First Day of Winter 2014

Today is the Winter Solstice.  Guess what that means?  Tomorrow the days start getting longer!  Yippee!!!  This has been a weird Fall/Winter season so far.  A couple of days after my last post (in November) we got a foot of snow.  Yes a foot, and I have no pictures to prove it.  It wasn't forecast to drop that much snow and I think we were all in shock.  I distinctly remember hearing the weather person that morning.  It shouldn't be much more than a dusting.  It took 40 minutes to make a 10 minute drive to work.  Yuck.

Anyway, December has been pretty mild so far here in Northern Indiana.  It's 43 degrees out and somewhat sunny.  And there is no snow on the ground.  We've had a few flakes, but nothing much the whole month.  My violas are still hanging in there though.

I've never had any violas last much past the middle of summer, so these are record setting plants!  I'm afraid if I try and bring them inside to over-winter they'll die right away.

The garden is still covered with plastic.  I think the only thing I'm accomplishing  is creating a greenhouse for the weeds!

I'm really amazed that the plastic has stayed down.  We've had several windy days and I haven't added any additional weights to the edges.  If it doesn't work, it no big deal. It's just something I had to try before I go totally nuclear on the weeds.  :)

We use our maple leaves as mulch on the perennial beds.  Plus I feel much more ambitious in the early Spring than I am in the Fall.

You can tell how washed out the sunshine is in these pictures.  Not that I'm complaining, mind you.  I'll take this weather on December 21st any time.

Here is my meager outside Christmas decorations this year.  Both light strands that I wind through the rose bushes (yes, they are strong enough!) failed to light up.  So I'll be hitting some after Christmas sales, if there is anything left.

They both look really cool lit up.  The lights do a kind of slow twinkle on the bear and the lights on the train wheels make it look like it's moving.  Definitely needs something else, another animal or figure.

Just want to take a minute to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Amid all the shopping frenzy (I'm done!) and the fancy lights, remember the true meaning of the holiday.  Jesus Christ our Savior was born in Bethlehem in a manger.  God Bless everyone!

Permacloud Season

Yes, folks, the permacloud has settled upon Northern Indiana.  We won't see the sun again until around the middle of April.  Okay, that's not entirely true, but it's not that far off either.  Fall and Winter kind of meld all together under a gray sky.  We might see weak sunlight a few times over the coming months, but not enough to dispel the gloom and doom.  Well, that might be a tad melodramatic, but you get my drift.

For instance, we decided to head north to our favorite long weekend destination, Grand Rapids, Michigan.  It's only two hours away and we had never been there in the Fall.  Plus the turning leaves were at peak color.  And they were spectacular this year.  The only problem...gray sky and drizzle. We didn't get to Meijer Gardens because of the weather.  But we did find a walking trail close to the hotel which turned out to be just as spectacular.

It was a 1.25 mile trail with a creek running right beside it.  And oddly enough, the gray sky made the colors even better.

The paved path took us by a park, a school and a cemetery.  We even saw two wild turkeys run in front of us.    And lots of ducks!

They were really tame, as you can imagine.  They watched everybody that walked by, looking to see if they were bringing them some food.

Someone was even using the scenery along the trail for their senior pictures.  What a backdrop!



This past weekend, while the weather was fairly nice, I finished cleaning up the few pots that I hadn't put away yet.

Well, I did leave these two to fend for themselves.  And the snapdragons are still going strong.

 I also dragged the ladder out  and cleaned the wet, yucky leaves out of the gutters.  But I did find something a little unusual this year.

Yes, some squirrel is probably very unhappy today.  I found his secret stash!  Why did he put them in the gutter and where did they come from?



Also, tomorrow is Veteran's Day.  Please make sure you take the time and thank any and all veterans for their service.  We wouldn't have the freedoms we do today if it weren't for the men and women who fight for our great country.    It might just dispel the permacloud for one day.

Today is the first of October?

Wow, where did the month of September go?  Fall is upon us and I've barely started the garden clean up.  To be fair, all the flowers are looking pretty darn good.  And the vegetable garden has been cleaned up  for nearly a month.  I was so thoroughly disgusted this year, I couldn't wait to be done with it.  I started with the tomatoes one night after dinner.  I just started picking what fruit was left on the plants.  And then I ripped them out.

The picture is kind of hard to see, but that one bowl of tomatoes and five trash bags represent 14 plants.  Pitiful.  Two days later, I went and did the same thing to the peppers.

This is even more sad.  That one bag has 21 plants in it!  It's a good thing I have extra hot sauce and chopped peppers in the freezer from last year.  To be fair, I was able to put 10 quarts of tomatoes in the freezer, so it wasn't a complete wash out.  And I didn't do a complete devastation of the garden until this past weekend.  The zinnias were just too amazing to tear them out right away.  I always put several of the State Fair variety of zinnias in with the veggies.  They bring in lots of pollinators!

They had such nice big, vibrant blooms this year!

And my Money Plant just keeps getting better.  It loves the garden!

Maybe I should just grow zinnias in my veggie garden, this pile is only 12 plants!

As you can see from the corner of the last picture, I have covered the majority of the garden with plastic.  What I'm trying to do is called soil solarization.  The idea is to super heat the soil up to kill off the weed seeds.

There was quite the debate online between clear plastic and black plastic.  I could have spent days reading through all the comments.  So, instead  I chose a slightly opaque clear plastic, only because is was cheap and I could get it at the neighborhood box store.  They're just 10' x 20' painting drop cloths.  I did have to cut a couple, but I only had to buy 4 of them.  If it works, great!  If not, I'm only out 12 bucks. Now watch, we won't have any sun at all until next June!


All is not bad news in the veggie world.  The hubby's ghost peppers are doing just fine!

I see lots of chili in our future!

The Fruits of My Labor (Day)

Alas, Summer is just about over.  Labor Day weekend is upon us and I have a rare 3 day weekend. So after wasting one day doing errands and watching football (Go Irish!) and the rain, I felt I needed to be a little more industrious on Sunday.  '

With the ground nicely saturated, I braved the 100% humidity (and I'm not exaggerating) and tackled the weed situation in the garden.  An hour and a half later, I had a bumper crop!

See how nice and neat it looks in the background!  Normally, I have lots of pictures of tomatoes and peppers.  Nope.  I have put away 10 quarts of tomatoes and made as small batch of hot sauce (less than a quart) with jalapenos. We haven't really cooked with too many tomatoes either.  Still no green peppers!

The zinnias are spectacular this year.  The variety I always buy are called State Fair Zinnias. A neighbor walking by commented on them the other day.  I even caught an busy bee in the act on them.

My favorite zinnia this year is this cream colored one.  I haven't seen this color in quite some time.

Lots of reds, oranges and light and dark pink this year with a little bit of yellow here and there.  I put a row of zinnias along the back of the garden in addition to the middle.

I hope every has a nice relaxing day off for Labor Day, because it's back to work tomorrow!  As for me, I think I will head out side and tackle the flower beds.

It never ends!

The Tomatoes Are Ready, The Tomatoes Are Ready!

Yippee! I've picked about a dozen tomatoes so far.  It's kind of weird having all roma tomatoes, but they taste really good.  Had our first BLT's for supper already.

And, yes, the weeds are back!  You know what I'll be doing this weekend.

I think my green peppers are depressed.  There might be one or two blooms out of six plants.  Or maybe I'm depressed because they were so good last year.

The cayenne and jalapeno peppers are doing well!

The habanero's haven't started turning orange yet though.

The zinnia's are looking fabulous, better than last year.

They even add an extra zip of color here on the side.

Yes, more ghost peppers.  Not that we've used all the sauce from last year's batch.

And these just make me happy!  Petunias and Snapdragons.

But not as happy as my tomatoes!   I wonder what tomato dish I will fix tomorrow......decisions, decisions. 

Lots of Color

Summer is speeding along.  It's the middle of July already!  The weeds in the garden are finally semi under control.  The flower beds....not so much.  But I've got pictures of them anyway, if nothing else, to shame me into cleaning them up!

The clematis finally decided to join the party and bloom this year.

The Invincibelle hydrangea has just about taken over this end of the flower bed.

It's kind of hard to see but I think the Diamond Frost Euphorbia is my favorite new filler for pots!

The Impatiens really like it in this strawberry pot.

The new patio pots are filling in.

The take over of the Purple Cone Flowers is just about complete!

While their orange cousins seem to be fighting the weeds trying to take over this flower bed.

This is were I put all the extra plants I had this year.  As you can tell, I still have no mulch!

I do have to whine about one little thing.  I usually buy a mixture of tomatoes for the garden.  This year, I decided to just buy one variety of tomato.  I chose the Celebrity variety because it always does well in our garden.  I bought 12 plants.  Look closely at the picture below.

The plant marker clearly says Celebrity and shows round tomatoes, but those are Roma tomatoes.  All 12 plants are Roma tomatoes!  Looks like I'll be making lots of juice this year.

After the Vacation

Had a great, relaxing week of vacation.  Went to North Carolina and did the tourist thing.  I made sure all the flower beds and the garden were in good shape before I left.  We pull in the driveway and things are all in bloom!  Then I looked a little closer.  The bane of my existence....Weeds!  We had had tons of rain while we were gone and the weeds took full advantage.

This is the end of the garden that is all pepper plants.  These crazy weeds are actually taller than some of the plants.  Below is what the tomatoes look like.

Very sad.  The weed is predominantly purslane.  And you can't just hoe the garden to get rid of it.  It is a succulent and any part of the plant that you leave laying on the ground is a new plant.  You hoe it into pieces and it's that many new plants.  So it's manual labor around the plants and in the rows.  It took three hours to weed just the peppers.  I'm still working on the tomatoes...between rain drops!  All the rain does make for easy pulling.

There were still a few roses blooming last week.

Both the pink and blue delphiniums are still blooming.

And the day lilies that had to endure being crushed by road construction equipment several times last fall are even going crazy.  That's a flower bed that needs lots of work.  The rock that they were planted around is now outside of the bed. (At least they didn't take it away!)

By the way, if you see anything like this in your garden...take immediate action!  It is an EVIL weed!!