Outside Christmas Decorations

Last weekend when we were up at condo I admired how they just covered all the beds with evergreen boughs, stuck in white sicks, red beads and whallah the beds were dressed for the season. So yesterday when I was wishing I could do something outside I decided to go find stuff to decorate mine with at Hoerr nursery. And basically they had the same stuff. Exactly. I would have like to been a little different but really it was all the exact same. So ok it's better than another nap on the futon with a seed catalog.

I especially got a kick out of the last photo framed by the lovely camper. By the time, Pat gets that back to Dr. Miles family it'll be summer again. lol.

Then I had also noticed up at the Botanical Gardens this past weekend they had all of their roses pruned down and covered with mulch/bark/peat looking mixture. So I pruned back the roses today. Probably still not down as much as at CBG but all my heart could bear.

My rose pruned. Good thing I didn't prune down farther as later I found out only tea roses need the harsh pruning. The double knock out's recommend pruning to 12 to 18 inches once a year usually late winter. Shoot. I'm early but hopefully it'll work out. 

First of the Month---Check Chores Due

http://awaytogarden.com/my-december-2012-garden-chores

My other plan is to use this blog's list of montly chores to stay on top of the garden. I think most of it is done but this well help me make sure. Need a garden calendar for sure. I have started one on outlook and have a different version on every computer I use so that's no good.

Ok so I figured out how to upload prior garden events to my new Google Calendar for Gardening!

https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/naqlo7tpkkunaclq59a0uo00qg%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Now to add it to the sidebar of this blog.

Check out the lawn chairs! Grow your own!

Serenity in the Garden: Green Walls, Vertical Meadows and Lawn Furniture

End of the Month Garden Views

Here's the first installment of end of the month garden views. I figure November and December won't be too exciting with their muted colors and brown forms but if I get in the habit now maybe I'll remember to catch the garden year round.

Japanese Maple holding court with 6 mums.

Around he mailbox some beautiful colors still exist dusted with frost.




The Chocolate Chip Bugleweed (Ajuga Reptans) is not just drought tolerant
 but beautiful after the frost.

Ornamenal Kale dusted with frost.

Ornamental kale

Curly moss parsley frosted

Rosegarden and sage

Rockgarden under leaf blanket and Mugo pine hopefully just dormant.

Clematis produces one last bloom.

Hi!

Hoop house covers lettuce and spinach that's about 3" tall.

It's still up in the air if these Brussells sprouts will be edible.

Fall after frost still some beauty

For some reason I coud ony label the first pictures and arrange on page. Ugggggggggh. So I'm  posting but I'll have to try and format later. Is this the flakiness Jean of which you spoke?

New Vegan Brussel Sprouts Recipe

So I had to improvise since none of my vegan recipes for Brussels sprouts seemed well fancy enough for Thanksgiving. We had our Thanksgiving with Joe and his girlfriend Dez today. So I did a version from the bacon days using Smart Bacon. And it was shockingly good.

2 lbs. Brussels sprouts, ends cut off and halved, parboiled
6 strips of smart bacon fried, crumbled
3 T of olive oil (I'd change to 2 T next time)
2 T Maple Syrup
1 T Bragg's Aminos (like soy sauce)
1/2 c Pine Nuts

In case you didn't notice (I fail to see the directions that include cooking in the ingredients all the time so I'll repeat here):
1. Cut ends off Brussels sprouts then cut in half. Boil water. Parboil for 3 minutes. Drain in colander.
2. Fry bacon and crumble.
3. Added 1 T of olive oil to bacon since this was tofu bacon and it wasn't quite crispy enough to crumble.
4. Mix up remaining olive oil, syrup and Aminos. Add that, Brussels sprouts and pine nuts to a large bowl.
5. Decided I overdid the oil so before they soaked up the oil from the bacon I poured that out and mixed it into bowl and then put on cookie sheet. Heated up oven to 350 degrees and spread on cookie sheet and again drained off excess oil and roasted for 30 minutes.
It was delicious this way but I think if you decreased the oil to 2T total or even 1 and 1/2 then I think I would try sauteing in the pan to get that nice golden color on the sprouts. I also thought later Craisins would have also tasted good in this mixture.

Amid the white fly infestation

I used store bought sprouts because I didn't have enough in garden to for sure feed 7 people. Really ended up being just right for 4 people that like a generous amount of sprouts (since I should have known the kids wouldn't eat them). Like an American portion not what you get at June. (NOT dishing on June, as I believe they're portions are healthier and keep any of the tastes from overpowering the others).

June is an amazing restaurant in Peoria if anyone outside of Peoria IL ever reads this.
http://www.junerestaurant.com/
My favorite place to go on Birthday or Valentine's day if in Peoria.

Themes for Ongoing Blog and MICE a link in the Lyme Chain!!!!

Reading a lot of other garden blog's and seems many follow various themes to their posts through out the month. One that is probably great idea is end of the month photo's of the entire garden/long shots to get an overview of how it looks through out the year. So I'll definitely start doing that. So that would mean I need to do an "End of the Month View - November 2012" here really soon.

I've been also following "A Way to Garden. Com" and she does monthly chores on a calendar. I'm more into following and trying to do those then keeping track of my own since I tend to putter. If I did a calendar for others as a guide. It'd be a lesson in ADHD for sure.

Monday dumped scraps in compost, decided to flip it but needed new place to put it. Looked for material to use. Noticed shovel and didn't finish turning over asparagus bed so finished that. Put shovel away in garage. Done!

Hey something got done. Give me a break!

Another great idea for a post 2013 Garden Resolutions. I wrote a few of those on top of my seed list.

Also Garden Clean Up to Reduce Pests for 2013 Garden thanks again to Awaytogarden.com! Turns out the reason my Butternut survived (the only vine that did) even the pumpkin succumbed to the squash bug was butternut is resistant. My new favorite squash!!! Another pest issue I was unaware of and was celebrating early today but forgot another reason why it's important. Ding Dong the mouse is finally dead. After a year of cohabitation we finally killed our house mouse. And then guess what I find out. Mice are a link in the Lyme Disease Chain! HOLY SCHMOLY!!!!!

Rick Ostfeld, a senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, has written a book on Lyme disease ecology…

“Ticks survive well when they feed on a mouse because mice are not apparently very fastidious – they don’t groom very effectively.  So ticks that end up on a mouse tend to survive the experience – they get their full blood meal.  So that’s one way that mice are bad.  The other main way is that mice are the source of infection for the ticks.  The ticks are born free of infection with the Lyme pathogen, and these ticks have to get it somewhere, and the main place they get it in nature is from white-footed mice.”

I may have to have Ame's cat Bruce Lee come over and patrol the place or at least sniff around and make sure there aren't more mice somewhere. It's hard to believe one mouse lead a bachelor's life here. 

Ok got a little off course there so I need to post a monthly series of shots of garden. Might do that eventually on my other site if we ever start remodeling again! Also 2013 Garden Resolutions. I'm working on a calendar to track when to plant by the time specified by mainly Botanical Interests and it's intersection with the Moon's guidance via the Almanac. I'm sure many will scoff at the Almanac but last year was predicted to be a bad year, barren for many, and I had my best year yet. And I planted according to the MacDonald's Almanac as given to me by Mrs. Marilyn Sturtevant. Thank you Marilyn! So if I can make a calendar that's worthwhile and figure out how to link to it here I will. Meanwhile just adding a monthly picture review and chores ought to keep this busy and some format. oooooooooooh it's cold outside time to get under the covers!

2012 Seeds Left

Plant	Seed Company	# Seeds Left	Germination	Transplant	Production
Achillea-The pearl	Burpee	unopened
Aesclepius-Butterfly weed	Burpee	unopened
Alyssum-Royal Carpet	Burpee	unopened
Amaranth-Love lies bleeding	Botanical Interests	lots	good	died before transplanting didn't restart
Arugula-Rocket Salad	Botanical Interests	lots	good	good	good
Basil-Purple Petra	Botanical Interests	0*	good	poor	0
Basil-Siam Queen	Burpee	unopened
Basil-Sweet Basil	Burpee Organic	0*x2	good	good	good
Bean Pole-Ky Wonder	Botanical Interests	half	good	direct sow
Borage	Park Seed	some	good	good	good
Broccoli Raab-Spring	Burpee	lots	good	good	good
Broccoli-Romanesco	Burpee	0*	good	good	0
Broccoli-Waltham	Botanical Interests	lots	good	great	0
Brussel Sprouts-Rubine	Territorial Seeds	lots	good	good	so-so
Burpee-Baby Choi	Burpee	lots	poor	direct sow	none
Cantelope-Hale's best	Botanical Interests	lots	good	great	few
Carrot-Carnival Blend	Botanical Interests	some	good	good	great
Chives-Common	Burpee	lots	good	good	good
Cilantro-Sabor	Botanical Interests	unopened
Cucumber-Homemade Pickles	Botanical Interests	few	good	good	good
Cucumber-Straight Eight	Burpee	few	good	good	great
Dianthus-Ipswich Pinks	Burpee	unopened
Dill-Fernleaf	Burpee	some	good	good	good
Eggplant-Blackbeauty	Botanical Interests	lots	forgot to sow
Fennel-Florence bulb	Burpee	unopened
Fennel-Herb, Bronze or Green
Flax-Blue	Botanical Interests	full	poor
Grass-Blue Fescue	Burpee	5	ok	ok	fair
Gypsophila-Baby's breath	Burpee	unopened
Hot pepper-Pepperoncini	Burpee	lots	unsure
Kale-Dinosaur
Kale-Red Winter	Botanical Interests	lots	great	direct sow	great
Kale-Redbor Hybrid	Territorial Seeds	lots	good	good	great
Lavendar-English Tall	Botanical Interests	0	none even after stratification
Leeks-King Richard	Botanical Interests	2 pkts	great	great	great
Lemon Balm	Botanical Interests	lots	good	fair	poor
Lettuce-Buttercrunch	Botanical Interests	unopened
Lettuce-Mesclun	Botanical Interests	0*	great	direct sow	great
Lobelia-Cascade of Color	Botanical Interests	few	good	good	good
Lobelia-Crystal palace	Botanical Interests	0	good	good	1/2
Mustard-Mizuna	Botanical Interests	0	great	direct sow	great
Mustard-Red Giant	Burpee	few	great	direct sow	great
Nasturtium-Jewel Blend	Botanical Interests	0	good	direct sow	great
Okra-Clemson spineless	Plantation products	few	good	good	great
Onion-Flat of Italy	Botanical Interests	0	good	very few	0
Onion-Flat of Italy	Botanical Interests	lots	poor
Onion-Red bunching	Botanical Interests	few	unsure
Onion-Ringmaster white	Botanical Interests	0	good	very few	0
Onion-Yellow granex	Botanical Interests	0	poor	none	0
Parsley-Extra curled moss	Burpee	unopened
Parsley-Flat leaf	Ferry-Morse	some	good	good	good
Parsley-Moss curled	Martha Stewart	lots	good	good	great
Pepper-Chile Anaheim	Botanical Interests	few	great	great	great
Pumpkin-JackO'Lantern	Botanical Interests	lots	good	great	few
Rutabaga-Amer. Purple top	Botanical Interests	lots	good	good	not sure
Spinach-Monstreux de Viroflay	Botanical Interests	1/2 packet	great	direct sow	great
Squash-Crookneck	Burpee 2011	lots	great	great	great
Squash-Patty Pan	Botanical Interests	10	great	fair and direct	good
Squash-Straightneck	Burpee 2011	lots	great	great	great
Squash-Zucchini
Stock	Botanical Interests	some	good	good	great
Sunflower-Mammoth	Botanical Interests	0*	poor	direct sow	1
Sunflower-Teddy	Ferry-Morse	0	poor	direct sow	0
Sweet Pepper-California wonder	Burpee	few	good	great	good
Swiss chard-Ruby red	Botanical Interests	2 pkts	good	good	great
Tomato-Black sea man	Hinterland Trading	few	good	mouse at seedlings
Tomato-Brandywine Pink	Burpee	lots	good	good	good
Tomato-Cherokee Purple
Tomato-Mortgage lifter	Burpee	few	good	mouse ate seedlings
Tomato-Osaka
Tomato-Roma	Ferry-Morse	few	good	mouse ate seedlings

* mouse or vole ate seed packets too!

Attempting to Get Organized Early!

This year I am getting a jump on things early and also rethinking some of my garden layout. I want to expand into front side yard some but without fencing it in since we haven't even finished the fence on North side of backyard yet. Plus I promised my husband I wouldn't erect one like the people in Canada. I thought their garden was great but they also had no backyard so they had no choice but to go all front.

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/07/authorities-seek-to-destroy-couples.html

 I'm more  interested in an ornamental/edible garden in front on the side of the driveway that we share with neighbors. They moved in last year and thought the garden was beautiful so hoping to see how they feel about more in front. I have a feeling they'll be easier to convince then Pat!

So anyway that's a ways off. Meanwhile I have gone through my seeds from last year(s) and put into spreadsheet and started selecting what I need to order and from where. I'd like to share what I have so far if I can figure out how to embed a excel spreadsheet. I can at least show some ideas I'm playing around with in www.growveg.com.

My new Japanese maple....

My new Japanese maple...., a photo by tridoc927 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
I love these trees. So excited I visited this tree so many times and finally bought it and another weeping one and a tiger eyes sumac. I hear music when I look at it. I am a bit obsessed I guess.

http://twopeasinapoddesigns.com/

http://twopeasinapoddesigns.com/
Sounds like her family is doing much of the same stuff I'm trying to do! She even called their home and garden a ranchette! I should perhaps change my other blog to Renovate my Ranchette!

Purslane gone wild



Purslane with beautiful flowers

This plant is trying to crowd out most of the succulents so I cut half of it off the plant and thought well looks like a good time to eat some purslane. A couple times I thought surely all the varieties are edible right? That was 2 weeks ago and no ill effects so should be ok. I added some to a Butternut squash soup when it called for peas I didn't have. I also made a purslane pesto. Yum.

 

I had no idea it was edible til it came in a CSA order. I thought wow this looks a lot like a weed in my garden.  Funny thing, I then tried to save the purslane that sprouted up but transplant it all to one corner. Didn't live after transplant. How can a weed/plant so able to live in a crack in sidewalk fail when I moved it? Too good of soil I guess. Because it sure thrived in the rock garden.

 

From another blog I found this on purslane that was quite reassuring:

Serenity in the Garden: The Magnificent Purslane - Edible Landscaping at i...: What was one of Mahatma Gandhi's favorite foods? and what did Henry Thoreau eat while residing at Walden Pond? PURSLANE . Purslane, lo...

Thoreau wrote of Purslane:

"I have made a satisfactory dinner off a dish of purslane which I gathered and boiled. Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not from want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries."

IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR Mahatma Gandhi and Henry Thoreau it's good enough for me!


Bonnie meet Brussell, Brussell Bonnie

Here's the picture I was talking about....


Rylie and Brussell, the sprout.
 

But as you know this year they'll be PURPLE!!!!!

If it's not raining in am, I'll post a new picture of them.


Very Early Frost after very early spring!

Well we dropped to freezing every night this past weekend and I covered or brought in most of it but missed the basil which now looks bad.

Oh how I hate to leave my garden.....

Chicago Botanical Gardens Return Trip

I was so excited to return and take pictures but again I forgot a better camera. So these were all taken with my phone which I suppose takes a pretty good picture afterall. Especially when my best photo ever I couldn't reproduce again if I tried. I love looking at pictures I take but it's more for me so if I ever hope to entertain more people I guess I need a photography class at the least.

So look at this beautiful Butterfly Bush. WOW!!!

Butterfly Bush... DARK KNIGHT

Espalier Plum Tree

Espalier Pear

Espalier Apple

Espalier oh Espalier.... can't recall what kind.

Next year I'll plant beets like this for Pat!

Cabbage and Snow White Alyssum. I have expected to see a cabbage patch baby in such a beautiful bed.

 

Brambles

Autumn Crocus

 I have many more to upload. Just can't find the time.

Oh no not the winter squash too!

Unfortunately I dug around the summer squash and I think I found the culprit. Squash bug.

 

If you aren't familiar with them by this name maybe you have heard of stink bugs. Yuck!

 

Apparently they prefer squash but can take out cucumber and melon as well. So there we have it.

 

Sad kale

Even the kale looks bad.

Oooooooooo h pretty roses

Wait til Ian sees how good my Russian Sage looks! He's going to be jealous.

Russian Sage and Red Double Knock Out Roses
 

Brussel sprouts

These are if to good start!



I realize not easy to see.

They're about index finger end size. So they're coming along, some will be ready by November, Bonnie!