saturday in the garden...

hello dears, 

today i thought i'd take you on a little tour of my garden.  i've spent a lot of time working on it.

this is the first summer that i can remember clearly being able to work in the garden consistently.  i've spent a lot of time cleaning it out from last year's overgrowth, amending the soil, planting as many things as i love as i could find, mulching, putting in pavers, trimming trees, weeding, etc.

the garden is a never-ending work in progress, just like me.  i love being out there (when the humidity isn't turning the air into chunky soup), checking on my plant babies, adding more plants, weeding, pruning, picking flowers to bring inside, just all the things gardens need.

they say the best weed repellent is a gardener's shadow.  mine has been working hard, let me tell you.

well...here you go, some of these are from yesterday and a few are from last week (i think).

yesterday's sky...

last year, she was mother of tomatoes.  this year she is goddess of the gardens...  i try to pick flowers to offer her every day.  

my hoya plant hanging in the crepe myrtle.  i've never seen a hoya bloom, before.  i'm quite excited by this.

this plant is quite a surprise.  it started as an experiment and i didn't really expect anything.  i had a large piece of ginger root and saw somewhere on the interwebs that you can plant it and it would grow.  well... we'll see how it does, but so far so good.

a lot of growing things.  unfortunately, my cucumbers (that started out fantastically) came under attack of cucumber beetles and no matter what i did i couldn't get rid of them.  so, i had to pull out what was left of the plants.  i'm not sure what i can plant in that pot now, so it's just empty.

did i tell you about the butterfly garden i started?  there is a section in the "common property" behind my house that was just a mess of dirt.  the new landscapers only mow with the giant riding things and so they are rarely back there and never tend to that section.  i had 4 milkweed plants and i know they are spreaders, so i kind of blocked off the mud/dirt area, added a ton of planting mix and topsoil and mulch and then planted my rue and the 4 milkweeds.  i also had a bunch of packets of flowers for polinators, so i sprinkled those out there and added parsley and fennel (for the swallowtails).  well, those plants are doing great, and most of the seeds came up, with some even blooming.

borage is one of the plants and sunflowers (but only one sunflower has come up and will bloom soon).  i plan to add a bit more, since it is a hill area, i'm building a natural fence at the base - which backs up to the wooded area - using found limbs and the yellow-belle (forsythia) that is growing there. i layered in a bunch of downed tree limbs and am weaving the long pieces of forsythia through.  we'll see how it goes.

over in the flower bed, the pink zinnias are just so gorgeous.  the echinacea bloomed well as did the black-eyed susans and the salvia.  

well...that's a brief tour of the garden.  i haven't had as much veg to pick as i'd hoped, but i did get a late start planting this year due to all the cleanup.  it's still fun!

how are things growing in your neck of the woods?

thanks for stopping in for a read...

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

in the garden today...

quote for today:  "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul..." ~Emily Dickinson

for years and years, i've wanted to have a certain kind of garden.  i've dreamed and i've wished, i've plotted and schemed.

i spent a lot of time following the gardening of the fantastic Vanessa Valencia and wishing i could have gardens like her, not to mention her magical growing skills. 

with all the changes for me over the last year or two, i found myself really wanting to dive into the garden.  last autumn i wasn't able to do much clean up before the cold arrived and i just couldn't get out there.

so as things warmed up, my desire to be in the garden grew and grew.

i finally understand what VeeVala means when she talks about wanting to run to the garden the moment she wakes to see what has grown overnight.  😁

i have cleaned, weeded, moved, swept, moved again, repotted, planted, potted, dug, mulched, over and over for the last two months.  and i'm still not finished setting it up.

on every trip to the garden center, i've searched for the flowers i love the most.  snapdragons, zinnias, hollyhocks, foxglove, larkspur, and more.  i even managed to find a poppy and get it planted.  i hope it will come back and bloom next spring.

i added salvia for the hummingbirds, and i love watching them dip down between the plant and the feeders that i have out.  they are such amazingly beautiful creatures.

 

it's really just a start, getting a few plants in place.  i know they'll grow, self-seed and spread and that makes me very happy.  i'm still having to go in and dig out blackberry vines every couple of weeks.

i planted the hollyhocks along the fence since they grow so tall.  i've planted sunflowers there as well and really hope they'll grow.  i love sunflowers, they are such happy flowers.

and over in the veg bed, i have 8 san marzano tomato plants, rows of basil seeds in (plus a couple of plants from the farmers mkt).  i planted celery again this year, green and red bell pepper plants, a couple rows of carrots and a row of onions and radishes.  

i'm putting cucumbers in a big pot this year and still need to plant my pole beans and more onions.  

tomorrow i'm hoping to head off to the farmers market, as i believe peaches are in mmmmm... and i'm seriously craving fresh peaches.  plus, i need flowers for the planters in the front of the house.

just a little peak in my garden today.  it is a tiny little space, and i still dream of one day having a huge space to grow all kinds of things.  but for now, i will make the best of what i have and love every little bit of it.

are you growing anything?  do you have a garden space?  i'd love to hear/see about it.

until next time...

take care, 

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

the gods of time...

hard to believe it's the last day of june, my lovelies.  it seems the gods of time are speeding things up every day.  

the garden is growing like crazy.  i wasn't able to spend much time out there last week, what with my nephew visiting.  even though he slept a lot, he didn't like it if i wasn't close by.

i don't have much to share today, except a few photos from june.  well...i do have a LOT to say, just not today. 

citronella i picked to make an infusion for a mosquito repellent i want to try...

the cucumber plants are wild and have so many blooms.  i've been worried that i haven't seen many pollinators, but i've been seeing more lately.

a little harvest from a couple of days ago. first home grown cucumber and jalapenos of the season...

it just seems way too early for these little f*#kers.  i could only find one, but i know there are more.  i'll try to get out there early in the morning and mount a search...

me spending time with my sweet nephew on our last day...

it's weird how much i miss him.  but all that fur!  lordt!!!  i went through an entire huge lint roller trying to clean the sheets and blanket from the bed and the blankets i had on the sofa trying to keep the fur off.  

well...

wimbledon started today, one of my favorite sporting events to watch.  this weekend is cheesecake weekend with s-i-l.  we're going with a banana pudding cheesecake.  it sure looks good in the recipe.  i guess we'll see how it goes.

i'll be back soon.  i've been saving some memes to share here about {waves at all that}.  anyhoo...

hope you are having a good day...

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

ps...  here is today's mfta post link.

 

i'm melting...

greetings and salutations, my lovelies...

it is so... freaking... hot.

at 9am it was 85f with a heat index of 96f.  

it is currently 92f with hi of 102f.

i'm staying in the house as much as possible.  in fact, i only go out to walk pup in the am/pm and to water/check on the garden.  since the pup only 'goes' twice a day, it's really not too bad as i can stay in the a/c all day.

as an aside, i can't get over this 'goes' twice a day.  my beastie boy would 'go' 7, 8, 9+ times a day.  of course, he was diabetic and that makes a big difference.  but i'm having trouble getting used to this.

anyhoo, this morning when we came back from our outing, i went out to the garden to water and found green beans!!

i picked the good-sized ones from the bush beans and have a good amount for a dinner or two.  the pole beans are not producing yet, though they are flowering.  and looking through the cucumbers {that have tons of flowers} that i have to train up the trellis every day, i found two nice looking cukes that are almost ready!  yay!!!

i really don't think i'll plant bush beans again.  they aren't like a bush at all and mostly just lie on the ground. i'll definitely plant more to use up the seeds i have, but i'll be using poles from now on.

i was outside for about 15-20 minutes, watering, weeding a bit and picking beans and flowers and i was so hot i drank down two cups of water when i came in. ugh...this, this is why i don't really like summer.  i love the fresh fruit and veggies and all the beautiful flowers and the birds (especially the hummingbirds) but i just do not tolerate the heat very well.

after the beans and watering i picked a few flowers to bring in. 

some for the ancestors...

and some for me...

in migrainelandia news, i really think these vyepti infusions are helping.  i'm on day 9 of not having the pain go over a 7.  after coming in from the garden, i could feel it starting to build a bit so i took out my ice pack and put it on my neck (now on my head) to try to keep the pain level from rising.  i'm really hoping it helps.

well...i'm off to turn off the news and read a book.  the news is just raising my blood pressure and pissing me off.  hope you are having a good day.

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

ps... here's a link to today's mfta post.

pps... does anyone know what the deal is with the different bold of the font?  i didn't use bold at all and i can't figure out why it is so different. any tips appreciated. :-)

midsummer blessings...

blessed and happy midsummer solstice to you all in the northern hemisphere (Yule in the southern hemisphere).

i arose early this morning to head into the garden before the sun crossed the horizon.  that seems to be when the heat hits the area, and it becomes too hot for me.

i thought i'd share some of my happy garden with you, today.

these coneflowers are growing in a pot.  it was a packet of wildflower seeds that i dumped into a pot several years ago and since then, each summer i get a different flower blooming.  last year, i think it was cathedral bells and this year just the coneflower.

marigold in one of the tomato pots with some zinnia bokka.  :-)

raindrops from last night's wonderful storm on a rose bloom.  the storm was fantastic and meant the ground was wonderfully damp for pulling weeds this morning.  the blackberry invaders are still around but i was able to remove them from the veg bed.

just as i was ready to call it a day in the garden, the sun broke over the trees on a beautiful midsummer solstice morning.

i went back out a little later to harvest herbs to dry. 

sage

basil and peppermint

left to right: spearmint, lemon balm and parsley.

i bunch hung them as i just didn't feel like bringing out the dehydrator. i'm sure i'll have it out soon though.

i hope you've had a wonderful day.  get outside today and get a bit of sunlight.  if you can't, or if the sun is hidden by dark clouds, light a yellow candle to help shine the light in the dark so you can experience the longest period of daylight of the year.

how have you spent midsummer solstice?  do you celebrate or is it just another day?

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

ps... here's the link to today's MFTA post. 

never to 95 percent...

good morning from the wildly humid south, my lovelies. 

i hope you had a good weekend.  i'm just popping in for a quick minute to share a photo or two.  i'm also thinking i might start dropping in with a link to the other blog (messages from the ancestors) each day.  but right now, i'm just thinking about it.  maybe i'll just link that day's post when i do post here.  what do you think?  

anywho, my weekend was weird.  i was hyperalert due to {jazz hands} all that out there in the world which was exacerbated by what was happening here in the States.  i pretty much stayed in the house with the doors closed and locked.  i did a lot of reading, sorting and miscellaneous stuff around the house.

for the past week or so we've had so much rain i have barely had to step outside to even look at the garden. so, guess how surprised i was when i went out yesterday morning to water and found i had 6 juliet (large grape style) tomatoes ready to pick!  of course, i forgot to take a picture but they sure were pretty!

i'm on a lot of meds right now as my neuro is trying to find a good combination of things to help lessen my time and intensity in migrainelandia.  at least 3 of them completely take away my appetite so i'm eating very little.  i am NEVER hungry (honestly, even the thought of food makes me want to barf 95% of the time) and by the time i think about needing to eat something (trying to manage my blood sugar) it's usually 8 or 9 pm. so over the weekend, i decided to try to get myself a regular meal schedule going.  last night i decided to have a little salad so i could eat the tomato so picked a tiny bit of lettuce, a radish and cut up a tomato for it, to go with my fried potato and hot dog.

i ended up giving 3 of my beautiful tomatoes to my next-door neighbor.  that's why i only have 3 left in the first picture.  the very light-colored one fell off the vine while i was picking the others so i brought it in to let it ripen before i eat it.  :-)

anyhoo...what have you been up to lately?  did you go to a protest this past weekend?  i'd love to hear about your experience if you did.  

i hope to be back soon.  i have my nephew coming to stay with me next week and that should give me good fodder for the blog not to mention be a lot of fun.

thanks for being here...

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

ruminating...

hope y'all are having a great saturday.  i spent a whole bunch of time in the garden today and enjoyed every bit of it.  i feel like all i ever post anymore are garden photos, but y'all.  it's so wonderful to be out there.  this time last year i was in the bed all the time and wasn't even anywhere near thinking about trying to be outside.  

i've also been working on my whole clean, clear and organize thing.  there hasn't been much time for getting to my art table.  but i've been taking a little time each night for the last week to doodle in one of my little sketchbooks that i carry around with me.  

i started with little fleurs, because of course...

this was done using posca paint pens

this one with colored pencils...

and with pitt pens...

i don't know what it is, but these are so soothing to me right now.  i don't really have to think, i just grab a pen and color in a section.

anywho...

i'm also ruminating on something i want to make to take with me as a gift to the attendees at the last ghost ranch red thread retreat in september.  every year i've gone i've wanted to take a gift for everyone but i never get it done in time. so this year, i'm working on it early.

i won't be able to share here until i return from my trip cause i know of at least one person who sometimes reads my blog who might be at the retreat and i don't want to ruin the surprise.

the next 4 to 5 days are supposed to rain and thunderstorms, so i'll have to give up my garden time (though i'll be checking on things in the rain).  hopefully i'll be able to use that time to clean up the art table area and get to work on my idea.

well...if you're a mom, i hope you have a lovely and happy mother's day tomorrow.  and if not, have a great sunday.

thanks for being here, 

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

 

maybe too long, even...

hello, lovely people.

sorry i spaced out for longer than i intended.  some recent medication changes made for some cracks in the well cover over here so i had to get back with my docs and get that sorted.

otherwise, things are about the same here.  chaos in a chaotic world, trying to do my little part to bring good things to the interwebs and add a little love to the planet and people.

it's been hard, but i've managed to keep the Ancestors page going every day.  i don't want to let them down or have them get discouraged with me. so, if you don't see me here for a while know that i'm at least over there daily and you can see what is happening with that.

i thought today i'd bring some garden love i talked about in my last post.  i haven't spent as much time out there as i'd have liked (part of how i know the well cover was cracking open).  we had heavy rain and storms on saturday 😀🥰  i love me a good thuderstorm.  and sunday was a bit on the dark and rainy side. monday morning i went out to work in the garden but was only able to be out about an hour before i had to give up and come in.  those damn blood sucking mosquitos were all over me.  i swear i could be standing in a crowd of a hundred thousand people and i'm the ONLY one who would get bit.  those little f*kers love me and always have so it's not just being diabetic.  i can remember being a little kid and being covered with mosquitos and bites.  ick!

anywho...here are some photos from my garden as of today...

this is all i was able to get done on monday, a clean out of this pot (former home of the now deceased blueberry and some volunteer trees) with juliet (grape hybrid) tomatoes and marigolds.

my lady of shallot is still blooming and budding. i swear, it is heavenly to be near that plant and catch of whiff of scent from it.

the bush beans and the cucumbers sprouting. yay!

lemon tree no.1 that i found at the garden center back in very early spring.  i brought it home and too cold out to put it out, put it in the brightest spot in the house.  i was so sad with how sad it looked so when i found a larger lemon tree at the garden center last month, i bought it too.  i potted both up at the same time and put them out front where they'll get loads of sunlight and look how no 1 has grown!  i'm soooo happy!

lemon tree no 2 had blooms on it when i brought it home.  i think there is a tiny lemon growing in there somewhere.  so i'm being sure to give it lots of water.  i need to look up how and when to fertilize as i'd love, love, love, to grow my own lemons.  

see...chaos.  but it's a good, sort of, kind of chaos. lots of plants need to be planted still and once they are all potted up i can decide where they will live.  i've also still got pots that need to be cleaned out.  and i found that the love in a mist has returned this year.  not as many as last year, but i'm hopeful to have more seeds to add over winter.  

i still have so much work to do on that damned blackberry that wants to engulf my home.  

if i didn't have neighbors i'd leave it, but it is just in a very, very bad spot.  i still want to try to plant some in the woods out back and see if it will take up there, so i could still have blackberries. i know, i'm crazy.

anywho...those foxgloves make me so very happy.

well...i think this has been a long enough post.  maybe too long, even.  i need to get up and move around so i'll go now and hope to be back in a day or two.  i hope you are all well and i'll make the rounds of blogs i need to catch up on later today and tomorrow.  

have a great day.

love & kisses & magical wishes, 

~*~

 

happy progress...

blessed Beltane and happy May Day to you, my lovelies!

i spent the day playing in the garden for the most part.  i finished getting the veg bed planted with veg.  i've still to put in the basil and marigolds around the tomatoes.  but i'm happy with my progress.  

and of course, there was the tying of the May Day wish ribbons on my trellis.  i made a wish for each ribbon of what i'd like to see come true over the next year.  and no, i don't share the wishes, but i will say, they weren't all just for me.

yesterday was an early ride to hospital in the next town.  my neurologist works there, and it was time for a check in with her.  the appointment went well and there is a new med i'm on now to see if it can help with my condition.  on my way home i stopped at the big farmers market for some plants and ended up with quite a lot.  i also found some delicious fresh strawberries and i'm always stocking up on seeds for emergencies.

tomorrow is another errand day and then hopefully some time in the garden.  i hope you are having a wonderful 1st day of may.

do you celebrate in some way?  i'd love to know how.

love & kisses & magical wishes, 

~*~

 

little sparkles of happy...

good evening, my lovelies.

i'm just popping in for a little show and tell today.  i'd planned to spend a couple of hours in the garden, but the migraine gods had other plans for me.  i just went out long enough to water and pick these:

after watering i took a few pictures of other things in the garden.

my radishes are coming up but i see the seeds i planted somehow migrated during the rain or watering or something.  so i'll add a few more to fill out the pot tomorrow.  

my neighbor gave me a couple of her orchids that need some help.  i've been watching tons of videos about how to take care or revive lackluster orchids. so, i have these to work on and see if i can get them happy again.  if i do, she's gonna have to give me one since i did all the work. :-)

that's pretty much what i did today other than finish up making my first batch of homemade spaghetti sauce.  oh my word...it's delicious!

this is a recipe that came with my mum's electric skillet a long time ago.  she didn't make it often because she thought it took too long.  i've always loved it though it uses canned mushrooms and tomatoes.  now that i've got it and learned i can cook it in a stock pot/dutch oven, i may try my next batch with fresh tomatoes and mushrooms, just to see how it changes it.  hopefully it will be even better.

well...that's all for now.

thanks for being here, 

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~