My Bit of Earth

Wrapping Roses

Had to go out and give the roses some cover yesterday. I'm worried that they won't make it outside this winter, but we don't have any place to bring them into so they'll have to do the best they can. I covered the pots and the lower parts of the canes with burlap and cedar, and gave them a little water. Maybe they'll make it, it's been pretty cold this past week and they're still hanging in there.

It seems kind of sad to have to be winterizing the roses in the first place. I'd rather think of them making beautiful, warm roses then outside shivering and bare. After about two months of waiting and wishing for winter, I found myself thinking about the first day of summer, when Sweet Husband and I went to the rose garden in Kansas City. I know that it really was hot and there were mosquitoes, but in my imagination it was a perfectly warm, perfectly wonderful day.

This is a new turn of events for me, I usually don't start thinking of spring until after Christmas, at least....

(Update: Well we ended up finding inside space for the roses after all. Moe decided he just couldn't leave those nice big bags of mulch alone. After I rebundled them four or five times (and got progressively more frustrated each time) Sweet Husband finally said he thought it would be easier to just make space in our attic. Rearranging was a pain (it's things like this that are why he is SWEET Husband) but we finally puzzle-pieced everything in.)

Fall Roses=Not Good

So, ok, it got cold in October so I pruned my roses back for the winter as Martha and all other rose gurus told me I should. But now it's warm again and my silly roses think it's Spring. Not only do they both have lots of red, new growth, but the Bacara has buds and even one tiny actual rose. They're supposed to be going to sleep and they're waking up instead. This is a problem.

A Visit From Jack Frost

We had our first frost this morning. I'm enjoying one last sweet semmester of college student sleeping hours, so I would have missed it entirely if Sweet Husband hadn't told me he heard it on the news. I guess we were down to 28 degrees--brrrr!

Whenever I think of frost I think the old Jack Frost Rankin/Bass holiday cartoon. In the cartoon, Jack Frost is spreading winter when he falls in love with a human girl. Father Winter has the power to turn Jack into a human and give him a chance to make the girl love him back, but only until the first day of Spring. It's very endearing, although the end is kind of sad.

Before Jack becomes human though, he flies around and makes frost appear on everything with his breath. When I was little that's how I thought the frost got onto my windows in the morning--Jack Frost came by in the night and blew on my windows.

Actually, frost happens when the temperature drops below the dew point (the point at which water vapor turns to liquid) and then below freezing. So basically, it's dew freezing.

Not nearly as exciting as Jack Frost.

"Mums" the Word

Up to now, I've pretty much avoided annual flowers. They don't make anything (like vegetables do), the don't last for a long time (like perennials do), they're just pretty for a few months and then they die. Kind of silly to spend money on something that just sits there, right?

But the other day I was at Sunrise, where they have rows and rows of mums. They're kind of a gaudy flower any other time of the year, but in the fall mums just feel right. Maybe it's the colors--rusty red, pumpkiny orange, golden yellow--but they just work.

So I brought some home. No place to put them in the ground outside, no place to put them inside. Just brought some home and plunked them into a pot. I've spent ten bucks on far less useful things.

And I know I could try to save them and plant them in the Spring and yadda-yadda, but, really, I did some research on Mums and they're a bit of work to keep. They need extra rich soil and they're supposed to be moved every three years, prone to pests, etc. And I really wouldn't want them in my flower bed in March or May or July, anyway. Just right now.

As part of my little annual-buying rebellion (and also because I want my mums to survive my dogs) I put my pot'o'mums outside our back door instead of the front. We use the back door much more often, and they make me smile every time I walk by.

So they aren't useless really, they're perfect. They'll sit on my back stoop, be beautiful, and make me smile everyday, and when it's time for a poinsettia, they'll be done blooming and ready to step aside.

There's definitely something wonderful to be said about flowers in the perfect time and perfect place.

The Last Rose of Summer

'Tis the last rose of Summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone;

No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away!

When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?

Watching Grass Grow

Once the radishes were picked we decided to go ahead and seed over the veggie patch with grass to cover it over for winter or maybe forever (since plans are to hopefully move from here next summer if things cooperate). We planted a mix of seeds last weekend and they're just starting to sprout up--tee hee, we have baby grass.

Learning About Radishes

For a few weeks, I've been gradually picking a radish or two a day so that I could tell when they were big enough to pick. I wasn't sure how you tell when something like that is done, and I was afraid they'd just rot in the ground (thereby denying me Tasty Radishes!). Then this past week I got a little busy and forgot to go out and check on them. But tonight, lo and behold, when I walked outside there were some pushing themselves up out of the ground. Lesson: Radishes (and many other root-type vegetables I would wager) will let you know when it's time to eat them.

I read somewhere that if you are not very careful to see that your radishes have enough water they will be too spicy to be very good. I like radishes to be just a little bit spicy anyway--and we have had a good amount of rain--but I was very lazy in my watering and they still ended up very nice. I didn't really make sure to break up the soil well before planting them either, hence I didn't get perfect little nice fat Santa-shaped radishes. But I kind of like the way the shapes ended up--like little gnarled and grizzly garden gnomes that I can bite the heads off of.

And, in the future, when scrubbing radishes, I will be much more alert thanks to this little guy. He was pretty lucky, he came very close to going down the drain. I think he's the reason my radish tops have holes in them.

But I have enough to share a little with so fuzzy a little gentleman, so after letting him nibble his fill out of the leftover tops, I let him go outside back in the garden.

Pretty Purple Pepper Plant

Once I gave it some room, the purple pepper has taken off. The peppers have been very pretty, but they're a little difficult to use. They don't have as much flavor raw as a green pepper does, and if you cook them the tend to turn kind of grey instead of becoming a more intense purple. I think next year I would like to experiment with another variety of purple pepper to see if I can't find something a little more usable because they are so very nice to look at....

Clark's Heavenly Blue

I planted these morning glory vines early this spring and ended up cutting them way back before they bloomed because they were taking over. But one or two resilient vines have popped back up and every few days I've been getting one of these little treasures.

The End of August

We got out and did some clean up tonight. The purple pepper plant is really taking off and I wanted to give it a chance so I pruned back the tomato plant quite a bit to let the pepper breathe. The midget is still doing great, although the tomatoes don't quite have the flavor that they had before we started getting all of this rain.

I also had to take the pumpkin vines out. I didn't want to give up on them yet, but they're so fragile and the dogs had completely trampled them. We got two little pumpkins, but one was a little chewed on (by a dog or by bugs, I'm not sure which). When we have more room I would really like to grow some more, but trying to allocate such a small space between dogs and plants that can't take at least a little abuse just wasn't working.

I have a whole nice big box of arugula sprouting up nicely and the radishes and carrots are coming along too. We had a nice baby arugula salad for dinner the other night from the thinnings (heavenly) and I'm wondering if we can eat the greens from the radishes and carrots? Think I'll have to do some research on that one.

One thing the rain we've gotten lately has been amazing for is the roses. The Bicara has really shot up, and the Leo is looking a little less peaky too. Both have lots of pretty burgandy new growth. I'm trying to let them alone, so that they can get ready for winter. I did one last fertilizer just before school started a few weeks ago. I'm trying to let them form rosehips, and then sometime in October I'm planning to cut them way back and find a nice warm place for them in our attic cubby to ride out the winter.

Good-bye Sunflowers, and thanks for all the fun....

This afternoon I decided that the day had come to cut down the Sunflowers. Two of the smaller heads had already fallen off, and the big ones looked like they could go at anytime. So, I went out with my pruning shears and lopped of the smaller ones, and Blaine had way fun chopping down the bigger ones machete style.

I had read that you could just put the heads in bags and the seeds will fall off in about a week, but I'm a little impatient so I started breaking the seeds off of the smaller flowers. That got tedious REAL quick, so I put the head from the two bigger ones in bags to hang in the laundry room to see if they'll dry.

The seeds that I pulled off were beautiful though. I like the colors and the different patterns of stripes. And they taste good too. I have very vauge memories of eating sunflower seeds fresh from the flower with a friend when I was younger, but I didn't remember how much different they taste. They're kind of creamy and nuttier than roasted seeds--maybe as a result of not being dried?

I think I am going to try to roast some, though. I'm soaking them in a salt brine right now--I think, in absence of specific instructions, I'll let them soak for a few days and then roast them in the oven and see how they do.

I'm also going to save some seeds for next year. I s'pose common sense would say if you don't have much space you should grow small varaties, but the giant sunflowers were worth every inch they took up (and most of the space was vertical anyway). I definitely want to have more next year.

Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkins, and Sprouts

The Sunflowers are starting to make some seeds.

My mini pumpkins are starting to form...

...but the pumpkin vine is starting to take over what's left of the tomatoes and peppers.

Baby Carrots and Radishes starting to sprout.

Arugula sprouts (yum! yum! yum!)

I found this little bluebird at Sunrise--he seemed to be asking to go home with me.

Fall Vegetables

I was cleaning the tomatoes out of my Earthbox yesterday when I was surprised by this little guy and his friend. I think he might have been munching on the roots of my tomato plants, thus explaining their sicky-ness.
As part of a little garden clean-up, I left the mexican midget up as it's still making glorious baby tomatoes. I pulled out one of the pepper plants, but left the purple one as it has several little baby peppers on it. The mini-pumpkins I planted in July are starting to take over. There are several little baby pumpkins starting to grow from the vines. I also planted a mix of radishes and carrots in the remainder of the vegetable bed and an arugula (tasty! tasty!), parsley, chives mixtures in the Earthbox, and replaced some of the plants in the planters.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Now that school is over I'm itching to get outside and do some work (which desperately needs to be done) but it has been way too hot outside! It's been above 100 for the past few days and is set to be for a few days more. Everything looks all melting and droopy and the weeds have gotten horrific. Didn't think I'd be saying it for awhile, but I'm starting to think longingly of cooler days and pumpkins and falling leaves. I'm ready for fall.

Picking a purple pepper

I was out picking tomatoes yesterday and I found a fully grown purple pepper! I put the two pepper plants in next to the Mexican Midget tomato plant and I thought the tomato plant had kind of overtaken them. (It really is enourmous!) But yesterday evening I was out trying to rein the midget back into it's cage and there it was--a nice sized, royal purple pepper that I hadn't even realized was there.

I think it might have been a little past it's prime, but I brought it in to munch on anyway. The skin was tough and it had kind of a funny flavor--a little like a green pepper, but not quite as good. The flesh inside was kind of a creamy color. I think it would have been ok if I had put it into something, but it wasn't a straight off the bush kind of pepper.

The Tale of My Tomatoes

As a summary for next year ....

The Yellow Pears produced a very tasty tomato or two about every other day. They were so pretty too! I had to smile at them everytime I walked by. Definitely something to grow again.

The Mexican Midgets are still making tons of tomatoes! They're tiny, but have amazing flavor. Very few actually made it into anything--there were a few times they didn't even make it inside to be washed! They were also completely easy to grow--they ended up getting what I thought was a kind of crappy spot in the garden, but the plant is now enormous. Definitely a grow again.

The Juliets were the only real disappointment. They were a little green inside, even when the outsides were nice and red and ripened. It hasn't made many tomatoes (although it hasn't had the greatest of growing conditions) and they don't have nearly the flavor of either of the other tomatoes I grew, or even of store bought roma's. I don't think I would grow these again.

The Sunflower's Are Blooming

But I have a problem! My gardening book says that I need to cover the flowers with cheesecloth and they're so tall I don't know how to reach them. So, even if the birds don't eat all my seeds, I'm not sure how I'm going to get the heads off when they're ripe. Blaine says he thinks they'll drop, but he doesn't sound really sure.

Maybe I could hoist the cheescloth up on some kind of pole contraption? Or maybe a pillowcase or a paper sack or something? Hmmm...this will require thought.

Sunflower update

They've finally gotten as tall as the house!

Beautiful Tomatoes!

I had a yummy egg scramble this morning with my first tomatoes. I had three little Mexican Midgets and three yellow pears.

The Mexican Midgets are super concentrated--like a tomato bomb. They're just about the size of a quarter, and they kind of explode in your mouth--good things come in small packages.

The yellow pears have really been beautiful ripening on the plant. They almost taste like a really mellow green pepper. When I was cutting them up this morning I couldn't help but notice how pretty they were on the inside too.

More to come!

Patience is the best remedy for every trouble...

...quoth an old Roman dead guy, and how very right he was! I got a beautiful deep, shiny green Gardenia bush at Sunrise for my birthday--which is in NOVEMBER, mind you--and it just bloomed for the very first time today!

I had it inside all winter and it had tons of buds, but they kept falling off before they bloomed. Then it started to get all brown and icky and I felt guilty wondering what I done to it. I'd kind of given up on it a bit, so when it got warm enough I put it outside to fend for itself. A few weeks ago I was about to throw it away even, but I figured it wasn't hurting me to just let it sit there and give it a chance.

And wouldn't you know it--after all my babying and mollycoddling, it finally bloomed when I left it alone! It's still far from a pretty plant at this point, as you can see from the brown leaves, but the flower is very redeeming. I think it means there's hope!