Garden Promises

I have to tell you I just haven't had a lot of ambition to do anything inside the house lately, including writing long winded blog posts so I've been cheating and just posting a lot of pictures and short commentaries. I promise I'll go back to boring you with all kinds of stories once the weather stops being so nice...seriously, it's been hot hot hot and more hot with a few short little rain showers in between, which my garden is lovin, let's have a tour and see what promises it is giving me;

The Zucchini are making some pretty big promises.....we'll see.

There is a promise of a pumpkin pie

The very first red tomato promised to be delicious .......

and was.

The rest were nobby and not perfect but yet so delicious. 

Delicious very time.

yup.... I never get tired of fresh tomatoes.

and promises of more.....

promises of tomato sauce, tomato soup, tomato juice and salsa

Promises of some split pea soup

Beans and squash aren't making any promises yet.....I'm watching closely.

The celery is promising to be amazing if I just had the heart to cut it...it's so beautiful I don't want to.

This squash is promising to make it to the top of the arbor but isn't actaully promsiing any squash yet, oh well I guess you can't have it all.

The strawberries promised me many many strawberries and then only gave me a handful, and now they are again promising me many many, how many times will I fall for these tricks? I've been courting them all summer and soon they better put out or get out of this 4x8 bed that could be used by something more productive. 

The beets, have fulfilled all promises, they are beautiful, juicy, healthy from top to bottom and have kept me peeing red all summer. 

The poor beans, I couldn't protect them from the grasshoppers, I fought a hard battle with the garden hose and the pasty flour, but yet, they are still promising beans. 

The raspberries seem to be holding out on me......not making any promises. 

I promised to have have more relaxing Sundays.....and I did (once)

The cucumbers are still promising to get on top of the  Nasturtiums, and I promised to throw that rag on the line out...opps

There was promises of rain.....and it rained.

That's it, that's all I have for you this week. I promise I'll have more next week. 

Whats on the wash line today?

I went to my mother's a few days ago and she asked me if I needed a rug for my front door. I actually do need a rug for my front door. She showed me a rug laying on a chair and I wasn't really interested in it but underneath it was a very familiar rug that really caught my eye. One from my past, way back when, when I was a kid this rug was always in front of our door. "oh my, are you giving this away?" I asked. No, she said "I would like to throw it in the garbage". I'm shocked, she was going to throw away one of my memories. How could she even think of throwing it away? I snatched it up as if I had just rescued a lost puppy, I had saved a memory from the trash. I put it in my car safe and sound vowing that this rug would sit in front of my door for the rest of my life. Let me tell you about the rug;

The rug on the left is my rescued memory rug

My mother was recycling way before recycling was cool, she was crafting way before it was cool. Do you remember pantyhose?

Pantyhose was something that a lady in my mother's generation wore everyday and they never got thrown in the garbage regardless of how many snags and runs they had. First they were patched with clear nail polish....do you remember this? Then eventually they were saved to make rugs. She cut them into long thin strips and then sewed all the strips together, making 3 strips and then she made one long long braid, then sewed the braid together into a round rug (by hand). After awhile the rug didn't want to lie flat so she completely ripped it apart, unbraided it and crocheted the long strips into a rug. It is just a single crochet with an increase at the each end. This rug has got to be at least 30 years old, well used and only has a few small holes in it. It is my new treasure. This makes me wonder if I will end up (or maybe have already) throwing something out that my child will think of as a great treasure. Funny how different things spark fond memories in some but not in others. I look around my home and wonder what could be a wonderful memory for my child, and would it mean anything to me? Is it my old toaster, is it my fruit bowl, or my tea cup, is it a certain pillow case or a chipped saucer? Who knows. I'm not usually very hasty to throw stuff away but I really think this rag could go in the trash as soon as it is dried, what do you think? It used to be a dishcloth and then it became a rag, I had not realized in what shape it was in until I took a step back to admire my laundry hanging on the line (like I always do) I never get tired of looking at the laundry on the line, it is always a beautiful sight (except for that one sad rag) I promise once it's dry I will throw it away.

Can you believe I went to the trouble of washing and hanging this rag to dry?

Almost forgot a garden shot

They are here!

I did it, I snooped under a potato plant and found beautiful, baby potatoes. So new, fresh and perfect. So perfect that you need only hose off with the garden hose and plop them in the pot. I slightly sauteed some Swiss chard and garlic in olive oil, sliced the boiled potatoes on top, topped with some onion greens, a dollop of butter and little thick cream. Served with the first baby beets and a spoonful of farm fresh egg salad. My first perfect garden meal this summer, I would like to eat this everyday. This is my favorite way of eating potatoes, in Canada that is, the Mexican potato is a ubberly delicious as well. 

You know you're a redneck when.......

A friend stopped by my house the other day and asked if I could help her get her lawn mower to the repair shop with ol’Blue (my truck) , I looked at her a little sheepishly with my head down, you see ol’ Blue was a bit indisposed at the moment.  A few weeks ago I had hauled home some manure home for my gardens because I have learned that you can just never have enough manure. I didn’t clean the box of the truck out very well after I was done, leaving some manure in the grooves in the floor and in the corners, and then it rained. Apparently when they built ol’Blue way back in 1986 they didn’t put drainage holes in the floors and so the box filled with water, and water and manure mixed together makes manure tea, otherwise known as gardeners gold....or at least that is what I call it. As soon as I drive out of my driveway and get to level ground all the tea will pour out of the crack at the bottom of the tailgate spilling it all over the street....my manure tea wasted on the pavement....can’t have that. So I have not driven it saving the tea to water my plants as needed, but since it rained I haven’t had to water a lot and so there sits ol’ Blue in the driveway with a box of manure tea, too precious to be wasted. I had planned on making some manure tea in a big garbage can but just had not gotten around to it yet, the rain did it for me.

The beautiful manure tea

Whats new in the garden you ask?

2 1 jar of pesto in the freezer, ate one already

The cucumbers are climbing the willow teepees, and are blooming

The first second bowl of Saskatoons

The pumpkin is moving upwards, have I mentioned how much I love creeping, crawling and vining plants.....I love love love them

The peas, onions and Nasturtiums are getting very very friendly, I worry about my onions, they don't seem to be getting very big onions

Here is a surprise, I had one little runty Nasturtium left and decide to fill a space between 2 cucumbers, this is now the  biggest Nasturtium in the whole garden, the cucumbers, which you can't see now are going to have to start climbing up or get smothered.

Patiently waiting for the first red tomato

The greenhouse jungle of peppers and tomatoes

The watermelon and Marigold have married and have become one

The grapes are so tiny I had to zooooooom in real close, I think I will set the table with the finest china when I sit down to eat these 9 grapes, it will certainly be an event

Here is a shot of the ugly garden bed, the Raspberries. Last year I planted Raspberries but forgot to water them (I know, so dumb) so in the spring I got some from a friend and tried again and they died as well, so a week ago I got some more and they are not looking so good. I wanted to create a privacy hedge with them against my chainlink fence. At this rate it will take years. 

Pathetic Raspberries

Potatoes are in bloom, I have resisted all week to check underneath for tiny little fresh potatoes, perhaps this week I'll have a peek

Wild mint picked at the golf course, I dry it and make tea with it. 

The most beautiful lilies I have ever had. 

The green fence is creeping, soon the squash will help it out

Rain, another attack, and a tart

It rained, finally. We got 1 1/2 inches over 24 hours. It was very welcomed and we could have even used more. I came home from work soaked but I didn't care, I could almost watch my garden grow.

Some of my tomatoes have huge flowers on them, my labeling system failed me (again) so I don't know what is what, I planted a few different kinds of tomatoes. Any type of pen or marker either gets faded by the sun or washed away when watering. 

There is hope for strawberries, more than anything I want to have a bowl of strawberries and cream every evening.

Celery has been voted "most improved" this year. I was so disappointed last year that I only planted a few this year and  someone gave me the tip of tying the leave up and the stalks will get bigger....it worked. Now I am sorry I didn't plant more.

Peas are blooming

I believe the watermelon has just figured out that the string is his ladder, the little Marigold that just grew voluntarily is trying to be his friend but I'm afraid that it's going to get smothered soon. 

The pea fence filling in nicely, the peas were starting to get way too friendly with the onions in the row in front of them so I had to interfere a bit and guide the peas to the net. I have to keep an eye on those peas.

Basil coming alone......there will be pesto in my freezer this fall

The front yard potato patch is looking good, apparently. I need to plant more next year, I see some empty space. 

Liesl over at http://nestinground.blogspot.com/ posted a delicious picture of her blackberry tart so I used her idea and made a rhubarb and Saskatoon torte and had enough dough left over to make a little pie for my neighbor. This is so simple and easy and there are no rules, use whatever fruit you wish, make it sweet or not, use nuts or not, use coconut or not, use your imagination or not.....just follow Liesl's recipe if you're afraid to venture alone. 

It was good for breakfast this morning.

I recently learned that you can freeze pesto, so today I will be making some pesto. I picked the basil this morning, do I ever love picking herbs in my garden, it makes me feel so French.

Now to report on the bad news, once again there was an attack. This time my peppers were the victim. It seems somebody cut off the stalks, falling them to the ground, it was a clean cut making me suspect the cut worm. I lost 3 peppers plants over 3 days, of course when the first one fell I thought maybe it was an isolated incident and after the second one I thought "surely he is done now", it wasn't until after the 3rd one that rage set in and I started goggling the problem. The solution appeared very easy, little cardboard collars for the plants. Seemed to easy to be real, but I tried. I figured if cardboard didn't work I would use 2 inch PVC pipe. But it's been 4 days now and no more attacks.

The fallen peppers

Cardboard collars

There may be one more casualty, one of my cherry trees never did anything after I transplanted it, it didn't get any new leaves, or bloom, for the longest time it didn't loose a leaf either but now it has lost all it's little leaves and looks very sad, like a few sticks in the ground. I talked to the lady at the greenhouse where I bought it and she said to leave it alone and it might just perk up yet. If by next spring this is no improvement she would give me another one. So I wait and watch, and hope. Isn't that what gardening is all about? Waiting, watching and hoping.

But it's Sunday and I must go now and eat tart and fresh buns and butter.....oh, I baked buns too but forgot to take a picture.