Sunday Photos: Pretty

Just plain pretty! Enjoy

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Ever since I (Sincerely, Emily) planted larkspur and poppies, they come up in new and different sports around the gardens each year. They surprised me and came up in the vegetable garden 2 seasons ago, and each year some self-seed before I take them out. It is hard to take them out when they are still blooming (the butterflies thank me). So more come up each year. They are pretty!

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My (Alexandra) garden is about to peak. I do a garden party every year and try to judge just when it will hit. I might be a little early this year, but when everything hits that bloom-moment together, pretty just doesn’t say enough.

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What am I going to do with all these green cherry tomatoes?

Summer has been here for a while now in South Texas. Our heat index has been above 100F all week and the vegetable garden is sure showing signs of stress. Heck, I am showing signs of stress and I wilt at the mire thought of stepping outside.

The heat and humidity that we have been experiencing has really set me back with my recovery and my over all breathing. I am still doing well. Going to physical therapy 2-3 times a week. But three weeks ago when our temps started staying in the high 90’s I could barely get through a physical therapy session. We took out all the weights and resistant bands and I just went through the motions and even that was a struggle, so I can understand how those tomato plants must be feeling out there.

The cherry tomatoes plants that my mom planted when she was here in early March have seen better days. They certainly aren’t going to win a beauty contest. Little by little their leaves are drying out and dieing. In the end of July we have our second planting for tomatoes, so on Friday I took some cuttings from the plants and potted them up to get them ready for planting in about month of so.

These cherry tomato plants are still FULL of green cherry tomatoes. Full! Most of them would probably not survive long enough to even start to blush. Besides the heat, I have the birds out there to compete with. They have been out there peeking away. First they started with the ones that started to blush, now they just seem to be peeking anything.

What to do with all those green cherry tomatoes? Well, I filed away an idea that I saw over Nancy post about over at Homesteading in Maine. Dilled Green Cherry Tomatoes! Luckily my brain was working a few days ago and I started picking all the green cherry tomatoes because I was on a mission.

I ended up with 2 quarts, 4 pints and 2 1/2 pints all heading to the refrigerator to sit for four weeks to develop their flavor.  I can’t wait to try them. To me, this is a great way to make use of something that probably wouldn’t make it to maturity and harvest. Instead of ending up in the compost tumbler, it ended up in the refrigerator. my other option was to make green tomato chutney, but I just didn’t have the energy. If some of the tomato plants start looking terrible, I will conjure up the energy and give the green tomato chutney a try. I know I would love it.

What would you do with an abundance of green tomatoes?

Sincerely, Emily

You can see what else I am up to over at Sincerely, Emily. The topics are varied, as I jump around from gardening to sewing to making bread or lotion and many things in between.

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Things to do at 5 a.m.

1. Move to a farm, so there are actually things to do at 5 a.m.

2. Check the garden to see what the rabbits destroyed overnight.

3. Check the weather report at 5 or 6 different sites, to see if they agree.

4. Depending on your mood, believe either the worst or the best of them.

5. Try to go back to bed.

6. See if you can identify how many robins are currently singing.

7. Get up and wander around looking for something to do.

8. Realize if you were a slightly better person you’d wash the dishes you left in the sink last night.

9. Admit that if you were a much better person, you wouldn’t have left the dishes in the sink last night.

10. Discover that early morning talk radio is even more awful than midday talk radio.

11. Go back to bed

12. And NPR’s not much better.

13. Decide that the basement is still too creepy at this hour to go and fold the laundry.

14. Absolutely, positively DO NOT CHECK YOUR EMAIL, for pity’s sake, you are pathetic.

15. Check your email

16. Realize that if you brush your teeth, it means you’re not going back to bed.

17. Brush your teeth.

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Sunday Photos: Sky

Look up!    Sky

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I (Sincerely, Emily) dug back into my photos to find some good sky photos.

Sudeley Castle July 2012 (England)

SAS Shoe Factory – San Antonio, Texas

This is more typical of our summer sky’s. Clear, Blue and full of heat!

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I (Alexandra) grew up in Philadelphia, where I didn’t really think about the sky. Between the hills, the trees, and the buildings, you couldn’t really see it. Moving to the prairie in my early teens felt like coming home. When living in the mountains in college, I missed the sky more than anything else. I think it’s why I need to live by the lake.

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What does the sky mean to you?

 

 

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Weeds: some good and some bad

I have invited and openly welcomed quite a few weeds into our yard over the past 5 years. A few of my friends shake their heads and can’t quite figure out why I would get so excited about weeds. You know, things like dandelions (taraxacum officinale) and lambsquarter (chenopodium album), or plantain (Plantago major) and purslane (Portulaca oleracea), and those are just a few of the edible and useable weeds I get excited about growing on purpose.

lambsquarter

Then there is straggler daisy (calyptocarpus vialis). I did a post on it over on my personal blog this past week. There are a lot of mixed reviews on it in my area. Some LOVE it, others absolutely HATE it. That is one weed I wasn’t sure about when we moved here, but then again, it was spreading all through every garden and choking out other things. Once I got it out of the garden areas and started planting the herbs and natives I wanted I was much happier. It took a lot of work to get it out of the places I didn’t want it, but I do like it in my yard. It is a great ground cover.

Straggler Daisy

One weed we struggle with is the Coastal Sandspur (Cenchrus spinifex Cav.) That is one weed I could do without completely.

Some of the other “weeds” that make up our yard I have spent some time identifying… others, I have not taken the time to figure out yet.

An assortment of “weeds” – lambsquarter, henbit, larkspur, thistle and poppy

It is always interesting to see what pops up each year. It is amazing how much it can vary. One year we may have a particularly pesky weed and some very pretty flowering ones and the year after there are new things out there.

Some years I have to pick my battles with things I really don’t want out there. I haven’t come up with a great way to get rid of the coastal sandspurs, other than hand digging them.

Where do you draw the line? What weeds do you embrace?

Sincerely, Emily

You can see what else I am up to over at Sincerely, Emily. The topics are varied, as I jump around from gardening to sewing to making bread or lotion and many things in between.

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Are we having fun yet?

Things he now has to do for himself:

Make the bed

Wash the dishes

Write a budget

Call friends

Pay taxes

Balance the checkbook

Go grocery shopping

Cook

Dust

Vacuum

Find a plumber (and an electrician)

Plan entertainment

Water the plants

What would you hate having to learn how to do, or do without, if the housekeeper your spouse wasn’t around anymore?

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Sunday photos: Rain

Easterners, are you sick of all the rain yet? Just remember last year, when we went 4 months without a drop.

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Here in Chicago I (Xan) actually couldn’t ask for a better rain schedule– it’s been a reliable 1-2 inches per week since mid April. I’ve barely had to water at all. Now if we could just get some warmth…

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Down here is South Texas we are seeing more rain than we have in years. Some areas to the west and South of San Antonio really got dumped on again Thursday and Friday…. all of it has managed to miss my yard (Sincerely, Emily.)

On May 24th & 25th we managed to get over 10″ – that is a lot of water….

Nope, not going to get out of the neighborhood that way.

We were unable to get out of our neighborhood for a while. we didn’t “need” to get anywhere, so that was fine.

No way out here either!

Things are dry here in our yard, so I have been back to watering. Storms keep popping up all around us, they just dissipate over our house (it seems) then build back up and continue on… I am glad someone is getting the rain in our area.

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Are some of you doing rain dances to bring the rain in or send it away?

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Planning ahead – Trees and Plants

The entire East line of our property (300′) is full of cedar (Juniper) trees. They are wonderful because they help keep the morning sun off our house and that helps to keep things cooler for a while. They offer shade for some of the herb and flower gardens from the morning sun. They provide habitat for the variety of birds that live in our area. They also provide shade for the clothes line, because the hot Texas sun will fade our clothes rather quickly otherwise.

Chinese Pistache (Pistacia chinensis)

Around here, you will hear a lot of people say that the cedar (Juniper) are invasive. You will also hear them say the steal water for other trees and plants. Well, an invasive (to me) is an opportunist. It takes advantage of areas and will continue to grow and produce seedlings if the conditions are right. Back in the day when buffalo roamed our area, there were not a  lot of cedar (Juniper) trees. The buffalo hoof traffic kept the cedar trees under control. Since the buffalo don’t roam here anymore the cedar trees have taken advantage of the situation and now grow everywhere.

I am not sure if the cedar trees steal water from other plants, I do know that when it rains an inch, that all the leaves living on the tree soak up that water before it hits the ground. After that inch of rain, it is completely dry underneath the cedar trees. So, if that is “stealing,” then I guess they do.

As the trees get taller and older, the bottom branches die off.  Around our house, we have worked at trimming them off as they do that. The last few years we have noticed that more and more of the cedar are dieing and we find ourselves trying to come up with a plan to plant other trees amongst them to start growing and replace the cedars as they die.

You’ve probably heard the question, ” when is the best time to plant a tree?”…… answer: 10 years ago. Nothing grows real fast here, so had we been on top of this 5 years ago we would be that much more ahead of this game now. Well, we are not, so the best time to plant a tree for us is NOW.

We have four Chinese Pistache (Pistacia chinensis) in our yard. They are very established and are wonderful. One of them produced a lot of babies last year so I dug up several and potted them up to get them growing and last fall we planted four of them in the ground and they are doing really well. This spring I was able to dig up more seedlings and we will get them planted this fall. We also have a Vitex (also known as Chaste tree & VERY deer resistant) that is growing in the clump of cedar in the front yard. It does not get enough sun so it is rather leggy and scraggly, but we have taken out three cedars that were around it and it is starting to look a lot healthier now. Last Spring I found two babies under it and potted those up to get established. Last fall we planted those up near the front of the property line so that as we take out more cedar they will be growing up and provide us with some replacement trees and privacy.

This is an ongoing process. I am not able to head out with the chainsaw and trim cedar limbs or take down tress right now, so we are doing it as my husband has time. Normally, I would load the truck and take all the cuttings to the recycle place, but I just can’t do that yet either.

Several weeks ago my husband went on a trimming spree and we had 4 truck loads of cuttings that he took to recycle. On one of his trips he brought back a load of mulch. I had a plan to start planting more in the front section of our lot near the street and had picked up another Vitex and several ornamental grasses to go with a few agave babies from our neighbor. My husband dug holes and I helped him plant everything. Then I put out the paper feed sacks and we (he) covered that all with mulch. It is doing well.

You can see the area of cedar in our front yard and a few more dead trees that need to come out. You can also see the Vitex blooming (light pink) in the background.

I have plans to create some sort of berm using some of the tree trimming and cover it with dirt and plant on and around it, but that is really going to have to wait until I am completely recovered so I can take that on myself.

My husband is really starting to see the urgency of getting other things planted as he starts to see how many of our cedar are dieing. I am grateful that he has had the time to help with the trimming and planting to move things along. It is an ongoing project, but it is nice to see some progress and some things taking shape.

Are you working on any yard projects?

Sincerely, Emily

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Sunday Photos: Pretty !!

Take time to slow down. Enjoy the beauty around you. Reflect. Smile.

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Pretty comes is many shapes. Pretty comes in many colors. Here are a few things growing in my (Sincerely, Emily) gardens and yard.

The flower from Salsify (root vegetable)

Englemann Daisy (engelmannia pinnatifida)

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This is the prettiest spring garden I’ve had in years. My “Narnia” bed in particular is a gorgeous mix of iris and columbine, with creeping thyme and alpine strawberries creating a fragrant carpet.

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What did you see today that made you stop, and say, “pretty!”

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Step back and breathe

I was talking to one of my best friends a few days ago.  We were talking about tough things that have recently happen in our lives and how we are handling them. I was reflecting on how hard the hot summers are on me here, and how they wipe out a lot of my energy. As they drag on, my mood gets worse because I am unable to do a lot outside and feel like I am not accomplishing anything.

We were talking about my recent health issues and how well I am handling everything. I was initially super frustrated as I started realizing how many things I could not do, but once I wrapped my brain around my condition, I realized that there was only so much I could do and just needed to slow down. I had no choice but to slow down. I told my friend that since I could mentally acknowledge my physical limitations I have had a much easier time acknowledging the pace at which things will (or will not) get done. I am at peace with that.

The temperatures here are now into the 90’s and there has been some humidity with that. I have taken a huge step backwards in my stamina and energy. I know it is the heat, but it is still frustrating.  I have also started physical therapy to help increase my lung capacity and endurance. That is helping, but there is still a long road of recovery ahead of me. If I think about the amount of work I used to do outside and where I am now, I would estimate I am possibly at 40%. It is really hard to put a number on that. When I got out of the hospital I could only walk at a snail’s pace and just walking across a room was challenge. I am able to walk a bit faster than that now (and talk at the same time), but it is still slow. I am doing some tasks in the yard, but I do get out of breathe fast and just stop and rest. I have chairs placed all over the backyard so I have a place to sit and rest when I need to.

When I am feeling a little frustrated, I just take a look around the yard, or even in the house, and I realize that I have so much to be thankful for. When I am having a hard time figuring out what the heck I have accomplished today, yesterday, last week – again, I just look around and realized that I have accomplished so much. There is always more to accomplish. There is always more to do, but if I just step back and breathe, things look a little better.

Do you have to take a step back and breathe every now and then?

Sincerely, Emily

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