az green

picnic weather

We have had a cool spring (which translated into Michigan weather is a warm spring). Perfect weather for enjoying picnics. I've been  making my salad pretty by adding edible flowers. Yum!

video tour two: welcome to my garden

Back by popular demand.

Welcome to my garden tour number two. 

In honor of my mother 

and all the gardening she did when we were growing up. 

Keep your eyes open for the lizard chasing white dog.

Please ignore the wind blown hair-in-the-face look. Focus on the pretty plants instead.

name that bloom

1

While water the garden yesterday I noticed how many different flowers are showing off their petals. I thought it would be fun to photograph them. Some are very tiny. Some are volunteers. Some remain nameless in my mind. 

How many can you identify?
 

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Hint 2, 3 and 11 have been making regular appearances in my salad bowl.

the gift

Recently my garden multiplied in size via Craigslist. 

The story goes; our driveway friends met a couple who rented a house in Mesa. During the three years they had lived there they had turned the small city lot into a lush garden. They were being evicted from the house and the garden would be bulldozed. Our friends, along with Jay and I when we were able, spent many days digging up, potting and transporting plants to our house. A few plants were lost in the trauma of the process but many have made the transition just fine. Along with the plants we brought home several barrels full of rich compost ready for growing.

What a wonderful green blessing from my Abba.

 

Stay tuned for upcoming video garden tour.

creative

I find it amazingly delightful that the Creator of the Universe took time to make even the small and seemingly insignificant details interesting and unique. Take as example these adorable mushrooms I found growing in my compost. Personally, I'm not sure that I would have bothered to make cute fungus. But the master planner...ahhh...his creativity is inspiring.

flower garden

I love the bed spring in my garden and this sunflower made a perfect topper for the antiquie-garden look. 

The greenhouse has a new addition, a doggy door for Lily so she can be in to enjoy the swamp cool or go out and watch the yard through the fence. Hopefully this will make the two weeks we are gone a little more enjoyable for her.

won't my mommy be so proud of me...

I frequently think of my mom, 

remembering her years of gardening, 

when I spend time in the greenhouse. 

welcom to my garden video tour

Hold on to your hats....the camera moves quickly at times.

figgy pudding

Last week I stopped at the local nursery to replace my mint plant that had died in the heat. When I went to pay for the plant the nursery worker was busy with another customer so I wandered back to the fruit trees. I was surprised to see several three foot tall fig trees with price tags of twenty dollars each. Now to be honest it was only this past year or so that I first tasted a fresh fig. Up until that time my fig-experience had been limited to Fig Newton cookies that my dad took in his lunch bucket. Now twenty dollars looked like a bargain just waiting to happen but I didn't have the right vehicle for tree shopping that day. I returned the next day with Jay and the pickup and now the figgy is happily adjusting to it new home.

tales of learning

Because Natale's mom had this week off Tessa and I had private school this week. It didn't take long before we pulled out the hose and fill a little plastic pool with "spray water" in order to cool off.

 Between the new-baby-family-time, an unexpected elongated Memorial Day weekend, and a battle with a bug I hadn't spent much time with Tessa during May. 

The first thing I noticed when her family delivered her on Monday morning was she seemed taller. It soon became apparent she is in a growth spirit when she couldn't go longer than an hour without announcing "I'm hungry". I made a raw Zucchini Miso salad (that I was certain she would turn down) with buffalo sliders for dinner on Monday and she raved about how wonderful dinner was every time she passed through the kitchen.

Tessa was delighted with the tomatoes ripening in the garden as tomatoes are a favorite food. We picked tomatoes and carrots and beets (better know as mint leaves) to float in our water, collected eggs and made it all into math lessons. 

The marigolds I planted along with the tomatoes are in full bloom and she was tickled to get permission to pick one each day. She loved how soft the petals felt. As she put the stem between her fingers admiring her flower ring our conversation went like this:

Me: Do you remember why we planted the Marigolds

T: No

Me: Because the bugs don't like them.

T: Once they see them they will like them.

Me: I think it is the way they smell that the bugs don't like.

T: (smelling her flower) When the girl bugs smell them they will like them.

How can you argue with that?

welcome to my garden part 7

k

The North West corner of the greenhouse is still "under construction". After our tour of The Garden Pool last summer we started making our own mini aquaponic pool. We dug a pit (no small task in this caliche-pocked soil) lined it with cement, built a raised box to extend it above ground and left the cement to cure. It's ummmm, nearing a year now I think the cement might be ready now. 

In the meantime, I started my favorite part of the aqua-experience in a large plastic bin. I ordered some duckweed off from ebay (talk about a good business - selling your weeds). We added an oxygen pump and some chicken poop to the tub and then the newly aquired duckweed. Then nothing happened. It didn't die but it didn't grow either. Finally I threw in some more chicken poop and suddenly my Duckweek began multiplying. Now I scoop up two big handfuls of the vit-rich green aqua-life every day and refloat them in the chickens water. Free chicken vitamins!

To make the best use of my shrinking garden space. I put my planting table over top of the Duckweed pool. This is were I work with my seedlings until they are ready to go into the ground.

color garden

  
I was happy to find some color hidden amongst all the green in the garden upon our return from a long weekend.

welcome to my garden part six

Stand with me at the compost box and look to the east and you see my  homemade seed saver....last spring I let my lettuce go to seed but had more seeds than time to harvest the itty-bitty things. I ended up clipping the whole clump of dried flowers/seeds and sticking them upside down in brown paper bags, labeling the bags and clipping them to bird netting I hung from the roof. It has proved a nice quick way to keep the seeds although there are probably more proper methods. Also attached to the net is a bag holder stuffed with plastic grocery bags that come in handy for eggs or produce when my hands get full. The white paper in the middle of the picture contian my notes on what plants are companionable and which are not. I found it was necessary to have this info in the garden where I'm doing the planting so stuck it in a plastic sleeve and hung it here for handy reference.



Beyond the bird netting but before you reach the door is an old bed spring standing on end. My beans are happily climbing this quick re-purposed trellis.

watercolor garden

Yesterday afternoon Natale and I watched a youtube video on painting with watercolor. Then we sat together in the garden and used pen and paint to create these wonderful watercolors.

kitchen adventures

My latest adventures in the kitchen involved kale from my garden. Kale chips are quick and easy, fragile and very tasty. I experimented using different vinegars; Balsamic won chips down.

If you want to try making some kale chips yourself here's what ya do. 

Wash, dry and cut kale leaves into potato chip size pieces. You'll want to remove the stems as they get sticky when dried. Put leaf chunks in a gallon size ziplock bag along with 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. Mix around (shake) then add 1 Tablespoon of Balsamic vinegar. Shake again. Remove from bag and place on dehydrator rack (or cookie sheet if you use the oven). Salt lightly with sea salt then set them to dry. Keep a close eye on chips as they dry as they are easier to handle if you get them before they are totally dry and crumble into green dust. Remove and consume. Yum!

blooming

My garden is full of tomato blooms,

pretty little splashes of

yellow

throughout the

green

jungle.

welcome to my garden, part 5

 My Compost Pile

To my own surprise, I have found that I really enjoy the process of composting. I tell those who visit my garden, "I'm good at making dirt." The compost box (a leftover from our first attempt at gardening) sits in the southwest corner and is about an 8th of the greenhouse. 

 My compost recipe: generous amounts of horse manure procured from a friend, a scoop of sand from the wash, a shovel or two of organic dirt, and a sprinkle of diatomaceous earth. Use the above mixture to cover material to be composted. (First dibs for food scraps go to the chickens but there is typically plenty of non-chicken kitchen, yard and garden waste to make a good sized batch of dirt.) Water and stir periodically. Wait patiently. When soil is a rich brown and composted items are no longer evident in the mixture scoop into growing containers and start planting.

welcome to my garden, part four

 

(facing north)

In the middle of my garden are containers, barrels, and pots of various sizes. I've been learning companion planting so most containers have two or more types of plants together. Currently there are lettuce, kale, swiss chard, tomatoes, onions, garlic, squash, cucumber, broccoli, asparagus, melon, Moringa, blueberries, Marigolds (to keep the bugs away) and grapes.

 (facing east)

 

(facing south)

(the salad bar)

garden tour, part three

The north wall of the garden is my favorite; not only is it the most pleasing to the eye but also to the nose. In the back row is mostly fruit trees, citrus, pomegranate, nectarine, plum and a newly added kumquat tree (a gift from my sweet Filipino friend). The front row is mostly herbs: basil, thyme, oregano, chives, sage, parsley, cilantro, and lavender.

The blue "rain barrels" in the back hold water from the swamp cooler that is mounted on the roof. I use the water to water the plants and keep my compost moist.