Help for Her Addiction

Here is the "official" first carrot of the season growing in the full shade bed. The "other"one was half the size, and I ate it and that is that.

Julie my neighbor gave me a mix of Heirloom Tomatoes which I then cut open and saved the seeds. After searching the names of a few on the internet, I believe two are Black Russian Pear (2nd from top left) and Black Zebra Cherry (lower left). When you save seeds, you don't know if it was crossed with something else at pollination, but saving seeds is a gamble that appeals to the Wrangler. I had to protect these cherry tomatoes from Julie's baby. He was popping them in his mouth as fast as he could as she shared them with me.

I belong to an online gardening group which I truly enjoy, (I belong to 3) and in one the thread it came up about gardening addictions and how to distract the husband while you unload a new purchase from the vehicle without him noticing. I shared how, when being confronted about if something is new, to avoid direct eye contact and immediately comment on the weather. It was a funny thread. Later in thinking about it, it shed new light on the little gardening pictures that I have in my kitchen. In the picture of the couple on the left, she is praying for the crop's harvest and the season, and he is praying for her. And in the one on the right, her man has already run off!

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back!

It's Educational

I planted peas between the green beans in the greenhouse bed and they are about 3 inches tall now. The plastic for the greenhouse is supposed to be delivered tomorrow, which is exciting, and now I have to devise the venting system. It is getting down to low 40's and the tomato that self sowed is targeted to go into the plastic covered greenhouse all things considering.

I have had these Euonymus for over 2 years and they did not like the early morning sun where they were located, and they were just not happy. So I dug them up and placed them in these bonsai pots and discovered that they were planted way too deep, which is possibly why they weren't happy. I cut the roots to place them in the bonsai pots, and they probably won't like that either, it is a gamble. Seems just like Wrangler. It must be this vest that I made, It's kind of heavy duty and western. I decided about a month ago to make a vest and I purchased the fabric and sorted over patterns, and finally as the Master Gardener Graduation is coming up, I made one, and decided it will be fitting to wear the new vest to the event. I scored 98 on the test, and I am pleased with the score.

So I have started salad greens that like the cold. Botanical Interests has an Asian Salad Greens Mix (link is located on the sidebar) which contains Tatsoi, along with Arugula, Chinese Cabbage, Japanese Spinach, Mizuna, Mustard Green, Mustard Red, Mustard Ruby Streaks, represented as 4 rows, and I planted 2 rows of Red Winter Kale in the clear cookie box. The 6 packs contain COS Breen Lettuce (less fond of cold) that was started in the cookie box, and they did get too leggy, so I planted them deeper in the 6 pack containers, and they do not like to have their stems buried deep and I have lost some of them as a result. I am going to breakdown and get the shelving unit and the shop lights eventually so that the starts won't get leggy when I grow them in the house. The Tatsoi, along with the rest of the Asian Mix has been growing outside all along and seems to like the temperature.

I planted a 6 pack of pansies and they are next to the rosemary that is flowering, and the lobelia. It is a study of blue. Blue flowers are stellar.

And there are some yellow leaves in the garden now, and one plant with yellow leaves is the Rose of Sharon Hybiscus seen in the photo above. I can't take a picture of it without capturing the salts that are ever abundant in our Nevada soil. All you can do is scrape the crystal-ish powder up and discard it. It is Calcium Carbonate I believe. It is the reason we cannot use Miracle-Grow here in Nevada, as Miracle-Grow is comprised of salts, and salt on salt is just wrong. So as a fellow blogger stated, you are not supposed to share ugly pictures, but it is ok, it's educational.

Here is the apple tree, and I am going to prune it this year for the first time, so it is being mentioned as I am in my preparatory pruning meditative stage and this will last until early January at which time I will actually prune the tree. It is like a metamorphosis of a really great apple tree pruner, like a butterfly type thing.

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back!

Western Zen

Yesterday everyone in mg class was asked whether or not they had a garden theme. I described my garden theme to the group. It is called Western Zen. It is described as In the desert but not of the desert. I hope to convey a western sense, after all, it is hard to escape in the air and the sky and the creatures that come to visit. Even the cat is dusty. But I have the strong emotional need to convey that the pioneer wagon kept on moving and that there is hope here and green pastures, and that everything has a place and all is properous, and abundant. This led to Wild Desert Lush, and after a rain it is descriptive of Western Zen, but that is just for fun, like when you have your boots on.

So the best way to describe it is to go back to some of my favorite garden photos (indulge me here, as you may have seen these before,) that convey that sense of what I am trying to acheive, what feeds my soul, and this was the point of the lecture, (a very good lecture I might add) that your garden must intrinsically make you happy. So here are some of my favorite photos which for me convey my garden style, my Western Zen.

Om...

Om...

Yehaw!

Yahoo!

Om....... Western Zen is also descriptive of my interior decorative style as well. (Hey, No boots in the house!)

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back!

Wordless Workday

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back!

Second Hand Rose

I went to Vegas yesterday for some Silver Reflective Mulch, and stopped at a second hand store and looked at the garden books and was looking for meracas to give to the K.J. (karaoke dude) and I generally look for garden related stuff, whirly gigs, fountains, cowboy boots, quilts and vintage scarves. Here is a vintage scarf from yesterdays find. It's ninety nine cents worth of pure heaven! I also purchased a scarf (for Wrangler) with cowboy boots all over it, and got 4 floral handkerchiefs, a feng shui book (for Zen) and 3 books on gardening for a total cost of $17.00. I'm thinking I could wait to read the garden books when it is cold outside, but they've ended up on the kitchen table and one of them is open, so winter will just have to wait.

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back!

Mining Rocks

With 10 minutes on the timer before the chicken was done, I'm out tearing up the main bed trying to locate the irrigation line that was buried 7 inches below the surface well over 2 years ago. This bed has needed to be reworked. It's no easy task at 7:00 in the evening, but no worries, I've got my trusty pickax and I'll be done in no time! Pickaxes are the way to garden here on Black Mountain. So what's my dirt like you ask? Until I can come up with a better description, I'd say it could pass for a drive-in movie parking lot.

As I plug along, every rock I find gets chucked in the rock holding beds that are located around the property.

Lightly popping them off the wall and they drop right in place.

I don't think I'll ever get to that place where I am not mining rocks. I'll just be doing it less because of the switch to raised beds.

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, Carry On and Hurry Back!

It's a Gambling Town

Yesterday was registration for the Master Gardeners program. I signed up and then walked around the grounds. There were some interesting looking specimens that I haven't seen before but I didn't think about the camera until I saw this lovely play of colors.

There was a shade structure that was the holding place for all of this treasure. The plants were piled in waiting to be planted in their respective spots and given their latin names. Personally I like them just like this. Wouldn't it be wild to have a person stand next to you all of the time and say the latin name for each and every species you happen upon? I promise I won't become that person.

Back at Black Mountain Garden, with the water installed and the dirt dry enough to plant seeds, it was time for the plan.

The plan changed immediately due to the amount of sunlight the bed is getting next to the wall in the middle of the day now. It will be carrots instead of broccoli, which would probably get gangly needing more light and more space anyway so they might as well go in the traveling pots.

Using sticks to layout the design, I set about planting the seeds. This is a gambling town, and I am gambling that even though it might be a little early for planting some of the things that I have planted in my fall garden today, things are just going to work out okay. And with that, we will let the one that says things like "either they'll grow or they won't" take us out. "Take us out Wrangler!"

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, Carry On and Hurry Back!

Let Wrangler Drive

This morning I started filling in the raised bed with base material before I head out to get Tomato Lady soil to finish it off.

The cannas are looking great with very little sign that they were ever ressurected.

This is the iris planted in the black dirt on July 20th. This is remarkable in comparison to the iris that I purchased from the iris sale on June 28 that was planted in a planting mix from a garden center. With the black dirt they take off running.

The iris in the front yard are starting to take off too. These were the tiny pups.

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, Carry On, and Hurry Back!

95 Degree Posts

Digging post holes at 7:30 this morning and and it is already 95 degrees.

When I bought my first home, it had a wooden fence in the back, and I recall looking at the way the earth had eaten into the wood like lye etchings. The alkalinity is so intense that after you play in the dirt, your hands are raw and you have to slather on lotion for 2 days just to tame the little barbs. Anyway the fence blew over and I got a block wall that could begin it's fresh lye etchings. So here's my retainer bed lumber and with that so goes the cycle of life. Wrangler likes wood for the natural spring, (as does Zen), but decided long ago that the pioneer wagon kept moving on, hence no wagonwheels around here. Also, wood takes up less room than winsor block. The bed is going to be two and a half feet wide and is ok for wheelbarrow passage too.

Yesterday was so hot, that Symba refused to come outside and Winter opened it's mouth wide and braced himself, until the sprinkler came on.

A new camera crosses my mind, as does Scotty from Star Trek and witnessing teleportation.

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, Carry On!