It's the day before Friday...

...and already I wish it were Saturday. This sure has been a long week for a 4day work week.

Today, I ain't got much to say, know what I'm sayin'? Just wanted to note that it is now safe for the veggies and other plants at my house again, and Go Go Gopher Killer! Yes, I finally killed the gopher in my yard, left the trap in case there was a 2nd and when I figured no one was left, I removed the trap and watered the yard thoroughly. My tomato plant, whose roots that varmint ate last week, is doing very well in a jar of water on my windowsill and has finally developed several roots. She'll go back in the ground tonight, planted inside an anti-gopher chicken wire cage. The cages from last year took some time to locate as they sunk in the ground. I dug them out and lifted them up, then filled in some dirt, shredded newspaper and leaves, and let them settle back in. We'll see how that works out.

We be jammin'

Last year D, who is part of my Women's Workday Group, kindly shared some of her strawberry plants with me. We dug up 2 plants and one of them gave up the ghost at the end of last summer. Here is my sole survivor - doesn't he look fabulous? You can't see in this picture but I have two strawberry blossoms. Not enough for jam, mind you, but enough for 1 bite and the pleasure of knowing that the little bit of sweetness came from my own yard.

Here are 2 of my original volunteer tomato plants. I discovered last night that the 3rd one, the smallest one, is not doing well. I found him limp and sprawled out on the floor, I suspect that damn gopher has been chewing his roots. Will have to find and use the gopher cages that should still be in the ground from last year, to accommodate the rest of my volunteers and such that I will be planting.






















Last but not least, my newest little corner of the world. Taking inspiration from J's courtyard (my other cohort in Women's Work Days) I placed pots of canna (donated from J's canna thinning last year) in this bare back corner of the bed in the back. Then I used donations from D around the bottom edges to soften things up. It will all fill in and, hopefully, keep the cats from this corner that they tend to use to make the great backyard escape.

My weekend finds

I had a volunteer Odoriko growing in the garden however it was stuck behind the garlic so was... puny and sad. I replanted it yesterday, moving it over to it's own sunny spot. I also took 3 more volunteer toms out of the lemon tree pot and put them in 4" pots to give to coworkers. While I was working my around the lemon pot, I noticed a yellow flower. At first I thought a tomato bloom, but it didn't look right. Since it was tall and gangly and growing up between the thorns of the lemon tree, I couldn't see it well. I call over BF and he got on the other side of the pot. "It's a tomatillo," he declared, and I do declare he was right! It was more than a foot tall and two blossoms on it. I punched them off, dug it out and repotted it. Once it recovers and the weather cools a bit, I'll put it in the ground. So far all 5 of the plants I replanted yesterday (3 toms from the lemon pot, 1 tomatillo from the lemon pot, and 1 tom from behind the garlic) are all standing tall and happy today.)

I have a plan for the back bed this year in order to be able to utilize it more since it has a very steep slope which makes it hard to retain water. But the wheels in my head are spinning and I want to try to use the 1/3 circle red clay borders (which I typically think look tacky) to level the soil in certain places, using the borders to design out a fish scale sort of outline. I'll buy a few at OSH and see how it goes before I go crazy. I'm just tired of watching the dirt and all my water run down the hill while my plants thirst.

5 cookies. ah ah ah aaaahh

Ok fine, this isn't Sesame Street and the Count didn't count 5 cookies. But this IS my backyard and I did count 5 squash seedlings this morning. 2 more came up yesterday during the beginning of our heatwave. We are now in day 2 of the heatwave - everyone (meaning my garden) survived day 1 beautifully but today promised to be hotter, longer. So I put a lawn chair over the top of one of my tomato seedlings that looks the worse, to avoid that direct sunlight. The other two look strong so I left them to fend for themselves. We'll see how it goes when I get home this evening.

Meanwhile something is chewing on my squash seedlings, my cotton and my basil. I've found some little spider webs but nothing else in site, so I'm not sure what it is. Ants?

Garden update for May 14th

I have 3 tomato seeds that have sprouted and 3 squash seeds as well. These were purposely planted, not volunteers this time. ;) However they are calling for near 100 degrees today so I put my tender ones under the apple tree. They can stay outside without having to worry about triple digit direct sunlight to fry their tender skins. Everyone was well watered this morning, including what I believe to be volunteer sunflower seedlings. I find this only somewhat entertaining, as the sunflower seeds I planted in starter pots have yet to lift their heads after more than 2 weeks. Thank God for Mother Nature taking care of my garden as I had not had time to, and I would have nearly nothing if the Father and the Mother were not looking out for me.

And while I'm at it, an update on my blackberry bush. You may recall last year I took several cuttings from a creek on the property at work and successfully got it to root in a 1 gallon pot at home. I got some late, bitter berries last year but was satisfied that my experiment had worked. About 4 months into said experiment, I tried to move the pot and found that the roots had come through the bottom and were now firmly in the ground. After a year, we decided to plant to bush in the ground so I had to cut the roots, lift the pot and transplanted the bush 10 feet to the left. It was unhappy, then happy, then unhappy and now I think it's happy again. However, as I walked by the old location 10 feet to the right, I saw the most beautifully tender young blackberry plant growing from the roots I had left. Looks like that side of the house will be filled with blackberries!!

Gardens & TV's

Turkey Vultures, that is. Friday night I was in such a hurry to get to class that I left my wallet at work. I went back Saturday morning to pick it up and found a big ole turkey vulture in the parking lot, cleaning up some pitifully flat squirrel. The TV's are skittish, if a car is coming within 75 feet that is too close and they start to move along. I zoomed in as much as I could and got off a couple of shots. On the way back out of the lot, I saw a 2nd TV had joined the first and got a few more photos - you can see how nervous they are knowing I am there, in my car, watching them.

I have 2 squash plants sprouting. I know not if they are punkin, zucchini nor yellow squash, but they are sprouting and that's all I care about at the moment. I also have Odoriko tomato growing - it's the only tomato to sprout so far. I currently have 3 growing plants in the garden area, compared to 20 I had last season. BF looked at my measly garden this year and said, "is that ALL the tomatoes you are growing?" Little did he know I have 12 starter pots of seeds and I was liberal with the seeding so we'll see what comes out and what goes in the garden. My garlic is fabulous & happy, I really should have planted more but in October, there aren't many sunny places that I can give up for almost an entire year. My sole 'year-round sunny spots' are usually reserved for the maters.

Adventures in salve making

Last year I started calendula seeds because these beautiful flowers have wonderful healing properties and I wanted to make a salve for my eczema. I've suffered for 20 years with the painful affliction and very few pharms that I've tried help. Yesterday I finally got some beeswax and started my adventure.

First let's start off by saying I should have used olive oil. I went to the store to get food for dinner and forgot my olive oil. My Back to Eden book said I could use vegetable oil and I had a full bottle in the pantry so off I went. I added 3 cups of dried calendula petals and enough vegetable oil to cover them (which took about 1/2 the bottle) and turned my crock pot on low. I left it for just about 3 hours and sifted out all the petals. I used an old tshirt to strain out the rest of the petals that my spoon couldn't get and returned the oil to the crock pot.

I started off using 2 ounces of beeswax but I was nervous about the amount of oil I had used so I added another 2 ounces once the first pieces had melted. I stirred it all about and set my spoon to the side, wondering "how will I know there is enough beeswax if it's all liquified?" Then I saw my spoon where the salve was solidifying and realized I could take a cool sample from there to ensure my oil/beeswax balance was right. And it was, right on the money. I ladeled out the oil into 1 cup glass bowls and let it harded overnight. There is a faint scent of veggie oil that I'd rather not have, but I'll know better next time.

Now what to do with FOUR cups of salve!?!