Something pretty

A few left over bits of color from an arrangement, to color up a cold grey winter day.

Thanksgiving

What beautiful word, "THANKSGIVING."  We give thanks for all our blessings, and remember  to give to those who need. Wonderful time of year to center ourselves.

A couple of faces of Fall, the last of the color before nature changes it all to shades gray.

Hibiscus adorned a patio restaurant along the Amalfi Coast, in Italy. A cup of coffee , a cookie, and an ocean view, beautiful day.

This was the garden of our Hotel in Sorento, the path to the right goes back to the pool area. The wall to the left, is the remines of a fort. The whole site sits on the bank of a gorge, that  was created by a glacer.
Top photo shows the gorge below.

Veggie stand in a small piazza

Beautiful veggies in morning farmers market, along the streets of Venice. Those are peppers and the white floating things are mushrooms.

This is an Olive tree, on a busy street circle, in Tuscany region of Italy. They grow everywhere, even along the road side; where ever the birds plant them.

These sticks are made of Chestnut trees, they help protect the plants and trees from winds and extreme weather. Nets are sometimes attached as well. This garden was viewed along the roadside.

This is what olives look like as they fall from the trees.

Italian Holiday

On a recent trip to Italy, I took photos of as many types of garden ideas as possible, including tiny, and roof top types.  Space is at a premium, but a beautiful gardens were eked out in some very unusual locations.
 Italy has been experiencing a very dry hot season, but that is good for the sugar in grape vineyards. 2011 will be a good year!

Novice Tomato gardening

The season is ending and the colors are fading in the veggie garden.
This is my third season with tomatoes as the focus in the veggie garden. The first year, I planted Burpee, Big Boy Hybrid, it was a great success. This was a tomato that is quite common and hardy in our western New York area. Great for salads and slicing, can grow to a very large fruit. Nice tangy flavor but not good for tomato sauce, for my taste.
The second season I planted the same as above, Why mess with a good thing?
But the this season, feeling a little adventureous, I decided to mix it up a bit. I planted, Burpee, Gardener's delight, this is a very sweet cherry tomato. It can be eaten whole as a snack, or used in salad. It grows in clusters. This was very successful.
Well then I went to a Burpee Heirloom, called Black Krim, well it didn't go over so well with the family and friends, to say teh least. This is a Russian from the Crimean and Black Sea area. It is a juicy, rich flavor with brownish-purple skin. It mades a great pasta sauce but is very seedy.

Garden was skunked, ever so mildly, but enough to notice. FIT really worked, took all of the added aroma away from my hard work. Now on to the cooking and freezing.

1. This is my first experience with blueberry picking. For those of you who live in areas where you cant and WOULDN'T blueberry pick, this is how it is done. We drove out to some farm in the middle of somewhere, New York. My friend, who is an experienced picker, assured me this was the best place, for the quality and price.  Plus, we'd get home in time for lunch.
I was instructed on  how to prepare for this quest, by donning a two belted construction strung through the handle of a pail, and slung over my shoulder, and across my chest.
They grow on bushes that stand between 3 and 5ft. tall.
I was then told, to massage the clumps of berries. And it works! They fall into your hands.

2. Rinse and remove twigs, spiders, and grass hoppers that land on your refrigerator.

3. Frozen blueberries placed in a two cup freezer bag, for yummy pancakes this winter.

This has been one of the nicest plants I have acquired this summer. It thrives in hot sun and has bloomed all summer. Very pretty show.

Cucumber Frame Project

This is not a ladder. This is what my husband made for my cucumbers to climb on, because I borrowed his ladder last year, and he was not happy about it.



Some New friends

Hello all,
Life has been a bit unsettling, but maybe I am back on track. My garden is a place of peace for me, and I am sure for all of you. One of the many  wonderful things about gardening is, we can always go back or start over.
When we started building this house, almost 3 years ago, we had no idea what was in store for us. Well, I can't say it was an enjoyable adventure, but we have come up on the up side, and it has become our home, but I would never do it again.
I love all your blogs, and  have followed you from time to time while I was away from my own. You are humours, inspiring, educational, and compassionate. Thank you one and all for being here.

MAKING MY WAY BACK

December Bits

It has been a very good year, in the new house. I actually feel like we are at home now. This will be our second Christmas here.
Finding and getting that star up there was no small feat. Blown up Santas and other assorted lawn ornaments were easy to find. I'm glad we persevered. I think it looks good.
Merry Christmas to all and best wishes to all in the coming Year!

Just wanted to share with you, a new friend I spotted early one November morning. He had a few females with him.

Adventures with Leeks

I pushed the harvesting until November. My reading said October for leeks. Our weather has been mild, so I gave it a try. I planted a four foot row. I didn't know what I was doing, and didn't thin them. You are suppose to build sand up around the bottom, to keep them white. I didn't do that either, since I am a lazy gardener.
This defiantly was a labor of love. I love leek soup, but I don't think I will be growing or harvesting leeks again. There's the twice trimming while growing, the picking, more trimming, washing and more washing. Then I laid them on trays to be placed into the freezer, so they wouldn't stick together. When they were frozen, I tucked small bunches into freezer bags, and refroze.
If anyone has a good potato and leek soup recipe, they'd like to pass along, please let me know.

Your Opinion Greatly Appreciated

Here is the current problem, a tree may fall. This tree is on my new neighbor's property. The root base is exposed on my side of the property line. The stick in the back round marks the line. Beyond the stick is a water run off drain. When we had our house built last year, we requested some trees be left on our property. I am satisfied with those. When they leveled our land for water run off, that is when I realized the current problem.

Well I thought when the new neighbors bought the land they would see the problem with this tree and have their builder remove it. Nope!

So fellow bloggers, what would be a good band aide for my side of the stick. I thought a stone retaining wall as high as the roots, on my side of the line, might help. We could shovel in some dirt to protect the roots, for awhile anyway. I don't know how that would work in the future.

What do you think? Have at it people!

And by the way, yes I have been a negligent blogger, and I am sorry. I must confess, I have an a addiction, and it is a game called Wizard101. Just can't stop playing. Don't go there, you will get sucked in, your family will never be able to shop or check their email again.

Thanks To All

This time of year is pretty much the end of summer in Western NY. I still have leeks, carrots, some tomatoes, and a few onions left in my veggie bins. It was a bountiful harvest.
I'd like to take this moment to thank all of the garden bloggers who have encouraged me, and forgave my blogging errors, graciously. This being my first year to blogging, I can't tell you how helpful and inspiring, all of you have been to me. I have taken copious notes, and followed your instructions, to find myself a better gardener, and proud it. It is to your credit, that I can walk around my garden, coffee cup in hand, before I head off to work in the morning, with a garden blogger smile.
I am indebted to you all. :)

My Bountiful Garden

This is just some of the harvest. It keeps on coming. The tomato is a Burpee Big Boy Hybrid.

All veggies started from seed. The peppers are sweet from Burpee. So far, I have put up 12 pint jars of sweet pickles, 12 jars of dill, and three gallon freezer bags of tomatoes.

There was a blight that struck around here, which devastated much of the tomato crop. I had about 6 tomatoes with a white shoulder, appeared as if etched in mold. Those tomatoes were exposed more then the others. I had clipped away some foliage, to exposed them to the sun. The others were protected by dense leaf cover. A few went to the giant slugs.

The ladder experiment worked quite well, placing it over the cucumbers kept them trailing up.

Kids On The Block

This is what has been going on on the lot next door. You can plainly see it's an excavation site of ancient Mayan Temple. Yes folks, we have it all, right here in Western New York; giant tomatoes plants, endless rain, and mosquitoes the size of small birds, yup.
Four, eleven year olds carved that into a pile of soil, excavated behind a new home going up. They worked for days, from morning until night with all of their garden tools. They never argued or complained. To bad it will have to be shoveled back to fill in the swamp, where some of the mosquitoes are breeding.

Plants Gone Wild

My tomato plants, started as seeds in cups last February or March. I transplanted them twice to larger containers, before I took them outdoors. They were planted, with their roots and first two leaf shoots buried laying horizontally, in my raised bed. There are five plants here.
We had a 70 MPH wind and rain storm this past weekend, and much of my already weakened stakes fell even lower.
I bought new stakes and re-staked them as best I could, without losing more then five green tomatoes. There are yet a few beets at the lower left.
The little Maple in the back round has already decided it is Autumn. I think it is to deep in the ground. When they graded the land around the house, that little guy lost out.

This was the view from my bathroom window this morning. I'm not fond of Sunflowers, but up close and personal, these are beautiful. This is my seed garden of vegetables. I planted Sunflowers in the the four corners of my raised beds. This one is almost seven feet tall. The one diagonally to it, is one-third the size. Next year I will plant the bed with that sun angle in mind.