Bloomin' Lovely!

We had such a rainy, cold late spring. As a result, those flowers which would have been in bloom in mid to late June are in bloom now. On the plus side, they are huge and lush due to all the rain. Here's a morning walkabout (well, really, not all that much walking, just around the front porch!)

The delphiniums are just starting to open. Absolutely, heavenly, iridescently blue!!

This is a luscious weigela shrub (sorry, I'd have to look up the precise kind) beside a spiderwort plant.

These sweet little self-seeding dianthus usually don't amount to much, but this year they are putting on quite a show. (Kind of makes me think I need to water more!)

I've had this stachys (big betony) for years, but this is one of its best displays.

The Siberian iris has now faded, as has the lilac tree in the background. Everything else is filling in really well. We have split rail fencing in front of this front garden.

The cranesbill around the bottom of the Norway Spruce has become the perfect ground cover. The bird bath in front of it has two fake metal birds. No other birds use it, although the cat has sat in it occasionally.

Peonies beside the steps. Their scent is heavenly.

Lighter pink dianthus with hostas which exploded this year (again, I'd have to look up what type of hostas these are - once upon a time I knew all my plants - Latin names included, not so anymore).

Well, there you have a July 3rd garden. I'm off to the dentist - yippy.

Not pretty, but good.

That's kind of a theme in my life - not pretty, but good.
Case in point, my cooking. I'm a pretty good cook, but my presentation will never win any awards. I wouldn't place first in a fall fair competition, but what I make is usually pretty tasty.

Today, for instance, I decided to make a pie with the ridiculous amount of strawberries and rhubarb I still have (tired of hearing about that yet?). I made my usual strawberry / rhubarb custard pie. If I had made my own pastry, it likely would have been a little bit pieced together, repairs made with a smear of a wet fingertip. It wouldn't have mattered because the pie filling would have hidden any ripped or repaired sections. Not pretty, but good. Today it was frozen pie crust time. I always have a little extra filling which I put in these little baking dishes. The kids call them "mini pies". Thank goodness I set everything on a cookie sheet (which, by the way is not shiny and silver, but permanently darkened and stained). The filling oozed out over one side (because my oven is not level because our floor in our very old home is not level - not pretty, but good).

The pie tin I used (well, actually just put the aluminum foil pie plate inside of it) is very old - came from my mom, I think. Not pretty, but good. (the pie plate, I mean)

The little 'mini pie' is in something that is pretty. This little baking dish is from a set, all very matchy, various sizes of baking dishes. The set was a gift (I never would have bought that for myself) from my mother-in-law when she was somewhat addicted to the Home Shopping Channel. Thoughtful, though, and I have used them.

Tonight for supper, I made use of some of the bulk purchased peppers and zucchini. At my store, they offer a product called, "Naturally Imperfect" from No Name. It's great - you save money by buying produce that has slight blemishes or are not picture perfect in shape or size. Not pretty, but good. I bought the zucchini that way. I turned a couple of them into zucchini boats and I made stuffed peppers as well. No recipe - just a throw-together ground beef mixture much like meatloaf inside of the peppers and zucchini.

See my crumpled up tin foil to keep the pepper upright? Not pretty, but good.

One of my chickens' names is Lacy. She was named that because she was so pretty with a lot of white feathers mixed in with her brown feathers making her appear "lacy" around her neck. Well, she ended up being quite the favourite of our twice-as-big rooster and many of her feathers were (permanently??) broken off and worn away. She is truly the rattiest looking chicken I've ever seen, but she faithfully lays an egg every day. Not pretty, but good.

And to wrap up the theme (tired of it yet?), here is a picture of Scooter-the-cat-with-no-tail who once had truly the most magnificent, glorious tail ever seen on a cat, lounging on son's used car which also has a few little less than perfect features but is a hell of a fun first car for a young adult male.

 I quite like my less than perfect life - it's good.

Jammin'

Bought some new small jars, bought some Certo, bought a boatload of sugar...

Lots of strawberries to wash and hull.

This is what my world looked like.

Cooking up the jam (and the sugar, lemon juice, certo)

Jars of strawberry jam - so pretty on the windowsill.

Strawberry / Rhubarb jam. This might be the first time I've made this. I had to do something with all that rhubarb - but it barely made a dent in it.

I'll make one more batch of just plain strawberry jam then freeze the rest of the berries that don't get used up in some other way. I love this time of year.

The Last Day

I am officially done another year of school (cue Alice Cooper). What will I do now? Garden and other yard work, read, visit family, try out some new recipes, organize some stuff, clean out some stuff, read some more...

It's been a good year for strawberries with lots of rain at the right time.

Tomorrow I want to start making jam. I do love homemade strawberry jam!

Here are some pictures of the new hens. The black and white ones are Barred Rocks and the white ones are Columbian Rocks. I have three of each.

This is a long weekend in Canada (Canada Day is July 1st). We currently don't have any plans, but that may change.

And I Just Washed Those Pants!

So, there I was, still in my "work clothes", squatting down in my chicken coop. The next few moments didn't go well.

Let me back up. I have six new birds (yes, I know, I'm officially done acquiring chickens now). They are very pretty, but as I did with the other new birds, they are in cages getting used to seeing the other hens and vise versa. My large cage is not large enough for all six birds, so four of them are in there and two are in a large cat cage. Everyone has food and water, but my chicken anxiety was getting to me, as I worried that the cat cage wasn't quite big enough for the two hens. (Even though I realize that most chickens spend their lives in very tiny cages with barely enough room to turn around).

So daughter came with me. She was going to open up the big cage while I grabbed one of the hens out of the cat cage and put it in the bigger cage. I reached in and immediately got pecked. That was my fault, I wasn't ready to grab her quickly. So I repositioned myself, hunkered down, reached in, and wham! She really pecked me, surprised me, and I tipped back, fell back on my arse end, smacked against the feeder, and "exclaimed" a rich combination of words. I wasn't hurt, but honestly, I just washed those pants. Light tan colour, I was hoping to get a couple more wears out of them. But no, now I had spots of blood on them from where I was pecked on my hand and a little something else from where I made contact with a mixture of wood shavings and chicken manure!!

In the end, I concluded that the two hens in the large cat cage are doing just fine and I'll be letting them out tomorrow. I'm also not particularly worried about how they'll be able to take care of themselves with the other chickens.

My pants are currently in the washing machine.

Awwww!

When walking around this morning with husband, I spied this teeny tiny egg on the front walkway. It is intact but I have no idea from what kind of bird it came. It is definitely not a robin egg because is it much smaller than a robin egg and is not a solid blue colour. There are little darker speckles, but just at one end. The picture below shows the egg beside a regular teaspoon to give you an idea of its size.

The colour of the egg isn't quite so bright whitish blue as the picture makes it out to be.

Here it is, enlarged. You can see the speckles. Any southern Ontario bird oficionado out there who knows what kind of bird laid this?

I am taking a water and rest break from clearing out a completely overgrown, grass infested part of a perennial bed. It is up against the garage wall and currently contains "ground phlox", daylilies, hollyhocks, obedient plant (disobedient plant!!) and that very tall yellow flower that I never really know the name of. I want to dig every single living thing out of there. It also houses a huge ant hill. Then I will plant some nice flowering shrubs (maybe weigela or hydrangea, a bit of hosta??) and lay down landscape fabric and mulch, and then create a nice path in front of that to cut through the garden to our gravel driveway in front of the garage doors. I just happened to pick the hottest day we've had so far to do it. NOT complaining!! Bring on summer!

"Life Changing" Gardening Tips

I'm being sarcastic with the title of the post of course. The news feed that comes up on my computer often has headings that profess life changing food choices or makeup tips or kitchen cleaning strategies. Not sure they are life changing. Sometimes they are remotely interesting. Most of the time I don't bother clicking on them.

So, if you clicked on this, these are just some handy dandy tips, showing you a couple of things I've been doing over the years when planting large pots / planters / urns. You likely are already doing them, but just in case you aren't, here you go:

The first tip will help keep the soil in your pot, and keep your porch or deck or patio from being a bit messy. Your pot likely has a drainage hole in the bottom. It's necessary so your plants don't get waterlogged. But sometimes the water carries a lot of soil out the bottom, too. I keep a package of coffee filters with my gardening supplies.

Before putting the potting soil in the container, just place a coffee filter in the bottom. It still allows water drainage, but keeps your soil in your pot, not on your patio.

Handy Dandy tip number two:
If you are planting a large planter, you really don't need to fill the whole thing with potting soil. Most annuals have roots that don't need much more than several inches of room below them for their roots. Why use a huge bag of premium potting soil when the depth isn't necessary? Instead, fill some of that space at the bottom of the pot with something else.

I save large plastic containers for a variety of reasons. Husband uses them in the shop for storage, or for paint. I use the lids in my classroom for little paint trays. In this case, just use empty plastic containers with the proper fitting lids.

I was able to fit three containers in the bottom of each planter. I likely could have fit in more! They fill up a decent amount of space, don't add any weight, and can be reused again after you empty the planter out at the end of the season. Just put your potting soil in over top (and in the spaces in between), plant your flowers, and watch them grow. This year I've used mostly sweet potato vine (I like the light green kind), geraniums and coleus.

One last hint - I stole this one from a local greenhouse owner and heck of a funny guy. He fertilizes his pots and hanging plants at home once a week on Fridays. He calls it fertilizer Friday. I use the blue powdered fertilizer that you just mix with water. It makes a big difference with how big and lush your flowers are. Fertilizer Friday - an easy way to remember to take care of your planters.

Today was lovely and warm and felt like summer. Oh happy day!