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.

It's a jungle out there.

My problem has never been getting things to grow. It's keeping them from taking over the neighborhood. Today I had to go out and pull my gourd vine back over from my neighbor's side of the brick wall. What I thought was a wee piece of vine on the wrong side turned out to be about 12 feet long. Then I had to trim the jasmine vine off of the roses and the lantana out of the jasmine. And my 'miniature rose' is now 6' tall and tangled with another rose. It's like the thorny rose from hell so I cut that back quite a bit as well.

Note that I didn't plant any gourds this year or last, they just keep growing up by themselves. As we are midway into Oct. my striped rosebush is blooming it's head off again.

Weeds Be Gone

My weeds were ruining my life so I bought a weed whip. Today I got to learn how to use it as an edger and reclaim my patio. The concrete part was getting smaller and smaller, which annoyed my boyfriend greatly. So I used the edger and hopefully he'll be a happier man now. I still have a lot more to do, but I am limiting myself to 10 minutes a day so I don't injure my back again.

Time to plant the new garden

I'm going to be putting in this year's vegetable garden really soon before it gets too bloody hot. Right now I'm thinking onions, chives, zucchini, and cilantro. Some of the tomatoes that I didn't dig up made it through the winter and are already covered in blossoms. Go tomatoes go!

The Tomatoes are Winning

I just tackled my weed-ridden bug-infested garden. It's been too hot to pick the tomatoes for over a week, so I had to take advantage of the cool morning and just get out there and do it. I quickly became hot, sweaty and itchy so I went back inside to beg my boyfriend to help me. While I picked and handed them off to him, he put the good ones in a bowl and the buggy ones in the trash. We filled 2 large bowls. I also pulled weeds as I went. Finally, I couldn't see any more red blobs, so I ran for the shower. There is something about tomato plants that makes me itch like crazy. And the weedy grass is going to seed and those awful pods stick to all fabrics and break into tiny bits so you can't get them off, not even in a the washer. Anyway we filled 2 giant bowls with regular and cherry tomatoes. So later this afternoon I'll be making spaghetti sauce out of at least half of them.

Heirloom tomatoes

My neighbors just surprised me with 2 tomato plants and a trailing strawberry plant. So I google up the tomato and here's the link. It's a hollow tomato that can be stuffed.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://davesgarden.com/pics/pdb_melody_2003-01-09_104215499787_tn.jpg&imgrefurl=http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/564/&h=75&w=100&sz=3&tbnid=BntJvmR-EdU5bM:&tbnh=57&tbnw=77&hl=en&start=8&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dschimmeig%2Bstriped%2Bhollow%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

Why renting sucks.

I'm in a bad mood. The new building owner sent a crew into my backyard to 'tidy things up'. In the past, our lease stated that our backyard was private, but all bets are off now that there is a new owner who wants the place to look 'manicured'. Here it is just reaching the warm part of the year and they just cut the only shade tree back to nubbins. I only blame myself for not earning enough money to be a homeowner.
Oh and did I mention they started repairing the sprinkler system in the front yard and turned off the flower bed water for 2 weeks? The pansies are about to dry up and blow away, even though I did water them once with a pitcher and 4 trips back and forth to the kitchen.
They are still raking up the back yard. They've been here five hours working around the complex.
I wouldn't be so grouchy but at 3 AM this morning our electricity got all fritzy. I'm sound asleep and all my computer equipment starts turning itself on and off. Every light in the house that was turned on was blinking. So I went outside and saw the adjoining apt complex was also blinking. I read for an hour when I heard what sounded like a police radio in my backyard. I go out there and a power company worker is one apt. over talking on a radio about how the transformer is about to go, but it's already past him to fix anything so they'll have to send another truck.
An hour later I was asleep again when the repair crew showed up. And then the electronics started beeping and chirping all over again.

So any hope I had of sleeping in on a Sat. morning was dashed when the gardeners we weren't expecting knocked on the door at 8:45 announcing they needed to be in the backyard all day working. What ever happened to 24 hours notice? Grrr!

More plants

Today I went to Walmart and found the sweet banana pepper plant and the greek oregano plant for a mere .96 a piece. And I had to look down every row past the expensive fertilizers and I finally found what I needed; the el cheapo no name brand of veggie and flower fertilizer for $2.50. You know they are trying to hide it when it's buried in a corner with no price tag on it knowing that most shoppers don't have that kind of attention span and will buy the miracle gro for $11.95 a box.

Now all I have to do for a few weeks is keep everything watered.

Duck?

I found a peanut shaped like a duck.

Marigolds

Marigolds repel insects and add color, so I planted some french marigolds.

Seedlings

Here are the seedlings waiting to be planted. I got them all planted this morning.

Square Foot Gardening

This morning I literally rolled out of bed, walked out to the garden and started working on the new garden. I wanted to get everything planted before the sun came out and heated everything up. Now it's noon and it's still overcast. I'm not sure I'll even see the sun today. Still, I'm glad I got everything in the ground. The only seeds I planted were sunflowers. For everything else I chose seedlings from the nursery since I normally put in the garden in March and here it is May already. The apt. complex sold recently, and I wasn't even sure I'd have a place to live much less a place to garden. The part that makes me anxious is the new owner can come over anytime and decide to dig up the whole yard and not give a care for all the work I've put into it. I try not to think about that, because if I did I'd never plant anything. The reason we picked this apt. over others was because it had a private back yard that I could grow things in. But in the few years I've lived here, this is the third owner and you just never know what an owner is going to do. The new owner already said he's going to paint the exterior in a month or two, and that's surely going to tear up the yard again.

Planting a garden is a act of faith. It's like saying I'm going to be in this spot for at least another 10 months.

volunteers

We've had a bit of a heat wave so I took advantage of it today to dig up some volunteers in my garden. I had 2 palm trees to relocate. I couldn't dig one of them up because I didn't want to damage the gourd vines. So today I got that one potted and stuck it in the front yard. Then I dug out another one growing flush with a brick wall. I couldn't save it, but I had no where to put it anyway. I'll probably give the potted one away to the first person who says, "I sure wish I had a palm tree."
When I was scooping potting soil into the pot, I found 3 giant white grubby insects. Although they'd probably be considered a delicacy to an Aborigine, I put them in the dumbster as quick as I could. I have a feeling there are more in the potting soil, so I'm strickly sticking to using a trowel to scoop with.
I also found more snails behind the plants I relocated. Escargot anyone?

My Rose List

The Rose List
As I lay in bed thinking and trying to sleep last night, I started thinking about the rose list. The rose list is a list of the favorite roses I've planted over the years and had to leave behind when I moved or relationships ended. I like to dream about one day having a big yard and room to plant all the roses on the list and then some. And to live there long enough to enjoy them fully.



Harry Wheatcroft http://www.vanmeuwen.com/plants/plant/67541

Bewitched http://www.growquest.com/hybrid%20T%20bewitched.htm

Black Magic http://www.justourpictures.com/roses/blackmagic.html

Paradise http://www.justourpictures.com/roses/paradise.html

Our Lady of Guadalupe http://www.justourpictures.com/roses/ourladyofguadalupe.html

Tiffany and Cecile Brunner http://www.justourpictures.com/roses/tiffany_cecilebrunner.html

Intrigue http://www.justourpictures.com/roses/intrigue.html

Wild Blue Yonder http://www.jacksonandperkins.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/productlink.d2w/r...

Purple Tiger http://www.jacksonandperkins.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?superitem=21...



Roses I already own:

Candystripe http://www.pbase.com/hjsteed/image/37091684

St. Patrick's Day http://www.merrygro.com/shop/plants/detail.ws?id=48&utm_source=google&u...

Sterling Silver (Although I now believe its a cross because it is a lot more hardy than the ones I had as a child, but since I got it at a swap meet, I'll never know it's true parents, but I'm guessing at least one of them was Sterling Silver) http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lawhern.org/Photos/2005-May%2...

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but that's a good list for starters.

Candystripe Rose 

miniature rose in my patio garden 

Gourd rattle I just finished.

Me as Snickerdoodles the Clown

First Calla Lily of 2005