New Additions, But Not In The Gardens

My friend SF has been such an encouragement with my cards, giving me examples as to how I can expand on themes, etc.  SF creates beautifully crafted jewelry, and has encouraged me to try my hand at it, so I finally took the plunge and gave it a go.  Since I love all things paper, I decided to first try making hand rolled paper beads from some of the Japanese papers I used in my card making and then, from a nudge from SF, made some woven paper beads.  Loved doing it, but then, what to do with all these beads?  So, I had to MAKE something with them...earrings.  I like working with the metal aspect of it as well, so tried making all metal earrings.  Here are the results.  The best part is, people actually like them and buy them!

I have beads of all colours and will keep on creating with them.  The metaI I use are sterling silver, copper, brass and black steel, and have a few others I'm anxious to try.

What a day!

What an incredible day!  Here it is, October 9 and there are cicadas buzzing!  The skies are clear and there is a gentle breeze for hanging laundry.

Ozzie is at doggy day care for his weekly play date and a day for us to get things done around the house.  For me it mostly means that I can vacuum without him going bonkers, but today is all about working outside.

I am in the midst of emptying out pots and planters...better to do it in the nice weather rather than leave it until the cold and my DH went all around this house and carted the pots to me by the greenhouse, saving my back and so much time.  He is always to willing to make my life easier and suggested he set up this table so I wouldn't have to bend all the time.

Inevitably there are some plants that I just can't pitch into the compost pile just yet, such as this Gerbera, so I will keep it in the sun room until it is too cold in there.

I was torn between keeping the anemones in the gardens  and taking them out (they really can seed around), but then I see them full of bees and lady bugs and know that I can't take them away from these beneficial insects.  Besides, the anemones make such a welcome hit of white and pinky/purple in the fall.

Speaking of lady bugs, they are really making an appearance this year and I was finding it hard to be out there at times with them taking a sample of me now and then.  The birds are all over the windows picking off bugs...what a day!

It seems the weather is going to stay nice, so it will be hard to stay inside and do any cards and cooking, plus we still have the beets to dig up and can.  I also want to cut all the parsley, some for my Mom and some for me to make a parsley pesto for the freezer.
  
Time to get back at it!

          It was a great experience this weekend.  I was exhibiting with a friend who hand crafts elegant and beautiful jewelry at the  Apple Harvest Craft Show in Meaford this weekend - my first experience.  The days were long but it was exciting for me to have my cards etc. for sale.  Most exciting was the fact that I actually sold some!  

Today is back down to earth at home with Ozzie, drying tomatoes in the oven.  The house smells heavenly with the aroma of Italian herbs, tomatoes and garlic.  DH is up at Colpoy's and hopefully he will be successful and bring home fresh caught fish.

It is a rainy cool day and we had some hail earlier but the temperature is still fairly warm for the date, so no complaints but it makes for a good day to be indoors.

It has been a long while since I have last posted, and there has been much that has happened on a personal level, but it is now time to get on with it.

I am still a passionate gardener, but with the gardens full and needing plants divided instead of adding plants, my searches for just the right additions here and there has certainly lessened and I am now working with what I have, re-arranging here and there, dispensing with non-performers and adding gifted plants from a treasured friend.  That is not to say that I will pass up something that really catches my interest, as I can always make the room for just one more, somewhere.

Last year I really got the daylily bug, thanks to aforementioned  treasured friend, and filled the gardens with early, mid and late blooming types.   It was well worth the investment and their blooms filled in so many spaces where I didn't know colour was lacking.  I still have five that have blooms...Swallowtail Kite (taken at dusk with a flash), Jo Barbre, Lilting Belle, Royal Frosting and First Knight with Sandra Elizabeth yet to bloom!

Starting last Friday we had a good number of people here for garden tours and ending on Tuesday, we had a wonderful couple here who have retired to an area around North Bay with an acreage in full sun.  They had been here in 2006 when our gardens were four years old and so had seen it when the trees were small and there was no shade.  It was so great to have them back and they could see the possibilities available to them in a relatively short period of time.  DH and I were more than happy to share our tips and tricks for maintaining the gardens in dry spells, how to push the Zone up a notch or two among other things that cropped up in conversation.  That is the best part of gardening...sharing your knowledge and always, always learning. 

So, again on the days that were too hot to work outside, I pressed flowers and ferns and made cards, but have also taken up two different types of card making, one of which can compliment the pressed flower cards, gift card holders and bottle tags - embossing and stamping.

 This takes my cards to a whole new level, and then I was told about Iris Folding by a wonderful woman who came to tour the gardens.  I'm hooked on this as well and am using Japanese papers, origami paper, tissue paper and wrapping paper.

Lessons Learned - Tomatoes

     Here it is, the beginning of September, July a blur of hot and humid days, droplets of moisture on my glasses, making it a struggle to see what I am doing in the garden.  August was dry, busy, and went far too quickly.  


     The lessons I learned this year, I need to have close at hand so that I do not repeat them.   I did know some of these, but was a lazy gardener this year.
1.  do not plant tomato rows so close together - this makes it hard to get in there and pick them, so  
     space the rows 3 feet apart
2.  5 plants per my row, -  reason - see above - I was crawling on my hands and knees and  
     contorting to reach the little red orbs
3.  put the tomato cages on directly after planting - much easier than trying to manipulate those
     branches without breaking them
4. put the pop bottles in right after the cages - why did I stop doing this?  Lazy.  What about the pop
     bottles?  When we first moved here and put in the veggie garden, I had asked my sister -in-law
     to save me all her 2 litre pop bottles.  I then cut the bottoms off, removed the caps, inverted them
     and stuck them into the ground next to my newly planted veggies.  I would fill them with water 
     and then refill them whenever they were next to empty.  This system gave all the veggies a 
     continuous supply of water, but never too much and was a quick way of watering without the 
     overhead system of watering.  Why is this better?  Well, I'm not watering any weed seeds, the
     water warms to air temperature and, as I was reminded this year, as the tomatoes ripened, cold 
     well water on the shoulders of tomatoes makes hard, yellow shoulders.

   Another lesson is not to grow broccoli , cauliflower or brussel sprouts - too 
many flea beetles and earwigs, not to mention little green worms.  I tried row covers, but the earwigs get in there anyway, so I will just concentrate on de-worming the Kale.

A good day

It was 12 degrees C., with a very cold wind here today, but we didn't have rain.  It was cloudy with a few sunny breaks here and there, and the sun warmed it up a bit outside.  It made the temperature in the greenhouse hit 32, so I had to open 2 windows and prop the door ajar so I wouldn't melt, never mind the plants.

Yesterday DH put in and connected the filters and pumps for the pond and waterfall before it started to rain.  All the fish survived the winter and we have around 20 frogs in the pond.  I am trying to train the fish to eat some fish food, but they aren't "biting".  Normally water hyacinths grow quickly and help to cover the surface of the pond to create shade and thereby reduce algae.  Last year they just wouldn't grow and from reading a few articles, I realized that all the fish in the pond were nibbling at the roots, stunting the growth of the plants.  They love to hide in them and I suppose they just graze away in there, all shaded and protected, so that is why I am trying to get them to each fish food, but only just a bit in the morning.  Too much food will produce too much poop which in turn will make the algae grow too fast and create an unsightly mess in the pond. 

Today I had to transplant the tomatoes and delphiniums into bigger pots.  65 Tomato plants!!!!   Yikes!  I have 18 of my favourite, Polish Linguisa.  I only wanted 12, but I thought that some of the seeds didn't germinate so I sowed some more and lo and behold, they all germinated!  

 

Here are some photos of what is growing in the green house.  The second last one is a picture of my tray of lettuces.  I started them for the first time inside in March and we were able to have some in our salads, and now they and the spinach are ready to be planted out as soon as the night temperatures are a bit warmer.  Next to be transplanted are all the cabbages, kale and broccoli along with some annuals that I seeded as well.

Time to grab my book and put my feet up!

Begonias, Stocks and Osteospermum

Tomatoes

More tomatoes

Sweet young lettuce

More veggies, Cannas and assorteds

All the Shades of Green

Today's weather:  foggy in the morning and drizzly off and on, temperature of 13 degrees C.
                               rainy this afternoon with a bit of a wind, temp. of 11 degrees C.


Don't you just love all the incredibly bright and fresh shades of green in the spring?  The landscape is just full of them and the only ones missing are the leaves of the Ash and the Oak trees...always the last to leaf out.


Almost all the tulips are in bloom, just a few bunches of later blooming types that will make a first appearance in about a week.   When we planted the 250 tulip bulbs last fall, I didn't know that there are early and later blooming types and only discovered this fact as I was setting out the groups of bulbs and reading the packages.  I am so pleased with all the colours, but was especially delighted with the tangerine coloured tulips.  They sure do contribute a wow factor!

Starburst Tulips

As my DH and I were having coffee on the porch the other morning, we were admiring all the colours of the tulips, but noted that we will have to plant more this fall (oh joy! more shopping!).  DH came up with the great idea of putting in a shim, or any stick of wood would do, to mark where exactly a group of tulips is needed.   This will be hidden during the summer with the foliage from other plants, such as these Peonies and Trollius and will be then visible after the frost has killed the foliage.

This morning was spent selecting potted plants from the tables and potting up plants from the gardens to donate to raise funds for a cause next week.  The next few days I should be transplanting the vegetables into bigger pots.  I don't think that I will be putting anything other than the lettuce and spinach into the garden soon.  The weather sure isn't warming up very fast yet and I couldn't bear to put in the tomatoes, peppers, cukes and zukes, broccoli and cabbage in the coolish soil yet.