Tree Trimming

I cleared the garden just in time. The landlord gave me less than a day's notice that he was sending tree trimmers in. Before they got here I cut down the two hummingbird nests from last spring. Sadly one had an unhatched egg in it. So that's why I never saw the new baby hummingbird. I set it gently on a shelf on the patio. So wouldn't you know it a rainstorm blew through that night and knocked it to the ground and the egg broke.

Anyway, with the tree trimmed off, my bedroom has a lot more light all of a sudden. But I can also hear my neighbors as if they were standing on my porch.

I still haven't planted the winter garden. Hopefully I can get some seeds today.

Makes Like a Tree and Leaves

This morning I was awakened at 8 AM by the sound of the neighbor's sweeping their patio. Not a welcome noise considering I went to bed at 3 AM. But if you can't beat them join them, so I got up and swept up some leaves too. Then I hosed off all the plants to get rid of the ash that's been covering them since the Orange County fires.

Year of the Spider

Photo: This spider seems to be missing a few legs.

In Asian countries I'm not sure what animal year it is, but in my backyard it is definitely the year of the spider. I went out to clean away the dead vines and plants from the summer's garden and there were spiders of every variety and size out there. Every time I saw a big brown spider I thought of the brown recluse horror stories we've all heard, including one my friend in TX told me last week. While I was keeping an eye out, I picked up a white paper plate that had found it's way into my garden and when I flipped it over it had a black widow on it. I jumped, flailed my arms and launched it off the plate and into the air and I know not where it landed.

An hour later I saw another one, hourglass side up, smashed on the sidewalk. Then as I was pulling out an agressive asparagus fern from around the water spigot, I almost set my hand on another black widow that was sitting there on the greenery. In general I don't mind spiders, but with so many everywhere I turned I was starting to get freaked out. So that's enough gardening for one day.

I just signed up for Tagfoot. http://ping.fm/lfV6m Come see all my links and comments and my wishlist.

Now I don't have to rely on my memory

I've added the Flickr badge to show off my roses. And to bring back fond memories whenever I look at it. So many times I have moved and left my great roses behind and only have my memories to think on. But now thanks to the Internet, I can visit my past roses whenever the mood strikes me. And maybe someday I'll have a scanner so I can scan in photos from my past rose gardens in Riverside, Moreno Valley, Carson, and San Luis Obispo, CA.

Want to join ping.fm too? Go to http://www.ping.fm.Use the code 'legendofping' and you could have the luxury of posting to all your blogs in one fell swoop like I do. Way more efficient than doing it one by one.

I'm not sure what 'ping my default' means but I guess I'll find out when I hit send.

The week sure went by quick. I had a lot more planned but didn't have the energy to do it. My hands are still sore from woodcarving, and so I've had to lay off the knitting and crocheting. I'm looking forward to the weekend. My daughter may visit. We'll see.

Terrariums

My houseplants & housecats didn't mix.
Alas I have stumbled upon a solution.
Terrariums!
Plant stays in, cat stays out.
Genius


I used to make terrariums as a teenager. And early on I used to sell them. So why did I forget they even existed when I've had to keep every plant out of my apartment for the last 10 years because I have a cat that wants to chew on every last one? I wish I knew. I could have had terrariums to enjoy all this time. And I want to make a bit of a fairy garden theme. Yes!

Sunflower

I only had one great sunflower this year but what a beauty.

Yellow Rose Photos

I planted this rose to honor someone serving in Iraq. He was from TX so I planted a yellow rose. But the name of the rose is St. Patrick's Day because the buds are greenish yellow.

Come view my Flickr photo stream. Over 3000 photos I've taken are waiting there for your pleasure. http://ping.fm/3TTAi

I just signed up for Ping.fm to make social networking more effiecient.

tomatoes love summer

While I was out of town the tomatoes were going insane. I went to pick them today and the basket was so heavy I almost dropped it twice.
And I was surprised to find a zucchini. The white mildew has about wiped them out.

A New Hummingbird Nest

I can't believe my good fortune. Another hummingbird has built it's nest in the same tree as the last bird. This one has a more golden tone to it.

Working in the yard

The problem with working in the yard is the task tends to expand to fill the time. The more I did, the more I saw that needed doing. I swept and bagged leaves, pulled weeds, repotted plants, made 2 dish gardens, threw away junk, moved the workbench, tidied up the shelves, moved a bunch of gourds, and I still have enough work to fill another day. Thank goodness its getting dark because I'm pooped! It feels so good to shower when I am all muddy though.

Never turn your back on your squash

Kentucky Pole Beans, zucchini, summer squash and lemon cucumbers grown in Anaheim, CA 92804.

Twin squash.

I picked my first squash and the first one was twins. The striped ones are called Early Zuke.

So far so good

My garden finally looks like a garden. It's at the happy place after the seeds are growing but before it looks wild and weedy. I took more photos yesterday while it was sprinkling.

Tomatoes and Peppers oh my.

Last time I was at Home Depot buying plants, I thought I got 3 varieties of tomatoes. When I planted them, I found out I only got 2, because one had the wrong label on the shelf.
But I had seen some black tomatoes there and went to get one of those. I got a variety called Black Prince. My boyfriend grabbed him a Serrano Pepper plant. So today I got them planted, and grabbed the tags to make a blog post. Both tags had black plants on the photo, and I was pretty sure Serrano Peppers aren't black. So I read the fine print and what he had grabbed from the Serrano shelf was a Purple Bell Sweet Pepper. So learn from our mistake and check the tag right next to the stem, not the shelf label. And even so tags fall out and people stick them in any old plant, so I guess I will have to wait and see just what these tomatoes and peppers turn out to be.

Planting the garden

Today I got up at a quarter to 8 and got all my seedlings in the ground except the snapdragons. I'm out of space so those may have to go in the front yard and be at the mercy of the clowns that do the apt. complex gardening.

I meant to get three varieties of tomatoes but when I read the tags this morning I had two Big Boys and one Mr. Stripey. Oh well, I planted them anyway. I planted 6 yellow banana peppers, 2 lemon cucumbers, and and assortment of sunflower seeds.

This year I'm working smart and not hard and covering between rows with black plastic to keep the weeds down and conserve moisture. After an hour and a half of gardening this morning I was pretty much melted and hungry for breakfast. It doesn't take long for that CA sun to heat things up.

I still have to lay out another row of plastic and put up strings for the beans to climb on, but that can wait for another day.

King Corn

I got some seedlings to plant in my garden tomorrow. I got several varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and lemon cucumbers. Also some snapdragons to add color. Plus I want to plant some sunflowers from seeds. Plants don't last long in flats so I'm getting up early to plant them all. One of them already wilted between the time I got home and the time the sun went down.
A volunteer seed is sprouting with the squash. It's either a bean or a sunflower. I'm tempted to let it grow and see what it is.
After seeing a PBS special called King Corn tonight, I'm more determined than ever to eat less processed food and eat more home grown foodstuffs. Between corn fed cows and high fructose corn syrup in so many processed foods, it sure looks like corn is a contributing factor to diabetes and obesity. Almost all the corn grown in the U.S. either goes to feed livestock or to make high fructose corn syrup to sweeten packaged foods. Almost all the fast food in a typical meal is corn. Corn fed beef, corn oil french fries and corn syrup in the soda. Think about it...if they feed cows corn to make them fat, then we shouldn't really be surprised if all the corn in our diets is making humans fat. We just can't handle that much starch and sugar. I'm not talking about sweet corn from a farmer's market. I'm talking about altered corn that tastes so bad you can't even eat it raw. It has to be chemically processed before we can even eat it. And cows fed too long on that corn mixture die after about 6 months.
I had to laugh in a sad and painful way when they said they fatten cows by confining them to pens so they can't move and then stuff them full of corn. I sit in my apt. where I can hardly move and stuff my face all day with corn. As one farmer put it, "I know we are growing crap. It's what they (the govt.) pay us to do. Americans want cheap food."

Yellow Rose

First bloom of the year on my St. Patrick's Day rose, and I almost missed it because I was out of town camping. We had a heatwave so I got home at the peak of it's bloom.

Sprouting and hummingbird nest.

I'm happy to say the squash sprouted in 7 days, and now the beans are coming in. I get so excited just knowing the seeds are still viable.
And a hummingbird built a nest right outside my bedroom window.

Beans and Squash...I sound like a Puritan

Today I got the vegetable garden offically started. I planted Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans because they did so well last year. And I planted 3 kinds of squash. Now that we are doing weekly stir fries, I'll be able to use a lot more squash. When I get back from my camping trip next weekend I'll get some tomato plants to put in. And this year I'm putting plastic over all the bare earth so I don't have to waste so much time on pulling weeds and grass. Ick I hate that! So cross your fingers and soon I'll have beans and squash sprouting. I love to watch things sprout.

My roses are blooming.

My striped roses just started blooming. It's going to be prolific this year. My St. Patrick's Day rose also has buds on it. None so far on my sterling rose, but I pruned it late in the season to get rid of the jasmine all tangled up in it. I'm sure it will make a comeback. It's very sturdy.

Wasp

I'm going to start the garden this weekend I hope so I was out clearing old dead vines away.
I was out in the back and happened to glance up in time to see a wasp making a nest under the balcony. The nest was about the size of a pea. Reminds me of one I saw in SLO that was the size of a person's head. So I sprayed it with bug spray, which made for one angry wasp. After it flew off, I scraped down the nest.

The one in the photo was spotted in San Luis Obispo last weekend about 3 stories up. You might have to open the larger photo to see it. Some pigeons actually live above it.

Save the roses

I had lost one of my roses underneath a jasmine vine, a lantana vine and an overly zealous miniature rose bush with evil thorns. I trimmed and pruned and swore until I got all the parasites off the main plant. So now it has a good chance to make strong new branches for spring. I'm slowly reclaiming the back yard.

Calla Lily

When I have no roses to photograph,it gives me a chance to take photos of other flowers in the yard. These calla lillies grow in front the apts. I didn't plant them but I sure enjoy them when they bloom. I particularly like that you can see the pollen on the stamen.

It's almost Spring

Yesterday I decided to start getting my backyard/patio ready for the spring garden. I'm so glad I did because the rain had made a real mess of things. One of my gourd buckets was full of water and the gourds were waterlogged. So I set them out to dry. I hope they'll be okay.

Then today I swept up a ton of fallen leaves, berries, and wood shavings from my bf's bowmaking projects. I think he's thinking all those shavings can just be shoved into the garden, but that just doesn't work out. I don't have the space for a compost pile so all the shavings do is litter the garden and the patio. My 'yard' is only about 15' wide but really long. And most of it is concrete.

The other problem is the apt. dumpster is at the end of my yard in it's own brick enclosure, so when people miss the dumpster it lands in my garden. And I swear some people miss on purpose. The problem increased when the new neighbors moved upstairs. What does that tell you? Stuff from their patio is always blowing off into our yard. One day I came home to find a burning towel in my garden. They said it was their towel but had no idea how it caught on fire.

Most of the annuals I planted years ago bit it during the cold days this winter. So I have to dig all those out and plant something new. I have a volunteer ornamental asparagus growing by my water spigot which is actually doing quite nicely. My coleus all died in the last cold snap. I lost a few herbs too. I have tons of tomato plants left, but I need to get rid of most of them or I'll end up with an all tomato garden again. The beans did really well and I saved the seeds, so maybe I'll plant those again as soon as it is warm enough.