Sunday, September 2, 2012
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Hidden Beauty
One of the amazing things about gardens and plants in general is that you can usually find something amazing if you just look a little closer. Case in point, this Phlox paniculata, or garden phlox, that's growing at the end of the driveway. Beautiful plant, but if you look closely, you get these incredible flowers that haven't opened yet, rolled up in a neat little spiral.
These will open up tomorrow or the next day, but they're so neat just like this, and most people never notice them.
Once these flowers open, they are a big hit with the neighborhood butterflies and bees, and make a great garden specimen. Very tall, stout plants with big clusters of flowers and nice foliage. They especially look good in masses with hordes of butterflies feeding on them. They are also fairly easy to propagate, which I'll get to in a later post. For now, just remember to always look closely at the plants in the yard; some of them have hidden beauty.
These will open up tomorrow or the next day, but they're so neat just like this, and most people never notice them.
Once these flowers open, they are a big hit with the neighborhood butterflies and bees, and make a great garden specimen. Very tall, stout plants with big clusters of flowers and nice foliage. They especially look good in masses with hordes of butterflies feeding on them. They are also fairly easy to propagate, which I'll get to in a later post. For now, just remember to always look closely at the plants in the yard; some of them have hidden beauty.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Morning Treats
Sometimes, (well, a lot of the time), the best part of all this gardening is the all the beautiful stuff there is to look at. This morning, I was out the door at 6:30 to water the raised beds before the heat of the day got here. There was a nice, muted sunrise through the trees.
Loads of flowers to admire.
Even the dill was flowering.
A dead seedhead from an early season allium still looks gorgeous.
Taking just a few minutes to really look at all this beauty makes the day a lot easier to deal with.
Loads of flowers to admire.
Even the dill was flowering.
A dead seedhead from an early season allium still looks gorgeous.
Taking just a few minutes to really look at all this beauty makes the day a lot easier to deal with.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Basement Finds
In a fit of desperation, I decided to clean the basement... After two full days, one really big molted snakeskin in the rafters and an untold multitude of spiders, it's starting to look like... Well, it looks better, at least. In addition to finding a six pack of beer that was out of date by three years, I also stumbled on a couple of other things of interest.
Laundry and crafts. Wow.
It appears she may have burned her face a little on that hot wax...
Also, iron horses and oil lamps. Yes, my basement is still living in the early 1900's...
Laundry and crafts. Wow.
It appears she may have burned her face a little on that hot wax...
Also, iron horses and oil lamps. Yes, my basement is still living in the early 1900's...
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Tree Shelf
The big project for the week was to remove a small, cramped closet from the kids' room, freeing up some valuable floor space. As usual, I completely forgot to take an actual "before" picture, so here's a shot from early in the process: The old closet is gone, the walls and ceilings repaired, but still no flooring.
A few years ago, we painted a tree on the wall over my daughters bed:
To tie in the corners of the room, we built a tree shelf for the newly-liberated corner.
This is the frame and a few slats of wood, the beginnings of the base and the bark of our tree.
Once all the slats are on, we end up with something like this.
A little paint:
And we end up with a finished base:
Base + shelves = the beginnings of a nice little project.
A top was built for our little tree, following the same procedure as the base, then attached and painted. A little detail work later and, Voila! Tree shelf!
A lot of the materials for this project were reclaimed from the torn-down closet. The paint was left over from the previous tree-related project, and the carpet was scrap. I bought a couple of pieces of thin plywood for the bark, but this was still a cheap and relatively easy project that the kids seem to like.
A few years ago, we painted a tree on the wall over my daughters bed:
To tie in the corners of the room, we built a tree shelf for the newly-liberated corner.
This is the frame and a few slats of wood, the beginnings of the base and the bark of our tree.
Once all the slats are on, we end up with something like this.
A little paint:
And we end up with a finished base:
Base + shelves = the beginnings of a nice little project.
A top was built for our little tree, following the same procedure as the base, then attached and painted. A little detail work later and, Voila! Tree shelf!
A lot of the materials for this project were reclaimed from the torn-down closet. The paint was left over from the previous tree-related project, and the carpet was scrap. I bought a couple of pieces of thin plywood for the bark, but this was still a cheap and relatively easy project that the kids seem to like.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
On topics of gastronomy
I had a post to make a week or so ago, and then things got busy, and, well, you know...
Food and/or cooking may not seem to be directly related to gardening, but we do a lot of cooking here; using produce from the garden or the farmers market and eggs from our flock, so there is some relationship there. I'm not going to turn this into a cooking blog, but I think it's nice to occasionally celebrate the fruits of our gardening labors.
For the Fourth, we, like millions of other people, grilled out. Nothing super fancy, just barbecued chicken with homemade barbecue sauce. Secret BBQ sauce ingredient? Dr. Pepper. Nice amount of sweetness and acidity. Looks pretty good, eh?
Just look at those grill marks...
There were some good sides as well: Smoked trout potato salad, broccoli salad and grilled corn on the cob.
To minimize a preponderance of food related posts, I'll stick tonight's meal in here as well. Fried green tomato BLT with cheesy grits and broccoli. The tomatoes were home grown and the broccoli came from the farmers market.
The sandwich was sublime. Toasted sourdough, homemade remoulade, crispy bacon, cold lettuce, green tomatoes dipped in buttermilk and cornmeal and a slice of fresh, ripe tomato. I'm sweating bacon, and I mean that in a good way.
Food and/or cooking may not seem to be directly related to gardening, but we do a lot of cooking here; using produce from the garden or the farmers market and eggs from our flock, so there is some relationship there. I'm not going to turn this into a cooking blog, but I think it's nice to occasionally celebrate the fruits of our gardening labors.
For the Fourth, we, like millions of other people, grilled out. Nothing super fancy, just barbecued chicken with homemade barbecue sauce. Secret BBQ sauce ingredient? Dr. Pepper. Nice amount of sweetness and acidity. Looks pretty good, eh?
Just look at those grill marks...
There were some good sides as well: Smoked trout potato salad, broccoli salad and grilled corn on the cob.
To minimize a preponderance of food related posts, I'll stick tonight's meal in here as well. Fried green tomato BLT with cheesy grits and broccoli. The tomatoes were home grown and the broccoli came from the farmers market.
The sandwich was sublime. Toasted sourdough, homemade remoulade, crispy bacon, cold lettuce, green tomatoes dipped in buttermilk and cornmeal and a slice of fresh, ripe tomato. I'm sweating bacon, and I mean that in a good way.
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