changing today!!!

Okay, that's not really a song. I just made that up. But it's true. The weather has finally turned. After a long, long winter (ski resorts open until July? was that really necessary?), the world's wettest summer, and a hot, hot September, autumn has made it's way to Utah. YAY!

This is my favorite time of year. Between September and the first week of January, I get to experience many of my favorites:

• Favorite weather (I'm done with snow by about January 3)
• Favorite foliage colors
• Favorite foods available (can you say Farmer's Markets with fresh veggies and a whole slue of fruit varieties? and eating stuff that you've grown yourself? what's better than that?)
• Favorite holidays (yes, these include Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Veteran's Day)
• Favorite music (I know I'm weird, but I could listen to most Christmas music all year, not all Christmas music, just most of it)
• Favorite husband's birthday

See what I mean? It's just a good time to be on the earth. I even liked starting school when I was a kid. Yes, yes, I am that weird. I miss college. Some day, I'm going back for my Master's; it will happen. I've seen it.

Mr. Perfect and I are not that much into decorations when it comes to holidays, except Christmas, but a festive wreath on the door is a nice touch.

I know it doesn't show up so well against the color of the door, but you can believe me when I say that it's really nice and fall-ish.

It was well past time to replace the Welcome mat at the front door. (Shopko has them on sale right now for 1/2 off.)

 

And I know that everyone is on pins and needles waiting to hear how the unexpected pumpkin patch turned out.

Wait for it...


Wait for it...

Ta da!

Including two HUGE ones, perfectly shaped.

We leave them in the garage so the neighborhood kids will not be tempted into the sin of smashing them in the street. Can't you just see these all decked out for Halloween? Then the smashing can begin.

Thank you, Heavenly Father! You have given us a beautiful place to live.

I am a plant killer

I have done something I thought was impossible. Growing up, my mom always had tons of plants on the kitchen window sill. She has the most amazingly green thumb; no plant in her house ever dies. EVER.

Every Mother's Day, she would get a new geranium from the Young Woman at church. And they always lived. For decades. And bloomed year-round.

This is the first year I've received a geranium for Mother's Day. And I've killed it. Amazingly, the plant next to it was also received at a church function (Relief Society lunch in March or April), but it's thrived. Apparently, it needs much less attention, water, sun, and personalized care than a geranium.

You can't tell from this picture, but the geranium used to have two main stems, and now one of them is black and limp. I can't tell if it's from over-watering or some other plant no-no I did. I do much better with plants in large plots of land that I can water with the automatic sprinkler system. We are currently watching two enormous pumpkins trying to out-do each other in size. It's going to be a fun Halloween, just not for the geranium.

I have discovered...

Pumpkins.

Everywhere.

They are taking over the WORLD!!!
At least they are starting to turn orange.