♥ Country gal lifestyle & living ♥
Table setting 2– all from Target (Threshold and Hearth and Hand collection)
Table setting number 1 (Target Threshold and local florist and local primitive gift shop)–I think this one is really Spring like and less Easter, so I’m going with #2!
Our Easter dinner is going to be:
Ham with a brown sugar mustard glaze
Roasted Brussels sprouts
Parker House Rolls
Whatever you’re doing this coming Sunday–have a wonderful make memories kind of day be safe and be well! 🐝
Fall is coming–leaves, cool weather, wool mittens, fall foliage, last bike rides, holiday prep and so much more!
Van Gogh
I hope you are all doing well, staying safe, and enjoying what you can of summer 2020.
xoxo
I began thinking about our container garden in January when the first seed catalogs started to arrive. By March I had our garden all drawn out and then the pandemic, our current crisis, emerged. Suddenly companies weren’t selling seeds, seeds were back-ordered, plants were out of stock–every one pressed pause.
I had vowed to myself in January that all I was going to grow was herbs and flowers. I’ve been container gardening for almost twelve years and each year–thanks to climate change it gets tougher. Winds have gone from an occasional wind gust here and there to the last two years wind all the time. Heat–well our deck twelves years ago got up to 100 degrees and we thought that was hot. Now, it’s nothing to be 112 and 116 degrees at 3 p.m. in the afternoon. Everything wilts–and continuous wilting =very little if any production. With the pandemic, I changed my mind and decided to order plants from online when none of the regular places had any or closed up due to regulations.
I do have to add in that finding good stock has been incredibly hard for about five years for me. Plants, at least around here, are not what they used to be. I have changed soil off and on, fertilizers, food, and hybrid vs. heirloom, even saving seeds and nothing seems to really change the awful effects of climate change. Regular seasonal weather is bad enough between the rains and winds of spring to the scorching humidity of summer. Let’s not forget about root rot, diseased plants, bugs, and lack of one nutrient or another leading to no fruit. Every year, for me, it’s a nitrogen problem for everything I grow no matter how much I amend my soil. This year that problem has led to no female blossoms on 3 of my tomatoes and none on my pumpkins. I’ve tried everything.
I think it’s been raining for almost three weeks–or so it seems. I hope to take photos this weekend and will add more to this post then!
2 weeks later:
I had five tomato plants in all–3 of which are pictured above. The tomato on the right in the cage has not produced any flowers–on this particular day (2 weeks ago)due to space/crowding I said–let’s just get rid of it.
Here’s what it looks like today–
It’s grown out of the cage and stands almost 2 ft above the cage top. And boy am I glad I didn’t get rid of him because he’s not going to produce. I tend to think he heard me say that, because he’s taken right off and now provides shade for the tomato plant on each side of him and the little guy in the red pot right in front of him. Without the shade he’s providing (yes my tomato plants are always he 😉 ) the other plants would be suffering afternoon wilt so much more–previous to the shade he’s providing all the plant but this plant were doing really poorly. It just goes to show–don’t be quick to get rid of non-producers–the shade they provide in hot humid times like these is priceless. I mean we’ve tried sun shades, screens, even umbrellas. Nothing has worked very well at all–until now. And my nitrogen problem has been fixed for now: all total I have over 20 tomatoes growing at this time!!
Drying Lamb’s ear for a decorative wreath —
Time for Farmer’s Market veggies–we gloved up, masked up, kept our distance 6+ feet, grabbed what we wanted, paid, and were on our way. We had a cooler with vinegar that we soaked the veggies in, dried them, and put them in a dry cool cooler until we got home.
Tomorrow I’m going to try to get some strawberries ( the last week for them around here the first week was two weeks ago–and then everyone shut down) at a local stand to make jam. Both of the local u-pick fields shut down this year due to low quantity and poor quality–as said it’s been raining for weeks here..
Until next time–be well.
We got this lovely charcuterie board, featured in our cover picture, for our anniversary in February and finally I’ve found a reason to use it! I was going to wait until we had guests around and drape it with meat and cheese, but decided to show off the lemons we’ve grown. Every year our tree gives us a few more–this year was no exception. I believe it’s been about eight years since we started our lemon tree from seed.
You can see our lemon tree and get a delicious Ina Garten recipe for Lemon Napoleons here
Our friends purchased our charcuterie board at Macy’s at Christmas time –I don’t see it on the site anymore, but you can buy it on Amazon here for $45.00 (not an affiliate link).
So let’s get down to what’s new around here, it’s been awhile.
Container garden 2020 is in–this year I have:
I’ll have to take some more pictures, I’ve been doing more videos lately than picture taking–so I’ll get them up in my next post.
Well, it’s been three months since my last haircut and though I survived just fine it’s time to venture out to where I get my hair done–less than a 1/2 mile from home, mask up and get it done. Good thing is it’s just a haircut and like everyone in the state she has guidelines to follow, to which I know she will, and my hair which is now shaggy and shoulder-length will get a long overdue cut. Salons have been open for awhile here. I’ve just been putting it off–but with precautions taken I will be just fine. Thankfully our state is starting to come down in its numbers which is a promising sign for all of us.
Meat is still expensive–nearly 4 times the regular cost and some meat not at market at all. We cannot get roasting chickens from Just Bare–there are none to be had. The brand of lunch meat my husband eats is also not available as well as certain sausages, bacon, or ham. I still cannot find clorox wipes, but have found gloves for sale (5X reg. price) masks for sale (1.00 a piece) which for now isn’t a bad price–both at Walmart. Still to this day I cannot order toilet paper, paper towel, masks, cleaning products, gloves, or certain foodstuffs online.
That’s what is new around here–summer is almost here, the heat is starting, parks are overcrowded, very few people following any guidelines since the beginning around here, sadness all around the world in the news, and a lot of hurting. The world needs healing and I pray wherever you are you are safe and well.
Until next time here is our boy watching out over his territory–which includes birds of all kind, rabbits, other cats, neighbor dogs, and a muskrat!
Happy First Day of Fall!! 🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁
Lots of pumpkins in the store to choose from!!
I bought a hubbard squash and a white, green blue, and orange pumpkin. I plan to carve them out and then feed them while still fresh to the birds and other outside critters.
Last photos of this years container garden–
Last of my tomatoes ripening–
Last summer Farmer’s market haul–
Some pretty good food cooking with fresh produce–
Some interesting things I learned with this years container garden were pretty interesting. I started with three tomato plants planted in organic soil. I bought the plants at a nursery that I’ve been buying plants at for years. I also spent $34 on a large geranium plant that looked dead by day two on my deck. After a careful inspection I found two of the plants in the geranium bush to be rotten so I replanted the entire large geranium plant. I then went out and purchased two tomato plants from Home Depot and two tomato plants from Walmart of which I did not plant in organic soil. A few weeks later I purchased some herbs and a single geranium plant. Once the flowers were on all my tomato plants I was pretty sure I was going to be seeing some amazing results. A short time later all the plants I’d purchased from my favorite nursery were dead and I was down to five tomato plants, some herbs, and my geranium plant. These plants were planted in potting soil called Expert Gardener and it’s sold at Walmart. It must work great for everyone else too, because it was always sold out when I went in to purchase more. By summer’s end my tomato plants produced over 100 tomatoes—mostly salad and cherry tomatoes. My geranium is still blooming, my herbs were absolutely awesome this year. My butterfly bush and the tropical flower I bought in June are thriving–prettiest hardiest plants ever and to think both were basically dead when I bought them! So mixed feelings on all this as I spent an incredible amount of money on nursery plants and organic soil and had zero results. On top of that in years gone by having spent an enormous amount of money on fertilizers, soil, and such also very little in the way of production. Yes this year I had more plants so rightly so more tomatoes—in years gone by I had two to three plants and they produced between 10-20 cherry tomatoes in total. I have a lot to think about going forward. This was my last year for growing tomatoes on our deck. We will have one more spring here as our move has been delayed by the health issue I’ve been dealing with all summer. I am getting better but it is slow going. Next year’s garden will be mostly flowers for bees and bush beans!!
That’s it for gardening.
Stayed tuned for my next post about School & Farm : country living in the 70’s.
My patio garden is winding down–my tomatoes are all hanging from the vine, waiting for the right temperature to ripen, and then as they do I’ll come along and gladly pick them to eat for b’fast, lunch, and dinner. Forty in all which isn’t bad for five plants that are producing. Both of the pepper plants died from being battered around in the wind–so they’ll be none of them. But the wonderful herbs, esp. my rosemary right now, more than make up for it. Our butterfly bush is full of beautiful blooms and we’ve seen many butterflies on it these past few days. Another year of gardening and feeding the birds has almost come to an end. We still have a few orioles and also their young, as well as all colors of finches and their young. We’ve gone through two cases of food feeding them and oh the hummingbirds–they’ve really loved the homemade syrup I’ve made for them all spring/summer. Each year around this time it is almost as if the hummingbirds take a mental picture of our deck, saving it somewhere in their senses, so that they remember who will feed them again all next year. They will have such a long, long journey to travel to get away from here for winter and then such a long, tiresome journey to get back to us. This spring when they first arrived all the birds looked so haggard, but now they look happy, healthy, and restored. It makes my heart very happy to see this year after year.
Our first tomato!
Our butterfly bush–
Farmers Market Hauls–
That’s all for now–Happy August!!
Well, another week of barely any sun. I think we had sun on Saturday and about 30 minutes of it today–Wednesday.
Despite another week of icky weather–cold, dreary, damp, and no sun, I have a small tomato on one of my plants.
So– I have 2 Rutger’s Heirlooms-one has a tomato growing, 2 bush cherry tomato plants, 2 bush beefsteak tomato plants, and 1 purple Cherokee. I have snipped off the bottom foliage on all my plants (to prevent blight) and fed them. I recently purchased another thyme plant, Thai basil, a miniature rose, lemon balm, and a beautiful oregano plant. Tonight I made sure everything was planted in my garden, watered and fertilized. The next two days we are expecting temperatures near 80 and sun. This week I lost the Roma tomato plant and maybe soon the hydrangea? I am trying to keep it going after its blooms died but so far it isn’t doing very well. The juniper we planted this year and the two hostas we planted last year, which are growing by our front door, are doing alright. The browning and needle loss of my evergreen are slowing down–fingers crossed. This is how it all looks this week–
Gardening is very therapeutic for me. I think for most of my life it always has been, but it has taken most of my life to get semi-sort of good at. Let me tell you what I learned this year that has made ALL the difference–watering plants from the bottom. But first, you must add water the regular way, and then set the plant in a shallow pan with water. This way the entire plant gets properly watered. My overwintering of rosemary did not go well and my rosemary plant died. However, I bought two new plants and at least one will make it to the porch once temperatures warm up a bit. I have 8 Christmas cactuses alive since last Christmas, my 40-year-old Opuntia cactus, which grew little tubers out of each pad, which I later learned was the plant seeking more sun. Once I started giving it, even more, sun it has now begun to grow two new pads. The ponytail plant and bonsai are plants I am growing for my husband, and I have 5 new African violets, several succulents, ferns, and 5 English ivies. I have read that English ivy, and the ferns are poisonous to cats so they are growing either out of reach of him or in my Ikea greenhouses.
Several years ago I was diagnosed with PTSD and realized upon getting home I was ill-prepared to deal with it even though I had worked in mental health for several years. One thing I knew for sure was that I had to find something that was therapeutic–with the possibility that it would be something I could do year-round, maybe make me feel more alive? and definitely a sense of purpose other than my general responsibilities. Growing things year-round has been good for me. It’s not easy, but I don’t like easy anyways. I’ve learned to love a good challenge. The two biggest tips I can give anyone thinking of growing plants both inside and out are– water from the bottom up and don’t overwater, and always provide the recommended and suggested heat/cold, plus sunlight environment for your plants. A third tip would be to buy good strong quality plants from a trusted gardener/nursery.
My next post will be about Microgardening!
