Salvaging a flooded garden

Today my daughter and I went out to re-plant our community garden plot. My son and I planted it first several weeks ago. Unfortunately, we had several bouts of heavy rains, the effects of which were a pond where my plot had been. Things have only just dried out.

Of the seeds we originally sowed, only carrots came up. Of the 24 seedlings started indoors and then planted (which included four varieties of heirloom tomatoes, three varieties of pepper plants, and several basil plants), only a handful of tomatoes have survived, and a few peppers. I say survived, but really, they are barely clinging to life and have not thrived at all. Well, you wouldn't either if you were trying to keep your head above water for two weeks.

We decided this time to plant everything in raised rows and mounds to raise them up out of the floodplain:

The bottom right corner is where the carrots have come up. They're still small. I'm waiting until they're bigger before I do major weeding so I don't accidentally pluck them out with the weeds:

We re-planted the Lima beans. They're a variety called Christmas Limas because the beans have read swirls in them. I started one plant at home in a small pot. We transferred it to the garden and sowed its neighbors directly into the mounded rows:

This is what the previous sowing looked like after the flooding. They never had a chance:

We have water and hoses available to us at the community gardens. But you don't always know how long it will take to untangle someone else's doings:

Here's our plot, all freshly planted. Only about half of the tomato cages on the left still have tomatoes struggling to grow within them.

After working away most of the day at the 'far-away' garden, as we've dubbed it, we came home, put the tools away, and went to enjoy the peony which is currently in bloom (The following is one of only two pictures that I took in this post. The other is the money plant picture at the end. All of the other photos were taken by my daughter.):

I just love it. The flowers are gorgeous. Click on any of the pictures to really see them up close and personal:

A pure delight:

Such beautiful colors coming together:

This little bud is so precious, dusted, I think, with pine pollen:

Ah! What more can I say?:

I am so grateful that I didn't get rid of these bushes several years ago like I had planned. They were scraggly, mixed in with a dying holly and a couple of juniper bushes. I ripped everything out and replaced them with other things, but instead of tossing the peonies, I decided to relocate them. They have thrived in their new home ever since, and I just love them. My white, frilly one will bloom any day now, and I can't wait. But for now, I'll enjoy these beauties:

And for a cool, green contrast, here's a parting shot of a back-lit money plant (aka silver dollar plant). We still have cottonwood fluff floating around and coating everything, as you can see:

Looks like snow - but isn't

We woke up to snow this morning - cottonwood snow. It's really heavy this year, I haven't ever seen quite so much accumulate:

The drifts were a couple of inches deep in our yard:

The cottony fluff gathered on our new rose bushes. Here it is on one of our Princesse de Monaco roses:

It's hard to see it against the soft, bright whiteness of our Honor rose:

It's a good thing the snow isn't real, or these strawberries would be in trouble:

The cottonwood, which is actually in the park next door, still has plenty more where that came from - it's loaded with fluff:

The downy seeds spread out with every breeze:

Our floribunda Gene Boerner isn't immune:

I love the velvety pink of the Gene Boerner:

The flowers are so pretty, even surrounded by cotton fluff:

Here's a bit nestled between the petals of an Honor bloom:

And, of course, our geranium has been catching its fair share of the cottonwood's excess:

I've been out trimming hedges today and I'm covered with the stuff, too.

A study in blueberries

This morning a fog hung over everything in the early hours until the sun rose high enough to burn it away. It left behind some beautiful droplets on our swelling blueberries (click on the pictures for a larger view, then use the back arrow to return to the blog):

The little berrylets sometimes held the drops as though they were little fairy cups:

I've come to learn that blueberry plants vary the color of their bark with the seasons. In all seasons they are a delight to look at. Their colors, aways in hues of greens and reds (and white with the blossoms), are constantly changing. I can't wait 'till I spy some blue!:

Someday this will be a nice little handful of berries:

A sip of morning dew, anyone?:

I hope we get to pick these when they're ripe, and the birds don't get to them first!:

Such beautiful colors:

A delight to look upon:

And the sunshine only makes them prettier:

Finally! Wintergreen!

I've been searching the wilds for wintergreen plants for a couple of years now. I haven't had any luck. This year I broke down and ordered some from a nursery. I placed the order at the end of winter, but they wouldn't ship until this month.

A couple of weeks ago, I was informed by the nursery that their wintergreen wasn't doing very well. I thought that my search for wintergreen would have to continue, but today I received two wintergreen plants in the mail!! They were a smaller size than the ones I ordered, but I was credited the difference in price.

Here is one of my wintergreen plants in its new home, I'm so excited!:

While out snapping pictures of the wintergreen, I noticed that my weigelas are sporting more blossoms than the last time I looked. I have two kinds of weigela - don't ask me what their names are, I don't remember. I just think of them as the light ones and the dark ones.

Here is a sample of the light one with its light, variegated foliage against pretty, dusty-pink flowers:

And here is the darker one, with its bolder foliage and darker blossoms:


I also have a rare cat plant sprouting from a pot on my porch:

Here's a shot of the two weigelas together:

The cat plant is very hardy and this particular variety is dog-resistant:

Happy gardening!

Uh oh, a new neighbor

A new neighbor moved in. I saw him trespassing through my backyard the other day. He may be trouble - for my garden.

My new neighbor is a groundhog. Here are his digs:

This cozy little hole is located next to my yard , dug into the low, privacy hill that acts as a buffer between the park next door and my house.

Great.

Frosty freezies

Boy am I glad I covered my tender little plants last night. We did indeed have a freeze. In my community garden plot we covered 24 little plants with large, plastic party cups. When I went to remove them this morning, I surveyed the few other plots which had already been planted by other gardeners. It's sad to report that those plants were badly frost damaged and I don't think they'll make it.

My tomatoes and peppers and basil are all fine. Those little plastic cups did the trick. I'll have to cover them again this evening - there may be another frost.

I guess I have an advantage in living so close to the community gardens. They're literally a three minute walk away, so I don't have to hop in the car and drive anywhere. It's easy to pop over there to water, or cover things against a frost.

Everything's coming up roses!

My son and my husband and I planted three rose bushes out front. It's been cloudy and rainy, but when the sun came out for a few brief minutes, I sent my son out to take a few photos:


We put them up by the mailbox, behind the lilies. We had to raise the bed a bit for the roses, so I hauled a bunch of stones from the back (left behind by the ice-age glaciers and piled up by the farmer that used to farm these environs) to ring the area and hold in the extra soil.

My son and daughter gave me these two beautiful hanging baskets for Mother's Day. They look so pretty along with my young azaleas:

There is supposed to be a hard freeze tonight, so in honor of Mother's Day, everyone will have to help me cover tender plants in my gardens this evening. Hooray for Mother's Day!

Planting the killer vegetable garden

And what I mean by that, is that planting my vegetables has nearly killed me. I'll feel better soon, though. I popped an Aleve 30 minutes ago.

Phew! Three garden plots planted. My medicinal herb garden went in first, over the weekend. My community gardens plot went in yesterday, with the help of my son. And the plot at the way back of my yard went in today.

Here is my medicinal herb garden. It's in a half-wheel shape with different plants in each of the nine 'spokes' (and something in the half-hub). I have string marking the spokes right now, but the bricks are there for when the plants have grown and the string is gone.:

Each spoke is labeled:

Here's the plot way back in the wild parts of the yard, half in sun, half in shade at this time of day. You can't really make them out, but there are three elderberry bushes way back there, too. My daughter gave them to me for my last birthday:

I don't have a picture of my community garden plot. I'll get one and post it later.

Here are the things I have in the two vegetable gardens. Basically, tomatoes, greens, carrots, potatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers:

The medicinal garden has elecampane, St. John's wort, calendula, holy basil, sage, astragalus, chamomile, evening primrose, and flax (which is just an experiment). And I have a few things in other places, like lavender, and yarrow, and lemon balm, and hyssop, and garlic (for cooking), and I've probably forgotten something or other.

I still have a few things to do, but most of the initial work is done.

Who's making dinner tonight? I'm pooped.

To self-publish, or not to self-publish... Maybe through Kindle?

I'm not riding in the self-publishing bandwagon, but recently on the Galley Cat website, there have been a couple of posts about successful self-published authors. These authors were both self-published using amazon's digital text platform self-publishing tool for kindle. Their stories are interesting and worth a look, you can find J.A. Konrath's story here. And you can find Karen McQuestion's story here.

J.A. Konrath has something like 20 books available through the kindle store and sells something like 800 per day. Crazy, huh?

And Karen McQuestion sells tens of thousands of books per year and is the first kindle self-published author to land a movie deal.

Now, all of that success involved more than just uploading their books to the kindle store and sitting back. Konrath already had a book or two in print and so already had a following, and McQuestion made sure to keep her name, and her books, out there in forums and other venues.

After reading their stories, I decided to try my hand at the kindle self-publishing. Not with my major works, with which I am still going the traditional route and sending queries to agents and keeping my fingers crossed.

But I have two other works that I thought would make good experiments for the kindle platform. One is a short Christmas story. I actually recently turned down a real publishing contract for this story. I don't have an agent (yet) and the publisher was very small and very niche, and the contract was very bad (for me). They wouldn't negotiate, so I didn't sign. But this gave me confidence that this work was good enough to be published, so it has become my first self-published work on kindle. My Twelfth Christmas became available yesterday and I've already sold four! (One to each of my sisters, one to me, and one to my niece *grin*.)

But the experiment will continue. I have another work which was completed fairly recently. It turned out to be novella length and novellas are a hard sell through the traditional route, unless you are already a popular author. So once I've finished with revisions, The Witch of Starmont will be going up for sale on kindle, too.

I'm not that great at self-promotion, but I'll try. Because if you don't tell people about your stuff, no one will ever know it's there. And you want people to know it's there.

One key to high volume sales is low price. My Twelfth Christmas is priced at $0.99, and The Witch of Sarmont will be priced at $1.99. Right now, the royalty structure is such that I get to keep 30% of that.

They also give you an author page on amazon. Mine is still being created, but when it's up, I'll post about it with a link.

Let the experiment commence!

Flowery pictures and a small victory

This is a picture of one of my small victories in the garden (and they are all small, believe me):

It's the bloom of an azalea that was mostly dead at one point. It used to be in my front yard, but it didn't survive its first winter in the spot that I had put it. I guess I should say that it barely survived. I dug the mostly dead thing up and plopped it among the weeds in the wild plot in the back. This is the third year it's been back there, and the second that it has mustered the courage to bloom. The first year it concentrated on just surviving.

Below is a violet among the rocks:

Here are blossoms on one of my four blueberry plants:

Ooh, I can't wait until these become blueberries!:

This is a very small peony bud. It'll get bigger, trust me. And it will seem to take forever, swelling oh-so-slowly until one distant day it will blossom into a frilled and fragrant beauty:

A lone tulip among the silver dollar plants. Don't ask me how it got there, I haven't the foggiest notion:

And my dogwood. It gives me pleasure all year long, even when it's covered in ice and snow instead of blossoms, I admire its shape:

How are things in your neck of the woods?

Accidentally popular - or - 15 minutes of blog fame

A blog for an online publication used a picture from a post on my blog and referenced it back here. The picture is of the scads of violets I had in bloom last year. Now I have scads of people visiting from The Atlantic.

Don't know why I bother...

I've been digging dandelions out of my yard by hand. Just the front yard. The back yard is hopeless.

I'm sore all over now.

I'd take pictures, but I'm not sure I can get my hands to work the camera at this point.

A few days ago when I was doing some work in the back yard, I noticed large shadows passing over me. I looked up, and what did I see? Vultures circling overhead. Okay, maybe I'm a little out of shape, but I'm not that bad.

What doesn't kill you will make you stronger. And just in case, the vultures are there to clean things up.

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Volcanoes and Fringe

This is a NASA satellite image of the volcanic ash plume from the volcano in Iceland:

Hope you weren't planning to fly into or out of Europe or the UK right about now.

And, Gaah! Did anyone watch Fringe last night? That old guy (Peter's father) is such a good actor. Even though I suspected what was in the envelope in the end, it blew me away. He didn't have any memory of talking with the time-jumping man, and there was the sign he was looking for. A while tulip. He looks at the tulip, and then up the stairs after his son.

At the end of the show, I felt like I had just read an extremely satisfying short story. Well done, whoever crafted that script.

My husband and I were talking about the time travel in the show, and he was asking why everyone seemed to jump back in time with the time-jumper man. I told him that everyone didn't, the show was just showing how things changed when the man jumped back. The conversation became a little surreal and I was reminded of a quote that headlined a chapter in a modern physics text (an introduction to quantum theory and mechanics) for a class I was taking once. It said:

"Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on his work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously." - David L. Goodstein (States of Matter, Mineola, New York: Dover Press, 1985)

If you didn't watch Fringe, then I aplogize for all of the above. If you want to watch this episode, go to hulu.com/fringe and then select the episode titled, White Tulip." Or just click here.

Let the Gardening commence

Over the weekend my husband and I tilled up the two garden plots in our back yard. One plot is for herbs and the other is mostly for veggies, but will also have some herbs. This morning I planted some lettuce, spinach, and five-color Swiss chard. They don't mind a bit of cold weather and can be sown early.

I don't have any pictures of either of those plots yet, but I did snap a picture of the community gardens, which are a three minute walk away. I will have a 10' x 20' plot in these gardens this year:


The ugly orange fencing is meant to keep the deer out. There are plenty of other critters around too, voles and rabbits, to name a couple. This is the third year of the community gardens. I walk past them everyday with the dog and over the past two seasons, it looks like the critters have left things alone. I hope this year isn't the year they suddenly discover the fresh veggie stand not five yards from some of their burrows.


My plot is somewhere right in the foreground in the picture below. You can see the old barn from the farm that used to be here in the background. They haven't put up the stakes marking each plot yet, and planting season is still a few weeks off. We have to wait until about mid-May until the last freeze has passed:

Once it's safe to plant, I'll use this plot for veggies.

On the way back to the house from our walk, my daughter and I spotted a little snake. It looks big in the picture, only because it's a zoomed-in shot. The little guy (or gal) was only about the size of a pencil in both circumference and length:

Maybe it'll grow big eating voles and keep them out of my garden.

Gone to the birds

Robins really do have beautiful songs. I don't know why they're not praised more highly. I can hear one singing through my open window right now.

And I can see why Woody Woodpecker was given that laugh. A woodpecker often stops in the trees in my backyard for a laugh. Sometimes my daughter and I laugh back and we get a conversation going.

And red-winged blackbirds? What's not to love there? A lot of them nest in the cattail area in the park next door and often drop by our birdfeeder for a snack. It makes me feel special when they do, I mean, how many people out there attract red-winged blackbirds to their feeders? You have to live in just the right spot.