Shopping

The other day I stopped at Welk Mart, a store much like the dollar stores, loads of different things for reasonable prices.  I was after a hair clip and a Magic Mat. The Magic Mat is something a friend of mine showed me the other day, you put it on your dash and it sticks there and hold things like coins, glasses/sunglasses, cell phone, etc etc. I wanted one for my cell phone. It was $3.99 or something like that.  I also found some hair clips I liked. So did I stop there? No!! There were other things I saw while looking for what I was after, so I go a gorgeous pair of earrings for $4.99, some seeds for my garden (cucumbers and scarlet runner beans and they are Heritage Seeds), some bedding plants (Rainbow Chard, Rosemary, Lavender). Hmmm, I think that about does it.

Garden

Today I was in town so bought some plants while at the grocery store.  I got Kale, Marigolds and Irish Moss.  I came home and did a bunch of work in the yard, including:
- prepared a raised bed garden for planting... cleaned it up from last year. Planted the Kale plants in that raised bed garden.
- worked more on making my Lasagna Garden.  I brought a fairly decayed bale of straw over from where it was in another part of the yard and dumped it out of the wheelbarrow.  Took the wheelbarrow over to the compost pile on the other side of the yard, filled it with partially decayed compost, brought it over and spread it on what I already had made of the Lasagna Garden from another day (branches, old boards, old cardboard, etc.). Spread some of the straw over the compost layer.
- cleaned up the Iris plants, removing last year's, now dead, leaves & flower stalks and putting them onto the Lasagna Garden.
- cleaned up the last year's, now dead, growth from herbs, from Lavender, from Tomatoes, etc. and again put it all onto the Lasagna Garden.
- stood up the toilet that had fallen during the winter, made sure it won't fall again, planted some of the Marigold flowers into the tank and the bowl of the toilet. Put the rest of the Marigold plants into some dirt to protect them until I am ready to plant them elsewhere, not sure yet where that will be.
- decided to extend the Lasagna Garden a couple more feet, right to touching the stacked tires which are planters, so found a couple more bits of wood to use as frames for the bed, also packed some bricks over to fill in a gap.  Still need to find a bit more to finish off the frame extension then will put down thick layers of newspapers and start putting layers of compost, straw, old wood bits, etc in that end too.

I am so grateful that I have a yard and that I can grow my own vegetables, herbs and fruit.  I know that I am blessed.

Garden Thoughts

We have now lived through the first 2 days of Spring 2012 and I fully enjoyed the sunshine and warmer weather we are finally experiencing!! On Tuesday, I got outside and prepared 2 of my raised bed gardens for planting.  I plan to do some early planting of "cool weather" vegetables such as spinach, kohlrabi, carrots, peas, kale, lettuce.  Most of them I could already have planted as they say on the packet to "plant as soon as ground can be worked", so I really have to get to it in the next couple days.  My whole garden area needs to be cleaned up after the winter months, and have some things added to it, like maybe some bricks to pretty things up, some others to put the table and chairs on, maybe even a nice wicker swing would be an interesting and enjoyable addition. I would enjoy sitting there, swinging as I look at my gardens and at the view of the lake and the mountains across the valley.

The last 2 years I didn't plant flowers as I wanted only to plant eatable plants, things to sustain my body and make me healthy.  Unfortunately, I have not had much luck with gardening.  Some of my bedding plants did have flowers, then never bore fruit.  It has been suggested that perhaps no cross pollination took place.  This makes sense, so this year I am going to plant flowers as well in the hopes that I will attract many butterflies and/or bees to my garden to do the very important job of pollinating the plants. I will have to do some research into which flowers will best do this job in my area.

I love spring and summer, being in the garden as well as riding my trike all over the place.  Yes, life is good!!

Preserving Fruit

Summer in the Okanagan Valley of BC Canada means a lot of nice fresh fruit on trees and in stores. I love eating fruit fresh off the tree and next best thing, locally grown out of the stores, but what about winter time? I know I would love to have fruit available in winter, but really have never 'put up' anything, so don't know how to do it right. On Facebook I have found lots of different pages, or walls as they call them, to 'Like' and stay connected with. One of them, Away to Garden, is all about horticultural how-to and woo-woo. It is the source for garden information and inspiration, by Margaret Roach, head gardener. What I read there just now was about farm-fresh peaches, frozen to perfection, which is a timely article since peaches will soon be abundant in the Okanagan. I look forward to trying what Margaret has shared with us here, and to enjoying my nice peaches all winter long.

Garden Accomplishments

I have spent most of today out in my garden. Dan came over and moved a set of stairs for me from my garden to the other side of the house, up against the retaining wall. Now I can get up to that part of my yard with much greater ease. I've had those steps for may years and wanted them where they are now so am very happy to finally have them there. Since he was here, I've planted seeds in the ground and into pots; I've added soil to the Freezer Raised Garden to bring the so it's now ready to be planted in; I did a bunch of digging with my shovel and leveling with my rake to level out some hills and dips (Several years ago this area of the yard was dug up to replace the septic line and was never properly leveled. I just planted some herbs on the hill and now want to improve it.) I worked then rested, worked then rested so that I could keep going without causing my body too much pain. I was in one of my rest periods, sitting at the table out there, looking around admiring the accomplishments and planning more when suddenly very large drops of rain began to fall fast and furiously. I grabbed my phones (cell & cordless land line), my tea cup and water bottle, gloves and seed packages, and ran for cover. It really poured out there for awhile though I think it's stopped now.

Garden & Trike

This time of year, my life is all about gardens and motorcycles, or to be more specific, my garden and my trike (3 wheeled motorcycle). Oh, I still have to do things like house work and other things necessary in life, but my main focus is my garden and my trike. Working on the trike to get it ready for riding season can be a dirty job as is gardening and any painting needed so I always make sure I wear old clothes to do this kind of work. I was thinking I might check out the 2nd hand stores for some lab coats, thinking they would be great for wearing over other clothes to keep clean. I used to raise and show rabbits and I found that it worked well to wear something like that over my good clothes at shows and while handling the rabbits at home. I also find that rabbit droppings are great for my garden so even though I no longer raise or show rabbits I am glad I have one pet rabbit left and am thinking about getting a few more.

Garden - Tea

Baby Spinach

I like to do things a little 'different' from most people. I guess because I find it boring to do the same, the expected. For example, I would like to have a few friends over for tea in my garden so rather than phone them, or even email them to invite them over, I think it is more fun to send an invitation. This time of year I have lots of little 'baby' plants in my garden as it over flows with spinach, mixed lettuces, kale and peas, so I think it would be fun to send my friends baby shower invitations. This way they would come to visit my garden and while enjoying a cup of tea they could 'meet' the little plants and maybe even enjoy a salad made with some fresh picked salad mix and/or spinach.

View from my Garden

Harvest Time

I am fairly sure it will freeze here tonight, so I have covered my garden to save my plants. I must go out and harvest everything tomorrow or loose it all. There are still tomatoes, peppers, carrots & beets as well as 2 kinds of parsley & several kinds of mint that I want for making tea. I really enjoyed having a garden this year, enjoyed having the fresh veggies whenever I wanted to go outside & pick what I needed... fresh!! I would like to have a greenhouse or even just a room in my home where I could set up hydroponic systems and grow my fresh vegetables all winter. It would be so awesome to be able to have fresh, home grown veggies all winter.

My Garden

I guess it's about time to show you my garden. This is the first vegetable garden I've ever grown, though I have grown flower gardens before. I haven't done any gardening for many years. I've wanted, for a long time, to have raised bed gardens so I could do a garden, and a couple friends said they would help build some, so I bought a bunch of soils for the purpose... then no help came. The bags of soil & peat moss sat in the shed for a couple years. This year I got a great idea and it has been working out well.

Old bathtubs. Yes, that's right, bathtubs that no one wants anymore because they are the wrong color for their new bathroom, or just not as nice as the 'new' tub someone put in during a renovation. I recycle the old tubs and have a good solution for raised bed gardens.

Three bathtubs are put together here, two side by side and one across the end. In the pots are Stevia plants that will be brought inside for the colder months. What I have planted: cucumbers, kale, Swiss chard, curly & Italian parsley, chives, bell peppers (yellow, chocolate, banana & another kind I can't think of just now), beets, carrots, and peas.

Another good thing to plant in is an old deep freeze. This one was given to me many years ago and when it quit working it got moved out of the carport and just sat here. I had intended to take it to the dump and am no glad I didn't do so. It works well for this.

2 kinds of tomatoes, peppermint, lemon mint, 2 chocolate mint, catnip.

And over near the table & chairs hang 2 planters of tomatoes.

And the view? Rather nice actually. You can see a bit of it beyond the umbrella here...
... and here you can see more of the view. Oh, and another recycled item for my garden is the divider that was once for use in a car. I was given it when I had planned to get a small car and would want to keep Reba in the back of it. I never got the car and often thought I should get rid of that divider. Now it works great as a trellis for my peas to grow up.

I have another bathtub that still needs to be put in place, have rocks put into it for drainage, and have compost, peat moss and top soil into for planting. This will happen when it cools down a bit, this fall some time. It will be ready for next year when I will be able to get my planting done far earlier than I did this year. Also, this fall I plan to plant spinach... it likes cooler weather.

.

Start of the Day

I started my day today by checking email of course, then went out and got some iris plants in the ground. I was given a LOT of iris plants last weekend and now must get them planted while they are still alive. This doesn't fit well into my busy schedule, though I know I will be happy next spring when they are in bloom. I am putting them in along the edge of my home in the area I am referring to as my garden. I so wish I could build a deck off the side of the house there and cut a door in the wall where the window to my laundry room is, though at this time that is a lot of money that I don't have. I guess if I ever get that happening I will just have to dig up all these plants again and move them. In the meantime this will be a good place for them. This spring I was given a really nice patio set (table, umbrella, 2 chairs) that I put in that area of the yard (there is very little flat in my hillside yard) and that is where my raised bed gardens are. As the summer/fall progress I will continue to do a bit of work here and there to improve this area and make it even more enjoyable than it is now. This looks over a nice lake and mountains on the other side of the valley. I will get some photos of it to post here very soon. I still have lots more iris plants to get into the ground, 1/4 or less are there now, and it is already awfully 'warm' out there, so for now the rest of the plants stay in the shade of the carport. Maybe once that part of the yard is in shade this afternoon.... In the meantime, I have a 'tea date' so will dig out the best eye cream for wrinkles I have in my bathroom, apply it and other moisturizers and sunscreens (to avoid getting wrinkles that is), then onto my trike and away I ride.