Oh My! What a garden!

And OH! What a Gardener! Silvia is a gardener that I have known via the Internet for several years now, and she graciously opened her home to several of us lowly wannabe gardeners to come and marvel at her work.

Her home is beautiful, and her gardens are astonishing! She makes me want to rip out every square inch of turf and start over. That won't happen so I'll just keep on trucking. Meanwhile I'll show you some of what I saw. But, you'll have to forgive me. At the half-way point her lovely hubby(? OK that is an assumption) rang the dinner bell and I tossed the camera aside for a chance at a slab o' beef and then we started actually trading seedlings and she gave me some sweet potato slips, and well the camera stayed in the car after that. Sorry!

This is Silvia's unassuming front yard.

But if you look closely enough you'll see that she does have a few edibles tucked in neatly. An apple here, an avocado there.... beautiful blooms from the apple tree

She, like me lives within the confines of a Homeowners Association. Though, apparently she gets along well enough with hers. Mine seems to hate me for some unknown reason. Maybe one day I'll understand, but at this juncture I doubt that very much!

Anyway - enough about me, this is about to knock your socks off. Don't say I didn't warn you! Please try to stay away from all power tools for the next 24 hours.

THIS is Silvia's back yard. It makes mine looks plain silly:

So, Where is that back hoe? I'm ready to get started ripping everything up now! No, not at her place, at MINE! I want my home to look like this. It quite literally takes my breath away. Every. stinking. time. I. look. at. the. picture. *sigh*

OK - so I'll show you EVEN MORE. That's right, there is more. 'Cause she's like a gardening rock star this woman!

A sweet little breakfast nook for two?

How about....

The perfect area for some bocche ball?

Or maybe a place for kids to play, but what you don't see is the beautiful vine behind me, or the wall that has a planter on it... shameful photographer I am getting sidetracked... I'll have to be better next time. Oh yes - there will be a next time! LOL

So, going back to give some of the beds their dues... The lettuce bed, and the nasturtium's, with the zucchini just in front of me and farthest out in front are the kale, papaya, lemon grass, and off to the far right the citrus trees (mostly in pots so she can drag them into the green house in the winter)

A close up of one of those zucchini - and don't let this picture fool you. This 'little' zucchini was the size of my arm, and bigger around! A monster I tell you. One I'd be proud to call my own. This one was not alone, either. It was simply the one begging to have it's picture taken.

Tomato tower...

and cucumber trellis'

You would NOT have believed the size of the onion bulbs......but again I got side tracked, but the sapodillas, that fig tree (HOW did I not get a photo of it???) sage, tarro? and other wonderful goodies to look at over here.

Oh, and get a load of the size of these greens. Talk about impressive! I'm really starting to feel like I'm doing something wrong at my place. Oh, wait. I know what it is. I don't really grow greens. That might have something to do with it. But something tells me if I did that they wouldn't look quite like this!

This beautiful squash is one she brought back seeds from Italy. Thanks Silvia for sharing seeds! The vines were impressive I hope that mine can be half as healthy as yours. Keep me posted on how many fruit you get!!! I have to give a serious thumbs up to her Brogdon Avocado. That tree is massive and just covered in tiny fruit. I'm always trying to get my trees to maturity and this tree reminds me of exactly what it is I'm fighting so hard for. Someday I hope to have one just half this size.  It would make my heart sing to have that many fruit gracing my table.

Here is Nancy walking through the bananas and kale. I did try not to put peoples picture on here, but she's my Stepmother so I figured I'm safe with this one. :-D I am so thankful that everyone welcomed her so warmly. I had a wonderful time with her and I don't get to spend much time with her without all of the family around.  It was so great to get to see so many friends face to face and she didn't even think I was weird for meeting 'computer people.' My Mother would have had a conniption and told me I was insane!

Now, as a 'THANK YOU' to Silvia a small parting gift - I realize that you see your precious 4 leggers every day, but I thought you'd enjoy a visitors view of them. I couldn't get Tiny outside so his picture is a bit blurry. It tends to work better if the owner helps, but I think I did OK considering that I'm not a blue plastic ball for Nikki, and that Blondie warmed up fairly quickly. ;-) Email me if you'd like a full size printable file.

 

Thanks again Silvia for a wonderful day in your home, and gardens!

 Oh, and lookie what she sent me home with, Sweet Potato slips! These are for a bush sweet potato (porto rico) and she also sent me home with 2 regular sweet potatoes I didn't catch the name of, but I'm still happy to have. :-D

So, now that you wish you were with hanging out with me this weekend I'll let you get back to your regular old lives, but remember that I failed to take pictures of half her yard!!! EEEEK! There is still the plum tree, the herb garden, the raspberry/blackberry brambles, the...OK, OK I'll stop teasing and just try to remember to keep snapping pictures next time.

Because there WILL BE a next time, Oh yes, there will...

MUHUHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 4.16.12

WOW~!  What a week. I've been sooo busy it's not even funny. That is of course a double edged sword.
The garden was wonderfully generous this week, and I have another 'first' harvest for me this week. (I'm a tease though, so I'm saving it until the end!)

Linking in a bit late to Daphne's Dandelions to join in the fun! Be sure to stop by all the wonderful party hoppers and see what people are harvesting all over the world!

This weeks harvest is chock full of pictures, and I didn't even catch ALL the harvests, LOL>

The week started with a turnip, some smallish carrots that I needed out of the bed, and some broccoli side shoots so I could pull the plant and put it out of it's heated misery. I still have a few plants, but these were the hottest plants, in the most direct sun. The mulberries are still coming at about a cup a day, sometimes more. I REALLY need to find something to do with them. We are all sick of eating them now and they just don't freeze well, at all. Mushy and gross, nick!

Midweek I had a nice glutton of some of everything.

and more mulberries

and more.....and I pulled some of the cabbages to turn part of the bed.

AND here is my 'first' harvest. :-D My first ever home harvested 'tater. *beam* I got too anxious to eat it though, and ended up snarffling down and half cooked (grilled) spud and burning my mouth in the process. It was still good. I had 4/15/12 on the calendar as the first date for harvest on the potatoes, so I dug through one of the buckets and found this little jewel at the bottom. After digging in the garden bed I was worried I wasn't going to find any. I guess I just hadn't dug deep enough, because the bucket spuds are not as far along and yet here is my first one. Four ounces of wondrous goodness. 

I'll wait another week until I dig the rest up. The main bed that the others are in the plants are withering and turning yellow so I know the timing is certainly right, but if this spud is an indicator I'd like just a little more size. Besides, there just isn't much time between now and then to 'dig' into such a project. *Snort*

Tally for the week: Blue berries: 3lb 12oz, Mulberries4lb 2oz, Snap peas 14oz, English peas(final) 1lb 3.6oz,  yellow wax beans 1lb 4.3oz, Green Beans 7.5oz,  Broccoli 2.1oz, Turnip14oz, Cuke 4oz, Cabbage 7lb 3oz,  Tomato 5oz,  Potato 4oz, Carrots 4oz, Greens 13oz, Lettuce 12oz

Thanks for stopping by for Harvest Monday!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

I seem to have missed a few posts.

I missed Harvest Monday. Passover and Easter, but I'm here now. so I'll try to catch up. Harvest last week was nice.

But it was a short week as we were heading up to Alabama. I didn't take many pictures - so here are the two I did take.

Wax beans, snap peas, a few garden peas, mulberries, blueberries (actually a quart of blueberries I took with me.) broccoli and an Annah that need her picture taking for helping in the garden.

We all packed up and the eldest went with his Grandparents so it made the trip a bit easier. Richard,

Annahand Kate(she was so not thrilled with the ride) all hopped like little bunnies into the truck and hit the road

What? No one told you this was going to be a pictogram? Actually I took the picture because of the whole flat surface thing. Florida sure has a lot of these roads that are straight, flat and just plain nowhere. I do love it here. :-D

This is just around Cedar Key. That is a misnomer BTW it's not a true Key as in 'The Keys' it's one of hundreds of smaller sets of islands that line Florida's coast. This particular one was nearly destroyed with the ban of gill netting back in 1995. Which, subsequently also destroyed my Dad's business and he moved into the city of Jacksonville and took a job with the  government. Their idea of  'governmental retraining'. Well, I think he got enough of that when he was injured in Vietnam, and then was retrained as a civilian contractor. Thank you very much Uncle Sam.... (I digress) Wait! No I don't! Those same fish that they think suffered from gill netting... they now are in LOWER numbers then when the ban hit in 1995! Apparently the pressure from fishing helped to ensure mating (or perhaps the pressure from the industry itself ensured that pollution was getting reported, etc) 

This little town - system of islands depends on the sea and it's few tourists as a way of life, so if you ever drive past, it's worth the 25 minute trip down to have lunch and do a little crafty shopping. OK, Now I digress.

Once we got up to the property we got settled and decided to dye some eggs, and have a little fun with them.

I think they may be the best eggs ever. :-) They tasted good, too! LOL.

Then we headed out for a little scouting -

But, it seemed that someone had different plans for me. Hunting wasn't going to be in my future this trip. I got to see some birds - and got buzzed by a hummer. I'll come back with some pictures of the pond but the import thing here is that after we came back from scouting I heard this sound.... and I followed my  senses, and found....

What could it be?What is hiding here, making SO MUCH NOISE???? Ruining any chance at hunting?





Oh, My!

How could I have said no? Just look at that face? So hunting was over for me. I could handle that. I went into town and got some kitten milk replacer and an itty bitty bottle. And, we bonded. Oh goodness did we bond.

She was hungry, and dehydrated when I found her. The next day Momma cat came around. I tried to reunite them, and it didn't work.Momma cat wouldn't take her back. But the following night I saw her again under the barn. This time I knew where she was and she knew who I was and she was acting growling at me, but not running off. A good sign. The kitten was crying and I used that against her. I sat the kitten down about 20 feet from the barn and momma cat came out and grabbed her. :-) Reunited at last. I spent 2 days nursing that kitten, and I thought I wanted her to go back to her momma. I was glad that momma cat took her back. Even all the way back to Florida, I hoped that the kitty was doing well but was glad the momma cat had her baby.

But, now I sit here and can think of nothing but this stinky little kitten. Her mewling, and purring, and.... DARN IT! I want that kitten!!!! *POUT* I think this was the last kitten she had, and I wonder if she was taking good enough care of her... and .... I WANT HER BACK.

So not fair.

I guess this is just those female hormones or Momma instints kicking in or whatever, but Yowza! Wish me luck not having my son bring her back.

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Garden Mom

What's a Garden Mom to do? I can take my 2 legged kids on vacation with me. But my plants have to stay behind. I can set a timer and water them daily. Those needs can be met easily enough. I'll still worry about my poor little plants though.

Some are not so little, and some seem to take care of themselves.

But some seem to need tending to regularly. Some need daily care right now. Mulberries tend to need picking daily or else the ground is littered with them. The bush is in the playground. Both insightful (the kids can pick, and eat, and enjoy right there!) and SO not insightful (the staining, the mess, the tracking!) at the same time. Yes, I think there was a better place for this bush...er - tree. It's no longer a bush. Three years time has seen it grow leaps and bounds even with massive trimmings. I'm gathering about 2 cups of berries each day from this wonderful single tree. So I am imagining that 5 days at 2 cups on the ground (10 CUPS WORTH!!!) and the outcome is scary, and rat scurrying inducing. *shiver* That is not a problem I wish to have.

I have a nice handful of blueberries coming in every day as well now, and green beans, too.

I really need to find someone who lives close enough to me and knows enough to be helpful, but not too close so they don't make a pest of themselves always wanting to take things. I don't grow enough to give away much besides greens and an occasional cabbage. LOL. Maybe a meal and of course whatever they were to gather while they were on duty as a thank you for keeping the garden in check.

*sigh* I've either got to start growing greater quantity of things so I can share more freely and get someone interested in garden sitting for me, or find someone that I can pay to do so.

What do you do when you go away?

Heading up to the Alabama property. I can't wait to see how the Granny Smith apple trees are that we planted in the fall. I'm hoping for a nice flush of new leaves, or at least some buds. Then it's time for some maintenance, and to figure out the cropping rotations this year. :-) It will be a nice break from work. I can tell you I need one right now. See you all in a few days. I'll try to stop by for Harvest Monday.

Have a wonderful and Happy Easter!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

"Small Project"

I promised to come back a share a small project, so here I am. I try to stay true to my word. Small may be a little deceiving though.

Pictures are a bit uh- well non existent until I get to the finished project. Sorry. I was working alone. The hubby was off on a charity event. A tennis tournament, so I was not entirely happy - but it was for a good cause at least. Sydney's School is an amazing school for autistic kids that believes in integration and teaching kids of all varying abilities. It's really amazing what they are doing there.

ANYWAY - So since I was on my own it was rather difficult to take pictures as I was working. But I can show you a before and after picture. I did get rained out at the midway point if it makes you feel any better so I couldn't have had my camera out even if I wanted. My cell phone maybe, but not my good camera. ;-)

Here is the birds eye view of before:

I had to pull a few onions and bush beans out for this project. The onions became stir fry and fritata, and salad onions. Actually one of them is destined for today's salad and one for to nights dinner. They aren't large in the bulb area, but hey! They are long and good.

After I pulled about 6" square of space I used a post hole digger to dig 20" down against the fence. I cut a 4x4" post and I cut a vinyl post sleeve to go over it (x's 2). Then I measured 96" from center and repeated the process in the bush bean area. After I had the posts in the holes I back filled and tamped the posts in fairly tightly, and then.. I had to W~A~I~T.

Yup. I could do no more until my honey pie got his booty home and helped me out. I couldn't heft the lattice up and over the bed and hold it in place and screw it all at the same time. Don't think I didn't try. Even if I'd stepped into the bed I couldn't do it.

We got it done right at dusk. Not bad considering that I started my day at 8am. I'm pretty sure a guy could have gotten it all done much faster, but I'm not super skilled at this and I had to FIND the skill saw, get it down from it's location, locate an extension cord, CHARGE the battery for the drill... all the things that GUYS normally already know and have done. It was tedious to say the least. Not to mention that my husband seems to have the most backwards way of storing screws ever. I mean who really keeps different types of screws in a completely different section of the garage? *humph*

Ah- but it is done.

And, I'm not unhappy. I'd be happier if it was metal but my hubby is happy that it is lattice so that is good stuff I suppose.

I wasn't sure which way was easier to see so I included both views.

If the vines grow well on it I'll expand and have a second trellis (it's 8' remember) to the left of this one towards fall or at the least by Spring. If not I'll take down the lattice and have to spray paint a metal piece for it, and make 2 of those. It might mean moving the post and that would have to wait until Fall/Winter planting for sure. It nearly broke my heart to take out  those few plants. Either way at least I've got something to get started on and as of this morning I've got Asparagus beans, Daphne's Trail of tears, Dragon Tongue and Santa Anna soaking. There is no waiting for this! I can't wait to see it tried out. Wish me luck!

'Till next time!

Barbie~



Harvest Monday 4.2.12

Welcome back to Harvest Monday! :-D

It seems to be always Monday here. I guess that is a good thing because it means I'm usually sharing my gardens bounty. I love that! Linking into Daphne's place for the party. Don't forget to stop on by and check out what people are harvesting all over the world!

This is April and true to nature it started just as it should have. I got rained out of my garden, and gladly so. It was a real toad floater. If I'd have had my camera (and I'm so glad I didn't because it would be ruined now) because I really had a toad float up in the pea patch that I had just turned. I'm glad he wasn't hurt! We were in pretty desperate need of rain so I was glad for it, but my cucumber trellis fell and took out my cukes so I'm not happy about that.

Well, with no further ado - Here are the pictures that I remembered to take this week.

 Haricots Verts  & Cherokee Yellow Wax Little bitty strawberries now and great big blueberries, and they are finally starting to come in handfuls instead of drabs, just as the strawberries are fading into the background. Good timing! A beet, cabbage, onions, rosemary

 More wax beans, cukes, mulberries, snap peas, broccoli, strawberries, blueberries, My! What a week!

A Alittle shirtvesting went a long way, but is unfortunately the very last of the snow peas. This was what I took off of the vines as I turned them under. In their place was sown derby bush beans.

Last but not least MINT > OH YUMMO. This handful of mint graced a nice pot of cocoa. MMMMmmmm... and some for drying.  'Cuz that much in cocoa would make my lips numb.

I'll be back soon. I've got a little project to share.

'Till next time!

Barbie



STRANGE things are happening to me.

Or to my garden at any rate.

I was turning over my lettuce patch last night. I had emptied it last weekend so I figured it was about time. I was digging about 6 inches down and  I ran into this:

It was completely buried. Of course what you are looking at is a little bit chopped up I was after all turning over the bed so it took me a minute to realize that it was NOT part of the lettuce bed that I was turning over.

This was not even something that had grown here the season prior. This pea was either a relic from a full year prior (self seeded and grew in no light and 4-6" deep) or it was a seed that the kids buried when I was installing the liner WAY back when I was originally building the beds oh...3? ...4? years ago!!! There was a fully formed miniature pea even. Absolutely amazing. Mother Nature never fails to completely knock my socks off at least once a year.

What I really want to know is - How in the world did it get green under there with no light? Doesn't it take sunlight to make Chlorophyll? Shouldn't the depth have blanched the poor plant?

Hmmmm.....

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 3.26.12

Well, this post was started hours and hours ago but something interfered. What was that? Oh, yes- WORK. PHTHTHTHT> :-P

The harvest was another good one. I keep thinking they will slim down again soon and yet they march on!

The first for this week? The first green beans of the year.

The first BLUEBERRY that wasn't stolen by the blasted birds.

The strawberries are getting much smaller now, and not setting as frequently. It's about time to chose what plants to save for summer and they haven't even set forth the runners. Very odd!

A few more cucumbers. 4 this week, and some chard as well.

Broccoli side shoots, snap peas, and snow peas, a few english peas, loads of lettuce and spinach that wanted to bolt, a few onions, a whole colander of mulberries and yes even the sour cream was in my harvest this week, though not from the garden. It was a trade. :-) Freezer Jam for sour cream.

Oh bother. Work has been one massive distraction after another lately. I mean that is what it is after all, but I don't like when work interferes with my personal life on my personal time. Of course right now my personal time (lunch break) is on work time - but this is legit personal time after all. Between the Captain of the Port and the general Coast Guard visits things are really heating up down here getting ready for the AUGUST National Republican Convention. It's hard to believe that preparations are already underway, but they are. I must return back to the desk now. Sorry it took so long to post. I hope you are all having a wonderful day. It's beautiful outside!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Projects

So last night we hired the sitters and my husbands idea of a 'date night' was heading off to Home Depot and taking me shopping. Well, OK. But, dinner would have been nice. Sheesh!

I've been begging for a trellis so I could grow beans that don't completely hate our humid and hot summers (like yard longs) for the last few years and it's a point of contention. He won't flex on the materials and I won't flex on not having one. So off we went. Here are my ideas of what I want...pardon me if I've stolen from your blog or your pictures.

Cattle panel on the existing white fence - something that would virtually disappear once the vegetation grew on it. But, he wouldn't go for the wire.

 He was willing to do these things...

  Both made of wood  and not something I want to do to myself. I don't want to replace a trellis every year or two. We live in Florida and realistically it would mean annual maintenance at minimum. No thank you!

The compromise you ask?

Well, I don't have any true pictures yet - but the compromise is a trellis that will be tried in an 8' section for 1 year. I don't think it will work very well because of the inability to reach behind the trellis. After all if you can not harvest one side of the trellis the beans/cukes (veggies) will set on that side and cause the vines to slow or stop production. Am I wrong?  This is roughly what we are looking at, only it will be 4" (the width of the post sleeve) from the fence, and the lattice will be mounted to the outside of the post sleeve rather than to the middle as shown here.

It will also be mounted off the ground by 18" This setup won't work for peas. The tendrils simply wouldn't have anything to grab onto - and it will be hard work for growing cucumbers, but it is not impossible I do it now by weaving them in and out of a much smaller panel and an earth box at the bottom...

Ah- I'll try to keep you posted on the progress of this project. I hope the beans are easier to harvest than I think they will be. It would be a shame. I did get him to agree that if it doesn't work I can by the dagon cattle panel and spray paint the thing white and hang it there next year. Grrr... at least I'm willing to try his way first. I am desperate to finally get the vines growing!

'Till next time!

Barbie~