Oatmeal cookies & tulips

Hot damn, it's been a minute since I last did a blog post.  Things are finally slowing down - which can be a good thing or bad depending on how bored I get....I've finished with school (hurray!) getting my Masters completed in under a year and to top it off got it with honors.  The poor Midwest got slammed by one winter storm after another and with the kooky names the Weather Channel has been handing out it's been stranger than usual.  Khan, Nemo, Q...you know.  The regular ilk of winter storms.

Our poor cocker spaniel looks like a raving maniac by the end of winter.  I say this as he's rolling amuck on the office floor the red hair a mop of sneezes, grunts and general happy.  The cats remain unimpressed.

What I'm impressed about is the fact that I bought 25lbs of flour for $9 at the local market!  I know...not the craziest thing to get all worked up about but as someone that easily goes through 5lbs in two weeks it means a lot.  And I'm picky about my flours.  Tuesdays/Wednesdays usually means fresh bread and I'm getting the art of tortilla and roti making down to encourage dreams of pitas.  Mmm...pitas...

The accumulation of such flour encouraged a batch of oatmeal cookies, they've barely lasted the night.  For some reason they keep defying gravity and land into my hand...only to be nom'd upon.  They should know better.  And while I'm not an original fan of oatmeal - I prefer chocolate chip - this recipe is damn fine in my opinion.  The mix didn't seem to hold together at first, but the brown sugar and apple syrup (I'm even pickier about syrups) coalesced into a nice chewy cookie.  DB has mentioned that when these are gone they shall need replacing.  You know, to fill in the 'void' in the cookie tub.

I'm watching you...just like I have to watch the cornbread pan....

Anybody plant bulbs this last fall?  Or even have any in the ground for more than one season?  As for us: the tulips are sprouting!  All about the yard, I see the tips of tulips breaking ground - even in places where I thought I retrieved them for relocation (makes a mental note to mark those for later removal).  So I'm expecting a wash of red, white, purple, and black this spring along with the multi-hued crocus as their delicate flowers are already blooming.  Overwintering in the back porch, the strawberries swear it's early summer with the new foliage peaking through as the lemon plant has three little baby lemons.  Overall, I'm ready for spring and summer.

These are homework breaks

Wow, what a busy day!  If some of you don't know, I'm currently enrolled in four graduate classes that are on 8-week schedules.  Now, two classes is considered full time.  Imagine what four can do to a person's free-time.  But even though my schedule is full of textbook readings, forum discussions, essays, and literature reviews, oh and that Open Source Intelligence (OSINT or my Oh S***) project, I'm still finding time to get to the gardens.  Because, let's face it...I like to play in the dirt.

Trellised cantaloupe

Lil' baby cucumber

For this weekend's mini-projects, I managed to trellis the cantaloupe and butternut squash for the time being; however, I still need to get to the pumpkins before they get much bigger.  The squash took a wooden dowel away from the blueberry plant, but that's fine because it's gotten a lot bigger since I bought it this last winter so it doesn't need that dowel for support anymore.  And upon inspecting everything else, I found a little baby cucumber growing.  I'm so excited!

I think it's a nice color

And while I was busy with everything else, the boy got up on the ladder to paint the high spots on the house.  At times, I sat nearby in the shade trying to catch up on class reading.  Other times, I found more projects to occupy myself.  One project that I started a few weeks back was my garden bench (care of Martha Stewart).  I spoke to my friend about it before however needed the extra time to actually put it together.  Finding the time today, I finally finished it.  Go me!  

The garden bench, just needs a coat of paint/stain

Now, the website says to use screws; however, I used tack nails because I used plywood for the side panels.  Also, since we don't have fancy tools, I used a trash can lid (cuz you know, they're round) to make the decorative curve along the bottom. All in all, I say it turned out pretty damn awesome.  I think my grandpa would be thrilled at my new found carpentry skills.

Triple Digits

Poppies in the 'maple garden' May '12

Holy cow! It feels as if I'm living on the surface of Mercury over here!  This last week has been nothing but triple digit, sticky-icky heat even at night.  Except for some shady spots, all the grass in the yard is that nice dead straw color as well as texture.  You know, the kind that crunches underfoot.  But the gardens are staying hydrated even as the rest of the world melts.  The beautiful spring blooms (like the poppy to the left) have all died back giving way to our summer blooms announcing summer in bright yellows, pinks and even subtle shades of black.

Repopulated 'chocolate sunflower'

Even now things are changing in the gardens.  The sunflowers from last year repopulated their garden bed, except they're more yellow this year....The black petunias are doing wonderful with their orange pansy buddies on the front porch.  The citrus trees are loving their front row spot in the sunlight and their friends, the strawberry plants.  When I first transplanted the strawberries I picked away the buds so the plants could focus on growing a little bit.  Since then, I've let them have their fun in growing mini fruit.  It's that or let the squirrels get to them...

First harvest of strawberries

In addition, the white pumpkins, cantaloupe, butternut squash, and pickle cucumbers are running amuck. The cucumbers have taken nicely to their trellis but the rest of my little cucurbitaceae (aka the melon & squash family of plants) friends will have to be wrangled up too before they get more ambitious.  Cutworms got to my red bell pepper plant not too long after transplant.  However, some soap spray and cornmeal later I got rid of the pesky things before they got to the banana pepper plant.  And we have mystery corn in the yard.  I wanted to plant bicolor sweet corn in my container garden this year; however, the birds were gracious enough to spread their corn seed about the front yard.  Now there's corn growing in front of the driveway in random spots.  The boy blamed me for a millisecond before we noticed the culprit of the bird feeder.

Planning for the garden expansion

Not only have the gardens been busy but we have as well...Next to the maple garden we began to plan out the newest feature to the backyard...a mixture of herbs and decorative plants. So far there are black viola, echinacea, chives, oregano, apple mint, and lavender in that new spot with room for other perennials and maybe some annuals.  In the left hand side of the picture (which you can't see), I think I'm going to put a few Asiatic lilies that we have cooped up in a pot and maybe next year get a different variety of day lily.  I blame our trips to the Botanical Gardens for all these wonderful ideas....

That's it for now, classes have taken up ludicrous speed as I try to finish my graduate program in under a year before my funding runs out...talk about fun...but! Don't let the heat keep you from going outside!  Remember give water to yourself and your plants, wear sunglasses/hat/sunscreen, and stay cool!  Now go play in that dirt :)

Where'd May go?

     Holy cow peeps!  Where did May go?  All I know is that classes started up, my bestest friends got hitched, and it's transplanting time here in good ol' Wisconsin.  The windows have been open for the last week and the cats have raided the back porch, claiming it as their play spot for the summer.  And I don't blame them, especially since the robins, cardinals, and a slew of finches now hang out in our back yard.

But on to what's been transpiring in the gardens!  Apparently, everything decided to started blooming while I was away.  I didn't snap a picture of the palm sized poppies in the back, but the 'champagne bubbles' variety are already open. The pic shows the snapdragons (who survived winter), dianthus, and the campanula.  There are, of course, many more flowers blooming around the yard.

A few weeks back, I collected a few of the bleeding hearts and pansy flowers for pressing.  The colors stayed quite nice and it did thin the herd a bit, as they say.  The pansy have since overtaken the front retaining wall and I'm pondering thinning them out again.  Never mind the fact that the Chinese Lantern in the maple garden is running amuck...

And on the porch there is the normal suspects of black petunias.  This year they are paired with orange pansy.   I think it's a very beautiful contrast and as they grow it will be even more striking.

In the vegetable garden, the golden boy tomatoes are housed in their cage while the red bell and banana peppers are sitting cozy in their  shared tote.  I still have to get the melons seeded not to mention the bicolored corn.  This year, I picked up some apple mint that will go with the mint garden quite nicely.  In addition, I planted a 'red wine' mixture of sunflowers with the strawberry corn and blue corn on the side of the house. The chocolate sunflower from last year decided to repopulate the garden bed itself so I didn't bother adding more to the mix, lol.

the fence so far with the maple garden behind it

On top of that, I get to expand the gardens even more!  We split the yard in half to make a true back and front yard.  The walkway for the fence goes through a wooden arbor.  And since there's space, I'm going to spread out the gardens with lavender, oregano, chives, and a few other herbs among the flowers, because I can.

Needless to say it's been a busy end to spring.  Next on our list is to finish the fence, paint the house, and at some point, I need to put together the garden bench I've been planning for.

Dark Dancer

Hey there gang!  It's been a crazy few weeks.  Apparently, trying to pursue a Master's Degree is a full-time job. Who knew?  However, I still have my weekends to play in the dirt.  In the last few weeks we've been trying to prepare the gardens for the long awaited spring.  With that in mind, we've added two new plants to the gardens. Campanula "Blue" and Centaurea "Montana", both of them are blue which should be a nice contrast with the hosta and dianthus in the front porch garden.  Not to mention the "Dark Dancer" clover the boy picked up for himself.  It's currently contained on the porch, isolated from the rest of the gardens.  The foliage is pretty with dark purple markings.

My next project will be to build a garden bench since I have window boxes that don't have windows to go along with them.  In the meantime, I have picked up a few strawberry plants; however, the "Top Hat" Blueberry failed to establish itself and now makes a pretty dead stick decoration in the pot...the other one is holding on for dear life.  That'll teach me to buy plants from Sam's Club.

Another thing I picked up this weekend was a book about herbs.  It's one of those companion books that you've probably glanced at in the discount section of the bookstore.  Well I got one now.  Last year, I dried three varieties of mint for uses as herbal teas.  However, this year I'm planning on doing something more with my herbal garden.  Maybe a raised bed with a mix of perennial and annuals.  That way I can make them into candles, satchels, teas and who knows what else my little brain can come up with.  I've always liked the thought of becoming more self sustainable with my projects and I think this is just another step in the process.

Okay, enough babbling for now.  Grow team, Grow!

But they're so tiny!

As a few of you know, I ordered citrus trees a few months ago to add to my growing collection of container garden items.  Well, I'm happy to announce that they're here!!

L-R: orange, lemon, and lime trees

I just potted the three little citrus trees in their own ginkgo fiber pots (which makes them eco-friendly and biodegradable).  The pots should last them for a year or two.  And as you can see they're still tiny so the small pots aren't going to be a problem (they're only 7" diameter). Lucky enough our local nursery had soil for cacti, succulents and citrus so I didn't have to guess on the mixture, which could've been a hazard.  Hopefully these lil' guys do well so we have fresh citrus next year!  On a side note: the blueberries aren't looking too happy with me so I doused them in vinegar water in an attempt to keep them alive...if anything I'll pay a little more for 2 or 3 year old plants.

In addition, talk about a whole front yard make-over.  Last year, we talked about transplanting the two bleeding hearts in the front garden and a few of the hosta to the side yard where they'll enjoy more shade than sun.  Well by the time we got to it they were all huge and it was too late in the season to move them.  Finally, we caught them before they're growth spurt.  Now the bleeding hearts are on the north side of the house with a neat row of six of the larger hosta.  They all have room to grow into their full potential unlike the cramped space in the front porch garden.

On top of that we moved around the remaining hosta in the front garden, moved in two more dianthus, planted some 'Sweet William Dianthus' on the side, moved a 'Black-Eyed Susan' and got stabbed to death by the climbing roses in the back.  I'm sure there are other things that we accomplished during our venture into the small gardens surrounding the house but it's getting late and the glass of merlot is kicking in.

If you haven't already: make sure to plant potatoes (I've got mine curing), start tomatoes and basil indoors for a better start outside.

Accidental Onions

The last few days have given us wonderful weather to play outside.  Thus the gardens got the much needed spring cleaning that they deserved.  For some reason, we collect the leaves from around the neighborhood.  The wind decides that we need a little ground decoration giving us leaves and snow as it wills.  I'm not all for this, but I say thanks and just bag up the leaves.  During that clean up we spotted the little buds of the hosta, Asiatic lilies and day-lilies coming up as well as a surprise in the back garden...or in a mound of dirt really.

Onions growing in a soil mound in the back yard.

Apparently, onions are trying to grow in a mound of dirt.  Thing is, the dirt isn't from the onion tote from last year's garden and I didn't put the onions there.  This is just extra dirt and somehow onions got there.  I'm blaming the squirrels because they're punks like that, but I'm going to go with it. I'm a fan of onions so it's cool.

Lemon mint with new growth, great for herbal teas :)

As for the other members of the garden from last year, the mint is growing back in their containers.  I wintered all but the Chocolate Mint on the back porch (the container was way to big to lug around the yard).  The porch has thick curtains over the storm windows to ward away the chilly breezes and I expected a normal Wisconsin winter; however, we barely got anything except for a handful of snowfalls.  So the snapdragons are still alive along the front border and if you've been paying attention to the blog then you know that it's almost impossible for me to kill them this year.  Instead, I trimmed back the old growth to make room for the new.

Also, we made a discovery on the side of the house with a pair of finches (irony at its best because we have a colony of zebra finches) nesting in a hole under the eaves.  There's a nice fluffy layer of attic installation on the side yard.  However, after the boy went into the attic and up a very scary looking ladder we got the problem of the finches fixed temporarily until we can get some material to close the gap in the wood and the holes in the attic vent.  Right now, we're using wood scraps from the back steps we replaced last fall and shims, lots and lots of shims.

Stay tuned for a special delivery later this week that I'm excited about!  Until then, get a little dirt under your fingernails and enjoy the humus.