The summer garden

Sarah was up here on Tuesday for a tiny motor vehicle glitch.

After a quick trip to the DMV....we had a lovely lunch in Mahopac at the Freight House Cafe.
Delicious homemade, healthy food.

Back home, she made and photographed flower arrangements all afternoon. Then cooked a luscious dinner of lamb sausage, raita, and grilled zucchini.

My guests last night thought my porch looked like a flower shop. She brought some flowers with her from the shop, but lots were just cut from my wild garden. The extras she brought from the shop, and left here, looked like an arrangement as it was. So, I put it on my front steps!

My new favorite

Sarah planted this last summer. Mock Orange. Philadelphus Virginalis.
We put it right by the screened porch so all could enjoy the fragrance.
What a lovely bloomer....hundreds of pure white flowers filling the air with their sweet smell!

I want a couple of more to put right into that bed of pachysandra.

Dos and Don'ts of Gardening

So, if your tomato plants looked like this after 2 weeks in the garden....after you'd started them lovingly from heirloom seeds in little pots in February....Would you wonder if maybe those little 'peat' pots were not made to go directly into the garden with the seedling?

So...they've all been dug up this morning, 'cardboard' torn off, and replanted. Now to get the dirt from under my nails before the wedding today!

after the rain

A short hiatus from rain (which we've had since Sunday) allowed me to get out in the garden to find:
Arugula ready to pick....Radishes loving the cool weather. Stones are to keep the cats from lying down on the plants!
A cactus which Linda gave me last fall. I planted it, even though I didn't think it would survive the winter. It did. Then looked pretty ugly...until I noticed little cacti babies all over it.
And...for Sarah. Our newest Iris. Do we know the name? Could it be Darling?

Walk on By....

Aren't they cute?? Until you have 30-40 of them using the pond as a breeding ground and then a summer resort! They don't fly north to Canada any more....like they're supposed to, but stay all season!

Goose sh*t everywhere. For some reason they don't like my yard. They walk right on by and up to the neighbors. I guess the grass is greener there.

But, I'll take them over the groundhog that's enjoying the young leaves on my brand new coral bells!

Flowers inside and out

Sarah and Eric returned from a trip upstate to spend a couple of days. On Sunday I had Sarah's help planting all flowers we bought last week. These are a few of the additions to the perennial beds.

A Chaenomeles (flowering quince called Cameo)...and a new sedum variety called Voodoo amidst a circle of ajuga that's just getting started for the year.
a new Spirea called 'mellow yellow' right in the center of mass of Lamium.

Finishing the shade garden that I started last year....in front two kinds of Epimedium: white queen and pink elf. Next row, Heuchera (coral bells) and behind them, Tiarella (bottle brush). There are also Japanese Painted Ferns and Astilbe and Hostas that are just coming up.

Now to update the flower map. I keep a detailed schematic of all of the plantings so I know where to look for things as they come up in the spring.

And finally a leg of lamb dinner with a centerpiece Sarah put together with some prunings from the Magnolia that we watched open into full flower as the day progressed.

Let the planting begin!

Sarah and I took a road trip out to Atlantic Nurseries in Dix Hills this morning and this is just part of my haul:

Pansies...I know they're annuals...but they were just so pretty!

From Left: Chaenomeles speciosa "cameo"(flowering quince) , Spiraea thunbergii 'ogon', hydrangea "Tokyo delight", hydrangea paniculata "little lamb",ivy, 2 pink clematis and a new hellebore: Ivory Prince.

And finally, several new irises, Epimedium Grandiflorum:white queen, Epimedium: pink elf, tiarella timbuktu (bottle brush), Stonecrop sedum, and asarum canadense (wild ginger) which I've been trying to find for ages. Also tulips and some new lavender plants to replace the ones that I had to remove after 12 years.

Sarah got some plants for the shop and some for her front stoop garden. AND...we fit it all in the back of my Prius!

Helleborous and Pulsatilla vulgaris

Hellebores popping way up in the garden this week. Also called the Lenten or Christmas Rose...they are here in plenty of time for Lent.

Then peeking out behind the hellebore (see her tiny blue head above) I found this little beauty the other day. She was in full bloom, with a bright yellow center but now she's moping about the rain!

Lots coming up in the garden now!

it's official

When the weather gets warm enough to clean up the porch from the winter and sit outside with a coffee, spring is officially here!
















Got my gardens all cleaned up too. Just so Rae Kwan could enjoy the dirt.

April 2, 2011

Time to plant tomatoes. Last year I planted to early (Feb.) This year I'm a bit late. First the seeds go into the peat pots.

Then into a make shift green house until they sprout.

Then out of the bag and into sunlight.

BTW....Yesterday Pentti and I celebrated 31 years of marriage. I looked all afternoon for the snapshot of our wedding. Sarah wanted to see it. I came across it a sometime last year...but who knows where it is now. Maybe next year.

Yes, we just have a snapshot. We were married by a justice of the peace with one witness. My friend Lorraine has always joked that she was both our matron of honor AND our best man!

7:21 PM

Sunday night....Spring arrives here in the Hudson Valley.

Here's proof in my garden:
So this newly sprouting Hellebore (lovely in pink!) has all kinds of old worn leaves around it....
here's what to do about that!

Too Hot to Blog?

I feel like we're living in the deep south. It's been hot for as long as I can remember. (well for the past month at least, with no relief)

I have air conditioning only in my workshop....so I've been working a lot.

Too hot to work in the garden, but here's what's happening there:
Remember this....from May
Now it looks like this....

That's a Giant Belgium...almost ripe:

And San Marzano plum tomatoes....for sauce:
I'm off to mix up lye for soap....where it's cool!

now that's what I'm talkin' about

Finally...the unbearable heat on Wed. brought these beauties into full bloom! This is the 3rd year for these two peonies and they are spectacular this year.

Sarah arrived yesterday morning and we made our annual trip to Rudolph Gardens.
Bought a carload of gorgeous perennials and came back to my house to plant:

Mock Orange by the porch door so we can enjoy the lovely fragrance:
Yellow digitalis grows wild in my garden. Sarah planted some in and around the Etruscan pottery relic I found last year at Erie Basin! That's blue bell flower behind.
More yellow digitalis and a new variety added to it...
Sarah composed this lovely color combo with a red lupine, pink/yellow columbine behind some lambs ear...and more digitalis...and a euphorbia myrsinites on the rock...
We had a lovely day even though it was a bit of a busman's holiday for Sarah.

planting day

It all finally came together today.

Nice weather, garden finally ready and the seedlings I started in February ready to go in the ground. I hope we have a good tomato year. I have 45 plants here.


Some cucumbers, too...and radishes and swiss chard seeds planted! Oh, my achin' back!

back to our regularly scheduled blog...

just one more photo of Nea and her happy reunion when Sarah and Eric returned last night.

Now to soapmaking, food and flowers!

I made 4 batches of soap this morning....I hate lining the molds...so tedious.

This part is so much easier....white grapefruit in the mold....

Cleaning and organizing the workshop is also not my favorite part of soapmaking.
Bread pudding, a comfort food from my childhood ready for the oven for pot luck Mah Jongg tonight.

And...my garden is going crazy with this unusual heat. everything is coming up so fast.
Here is Fritillaria that Sarah and I planted last fall.

Mar. 25, 2010

my makeshift greenhouse



produces first sprouts:
Those pots still in the big plastic bag haven't sprouted yet. They're heirloom tomatoes. Cucumbers are quick to come up. As soon as they sprout they need to come out of the 'greenhouse' and into the sunlight.

Hoping for a good garden this year.

Weeder's Digest

Here's some floral advice for you....from my sweet Sarah.

You can find her weekly column on Design Sponge...usually on Thursdays.

Two Happy Things...

I'm back home and glad to be here for awhile. Don't have plans to travel again until May for the Soap Conference in Palm Springs.

1. It's spring...but I didn't believe it until Pentti came in from the garden this morning and wanted to know what was coming up out there.

It's GARLIC!! I planted it on Columbus Day last fall...then completely forgot about it. Oh, Boy!....not only fresh garlic...but we'll have garlic scapes, too pretty soon!
Now it really seems like winter is definitely over!

2. Scan your own groceries!?!

I trekked to Stop and Shop this morning to resupply my badly deleted pantry and was greeted by a man who offered me the opportunity to take a hand held scanner, scan and bag my groceries as I shopped...and then just stop by the check out counter to have the scanner downloaded and pay the bill.

I loved it. You don't have to unload your cart....scan it...then repack. What a time saver.
Hope too may cashiers don't lose their jobs. But I like putting my groceries in bags the way that I want them.

New beginnings...

Finally back after an exciting election week.

This morning I received an email from a friend living in Paris:

" Dear Susan,

I hope all's going well. How refreshing to have this significant change coming with Barack Obama as our President Elect! I would like to be there right now to see the faces and feel the shift of energy on my home turf. However, here in Paris people are also sooo very happy... all over people feel a sigh of relief and the strength of hope."

An as a sign of hope, this appeared in my garden this week....







can you believe it?? its a white iris I had Pentti cut it and bring it in because I'm afraid it will freeze. It is middle of November, after all. We'll see if it opens!

Fall planting

Time to plant the garlic for spring. I've always wanted to try growing garlic because we use so much of it and I also love the garlic scapes that first appear in spring.
So, I bought garlic from Karen and Mike of We Grow Garlic in Wisconsin. It arrived promptly and today we cleaned up the garden to get ready for the planting.















Karen and Mike have over 50 varieties of garlic and many were sold out when I finally got to the site to buy.

I planted Italian Late and Silver White. Both are soft neck varieties.

After planting, Pentti watered them in. BTW...when we cleaned up the tomato plants we collected a few green tomatoes. We haven't had frost here yet. Those Yellow Pear tomatoes were the most prolific I've seen. That variety is a keeper for next year!