Potato Planting

This spring has been soggy and cold. I planted my potatoes today - a bit late, but the soil finally dried out enough to till.

And my snap peas did not rot in the ground - they are all of 4 inches high.
Also a late plant in mid-April.

 Anyhow - I thought as I was digging holes that I would share some potato tips.
These are Norland Reds.

The first thing to do is cut them up. Two eyes per piece. See those growths that look like warts? Those are called eyes. Some of the eyes are really growing, others are teeny with just a pink/red spot on the potato skin.

On these smaller reds, you can cut them up into two or three pieces. Let them 'dry' for a few hours. This seals the wet part so it grows instead of rotting.

Your holes should be about 2 feet apart and about 10 inches deep. Or so. By the 20th hole, whatever floats your boat. You can add fertilizer or compost if you desire but my soil is pretty awesome for potatoes.

Place two pieces of potatoes at the bottom of each hole with eyes up to the sky.
Cover the hole halfway with dirt. We'll be infilling later as the green shoots emerge.

 That's it.

 Onto the patio. Most of the hanging baskets and pots have been pruned, churned up, and planted. Lots of time-release fertilizer and slug bait. These hanging baskets are heavy feeders and need extra food to grow.

If you look closely, I have hung my airplane decorations.  My kids painted these over twenty years ago from wood kits. They have held up remarkably good hanging outside all summer.

Blooming Jade Plants

This is my root bound thirty-year-old jade plant.

 My friend, Teresa, came over yesterday to pick up some green japanese maples that I was gonna chuck onto the compost pile. They were all too root bound to make it another summer in those pots and I don't need any more planted on my acre. They come from a big green japanese mama tree and only grow a quarter of the size. I like to have them on my patio for the vertical element and I also play bonsai with them while they are young.

I'm cleaning off the patio for winter. Putting the patio furniture away, rolling up hoses, putting the semi-delicate plants against the protected wall of the house, getting ready to put the geraniums in the garage and the houseplants returned inside.

The houseplants need to come inside after they've been sprayed off with a hose for most of the bugs and a systemic sprinkled over the soil to keep the hatching bugs from infesting my house.

All of my houseplants go outside in the summer to rusticate. They love  the fluctuating temperatures and the light levels much better than inside the house.

We get enough frosts and freezings here in the Willamette Valley that the delicate things need to come inside or at least into the garage or basements of our houses. The geraniums and fuschias in the hanging baskets will go into the garage.

They are loving our temperate 60 degree November days and blooming so well, it's difficult to get ruthless and trim them up for storage.

Anyway - my jade plant is more than thirty years old. I married it and it was a dangly, sad-looking house plant that I chucked out on the deck to compost. Instead, the golden retriever's puppy tail pruned it for me and it became this lush plant with little growths all over. It stands about three feet high and round.

Lesson 1:  They want to be pruned.

After about ten years, it set out these blooms that opened in November and held on until February. There's is a slight smell and pollen but mostly they are little white star flowers with a tint of pink.

Lesson 2:  It has to be old enough to bloom.

One November, I left it out a little too long (thanksgiving!) and the second frost melted half of it. But it came back. with little green sprouts.

Lesson 3: Leave outside as close to possible to first frost to harden off. But not past the moment.

The trunks on this baby are about five inches in diameter. It doesn't like to be over-watered - maybe once a month? In the winter, it goes a tad dormant. It would be fine in the garage but I like the little star flowers, so it comes inside.

In the spring, I prune off the weird parts - I like that spherical look, and toss those cuttings under the hydrangea where they all take root.

I rarely re-pot. Sometimes, I add a little soil to the top. I have cut the roots - as in bonsai directions - to thin them out. Most of the years, I do nothing.

Lesson 4: Leave them alone. Perfect houseplant for me.

 Here are some three year old babies all together in a pot. Not sure what I'm gonna do with this one. I don't want a second plant in the house. Keep pruning until I can foist it off on a friend.

 These are two year old babes. Some in individual pots and the ones in front together in the blue pot. This might come inside this winter - it's looking pretty pleased with itself.

 Waiting for hose spray-off are my avocado trees and the ficus that I have a love/hate relationship with.

You want the secret of growing your avocados?
Again, really lazy here. Take the pit outside and plug it in one of your patio pots. Forget the toothpicks, forget scraping the bottom to encourage root growth. Just plug it in some soil - in the summer.

But now what???

It's getting taller. It's also fussy, pitching a hissy fit when I bring it inside and dropping leaves, some leaves turning half brown. I hate fussy. I had a coffee plant for a while - talk about hissy fits. I finally got ruthless and pitched it on the compost pile. I may do so with the avocado. It's a tall statement plant for behind the couch but somewhat fussy in it's drinking habits.

Now - the Ficus. It's not even a variegated leaf one. But it doesn't pitch hissy fits. It's tall, which is nice in the house. It's not particularly pretty. One more winter.

 The fuschias blooming their heads off in the cooler autumn temps.

My mock-orange did not get the winterizing memo either.


Why houseplants inside in the winter? Everyone knows they improve the air quality during the winter months. 

I also have six african violets that do stay inside year round. Way too many. Need friends to come over and leave with one, or two. Any takers?


I wouldn't say no if you needed a six year old avocado tree either.

Lemon Sorbet Sunday

I made Lemon Sorbet this morning.
 
 I've posted about it before here and here.
I think I have the recipe down now. 

I have tried three methods to freeze it and I like the one I used today the best;

When I first made it, I did not own a ice cream churn. So I poured it into a 13 x 9  baking pan and stirred it every 15 minutes in the freezer. Lots of ice crystals.
The second time, I had found an electric  ice cream maker at one of my sales and it churned out a decent sorbet. Still some ice crystals.
I tried that method a couple of times before getting rid of it. Can you say giant box to haul out 1 -2 times a year?

Actually, it's because I read online about the ziploc within a ziploc method. You pour your ice cream mixture inside the smaller ziploc. Place inside the bigger ziploc along with ice cubes. Shake it continuously until ice cream mixture starts to thicken. Then leave in freezer and shake every 15 minutes or so to keep the ice crystals from happening.

I also made a sugar syrup to add to the coconut milk along with plenty of lemon juice from 7 Meyers lemons.
I used a box pack of coconut milk, 7 meyers lemons (zest and juice), the rest of my star anise (pulverised) and 3/4 cup of granulated sugar.

It took much longer than the one hour I originally read online. But, it's got very little ice crystals because of the constant shaking/stirring. Nummies.

I made another rope bowl today. I sold my orange one within a day of listing it on etsy.
However, the USPS decided to "deliver" it to a shared walkway/hallway of apartments in Brooklyn. My customer now has a 'neighbor' who has a very similar bowl. :-(

I made her a replica - or as close as I could. Re-sending it with a signature required. 

These are so fast and so gratifying to make. I am not done with these yet.

Hangar - straight ahead with runway off to the right. Room for table and chairs, swing, potted plants. I also have ten hanging baskets out here. The hummingbirds dive bomb us trying to get to the flowers first.

 I was sitting outside on the patio drinking my coffee this morning, planning my day.
I didn't get everything done but it has been so pleasant in the mornings out here.

We have had a mild summer so far with temps mostly below 80'. This next week, we might get to 90 --- but it is the end of July.

Tonight, once I figure out dinner, I have Lemon Sorbet to look forward to.

Part Of My Yard

Happy May Day!

Busy weeding my acre this time of year in-between 12 hour split shifts at work and the wonderful April weather.

As you can see, Rusty, who is on better pain meds, helps supervise.

 I weeded half of this bed surrounding our patio. Then gave up moved onto another place that needed attention. I have to cut back the tulips and grab the artillery weeds. The blue on the left is lithospermum.

The house is on the left with the airplane hangar (doors closed) straight ahead.
I've lived on my acre for 26 years. Plants die. Plants get too big. Plants are amazing. We have fairly mild winters here in the Willamette Valley, but once every six years or so, we get hard freezes, ice, and significant snow. (No snow this winter except for one morning). Two years ago, the Lithospermum completely died back but I saw some green shoots near the base and babied it and here it is, lush as ever.

 Stepping back a few paces, this is the pergola with clematis (montana) climbing it. The clematis shades us in the summers and you can sit outside and not get too wet during summer showers.
These clematis rotted off at the rootstock one winter - oh, 7 years ago, but they are now almost where they were before - coverage-wise.

We use our patio most of the year. There is a swing set that needs new cushions sewn. Has anyone noticed that replacement cushions are thinner on the foam? The ones that came with the swing were very comfy. We cook outside on the barbecue and watch the planes take off in the evenings.

Most readers know I live on an airpark. The runway adjoins our acre and runs mostly north-south.    Bucolic.   Anyone use that old-fashioned word lately?

You need patience to garden well. Plants are a tad unruly, not always listening to your mindset of how they should behave. That's okay.

 
 

 I still need to pot up my hanging baskets. I'm slow this year. I am waiting on the high school plant sale for the little extras plants that go into the baskets (excuseexcuseexcuse).

Tomorrow is my day off and it's forecast to be 80', so this job jumped to priority one.

My upright green japanese maple on the other side of the house sends forth babies that I pot up for the patio. These babies don't seem to grow as tall. I have done some bonsai with them, twisted the 'stems' into circles, played with them a bit. These are getting quite root-bound so I will either give these away at the end of this growing year or compost them and start fresh with some new babies.

Looking left from the patio is my side yard. This is the yard I look at from my kitchen window.
The curve of the beds is lovely. The beds on the left used to be shaded by 40 year old fir trees but we had a little leaning problem and rather then buy a new house for the neighbors, we elected to cut them down.
 

So this bed went from shady perennials to a very sunny, needs to be edited still bed. I have replanted some taller trees for the bird habitat but also as a living fence between us and the neighbors.  It is very difficult to edit my plants. I've known them for years and someday's I can't be ruthless enough. I tend to let the columbines live.

 I tried a panoramic shot looking at the house.
All it did was give the house and hangar a decidedly weird curve.
That's the grass runway to the far right.

My kitchen window on the right. Just in front is my bird feeder and hummingbird feeder (empty again?). That's hubby there doing something.

 Looking southeast towards the taxi-way, aka our street.

 Another view of looking out my kitchen window.
My living fence is filling out nicely this April. 
My goal is to not see that house there.

Those are my hostas there in front which amazingly took to the sun from being in the shade prior.

 And from the street end, looking towards the grass runway -- past the fir trees we left growing taller.
 
Serous hummingbird habitat up there in the firs along with owls and other birds. (not to mention the bats). We had an eagle thinking about setting up housekeeping two autumns  ago.

Another panoramic - the entire side length of the yard - about 300 yards?

Strawberries blooming for June.
.




***This is just my side yard. If you got this far - serious congratulations. This was a good place to put these photos for my reference.

Twelve Hour Days

Last night, after a long day at work, I came home to find hubby doing his biennial checkride in the plane. To keep your pilot's license current, one must perform several activities: Medical check up, touch and go's, annual maintenance on the plane.

I grabbed some potato chips and zuniga's salsa, turned on the misters, and sat outside on the patio to watch him practice his take-offs and landings (touch and go).

My poor hanging baskets are back on flower after some serious chemical spraying for cutworms.  They do love the misters, as do I.
I have discovered that not only will the misters cool off the patio to 'comfortable' on a hot day, they also keep away the yellow jackets and flies as we eat.

No sewing here. One of my co-workers is off getting her daughter married and another had a car accident which has created even more hours for my paycheck. She was mostly shook up but has taken the rest of the week off and we aren't sure about next week.

I was able to see (mostly by accident) the Perseid meteor showers as I headed off to work in the dark.

I have a couple of posts planned about what I did while my sis was visiting. The videos finished uploading today and now I just need to do some cutting and pasting into a blog post with maybe some words. Too tired tonight, so I will skip a few days over and leave you with my very pleasant evening last night.

 

Wonder Pockets

 This is my practice buttonhole. #34 on my pfaff. 
Notes for next time. There's a hinged place on my pfaff for the IDT buttonholer which also has room for some sample buttonholes. This one is rounded at one end which reminds me of the Singer buttonhole cams that I grew up with.

 I love the buttonholes on this machine. So easy and quick plus they look nice. I can get up to a 9mm width with this machine - reason #5 for buying this machine.  I went around twice for durability.

 These are work shorts, very utilitarian.
Elastic knit waist band for comfort with repeated bending.

I definitely will not be entering these into my county fair (two weeks!).
Nice sewing but I'm not going to waste time with my seam ripper getting it perfect.

 Pocket flaps. 

I serge the top edge. I sew them to the shorts upside down with that serged edge just above the pocket. Flip the flap down and give it a quick press, then top-stitch down - which conveniently hides the serged edge. Not couture sewing - just down and dirty quick sewing.

What did we do before WONDER CLIPS and Sewline Chalk pencils?
That's my top-stitching lines above, done with the Sewline Chalk Pencil. Pencil Girl made me buy one - hence her screen name. One of my favorite notions.

All the seams have double top-stitching as well as down the middle of the pockets which are then sewn on with double top stitching.

Note the use of the mini-clapper, aka Wonder Clip. This 45' angle on the pocket has more bulk and it's difficult to make it stay flat after ironing. I remember the last time I sewed these shorts, I had to use more pins to make the edges lie flat ('cuz wonder clips weren't invented yet). This time - right after ironing, I used a wonder clip and it eliminated the fiddly nature on this angled pocket.

I've finished the first pair except for sewing on the buttons. Cutting out the second pair is next on my sewing agenda. Possibly someone can snap some photos tomorrow.

 I had my son over yesterday for baby back ribs. We sat out on the patio in 100+ degree weather with the clematis shading the top of the pergola and the misters on. It was very comfortable with those misters on. Probably in the 80's under the pergola??   And - oddly enough - the fine mist kept the flies and yellow jackets away from the baby back ribs and fresh corn on the cob and Hermiston Watermelon.

Daughter is home from Ketchikan for a quick wedding weekend. I'll try to grab her to take pretty photos.  Still gonna be hot tomorrow.

Blessed am I to see  both my kids in one weekend.

Summer Time And The Living Is Easy

I have had a love affair with this exotic canna lily for years. I don't take them out of the pots for the winter and every so often they freeze to mush. I just buy more. I adore their red & ruby striped leaves and then about now, they pop into huge orange blossoms.

This is our back patio with the pergola above and the hanging baskets. We sit out here in the shade (clematis (montana) above), sip our gin & tonics, eat dinners out here.
When we built the house many moons ago, we wanted something beyond the concrete slab. I checked out all the gardening structure books from the library and we had Bill & Ted (our excellent builders!) put up this 'open to the sky' pergola. When the clematis covers it, you don't even get drips on misty rainy days.
There is room for the BBQ, patio table, swing, and, at the time, also room for the kids to ride their bikes past without banging into us.
A great place for entertaining.

This is a hydrangea that jumped into my cart a few years back that is conical in shape. It used to be more ruby red but in my soil, its more white with pink. I need to add something like epsom salts - or whatever(?), to see if I can get the ruby red color back.

Another new flower (dang - forgot name) that is stunning in a patio pot. I have a pink candy striped geranium, ruby diascia, and a coral coleus in there too. Beautiful pot.

Looking towards runway on left, covered blueberry (still producing).
We had some terrific freezes last winter and as a result, no aphids on my stunning fuscia ( pot on bench by the first post).

It's behaving.
I don't know about you, but if I forget to water a fuscia one lousy day, its covered in aphids the next and it's all downhill from there.



This is trio of pots leading up to patio door on left. The sidewalk angles in here.
Need more Cannas!


Probably my favorite hanging basket this year. The peach Million Bells next to the deep purple verbena. Mmmm.

I gave myself permission NOT to have a garden this year. Keeping up with my acre, and my always increasing workload, I decided it was okay that my tomatoes are 'thriving' in their 4" pots.

Left hand side of the patio door.

I like my baskets to last well into the fall, so I make them myself. When you buy an already blooming hanging basket in May, it's already root-bound. This means you have to water it twice a day and its pretty much gone by mid-July. I bought these rubbermaid hanging basket pots over 20 years ago. They have a water reservoir at the bottom - if you forget to water, there's still some by the roots.
On our hot July & August days in the Willamette Valley (very little rain), these pots allow me to water once a day or even, every other day.
Most other plastic pots get brittle under the sun's UV rays.
I change out the soil every year and I use Osmocote or other time-release fertilizer in them.

I'm not one of those people who matchy-match everything. My happy dance revolves around happy accidents. Look at this peppermint impatient and the ruby diascia. There's a deep red coleus in there too but the impatients are keeping him checked.
I buy plants that I like and then put them together but without an overall theme.
I might buy fabric that way too.

A trip of pots containing a Japanese green maple, hanging Ivy geranium basket that never got hung, and the new flowers on the right which I already forgot the name of but have been blooming their heads off since May. and show no signs of stopping.


GEORGE GERSHWIN
– SUMMERTIME LYRICS

Summertime, And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'  And the cotton is high
Oh, Your daddy's rich, And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby, now Don't you cry.

One of these mornings, You're going to rise up singing,
Then you'll spread your wings, And you'll take to the sky.
But until that morning, There's a'nothing can harm you,
With your daddy and mammy,  standing by.