Farm Report, Obit And Happy Flowers...

Things are looking bleak for my 'good day' cucumbers. We are on our 27th day of + 100 F. heat and most days there has been at least a 5 to 10 m.p.h. wind to further dry things out. I tried to make sure that I was getting both the 'good day and bad day' plants the same amount of water but the way the 'good day' plants have faded I must have miscalculated. I'm still gonna pour the water to the 'good day' to see if I can bring it back because the first cuke that Carol found was very good flavor, not at all bitter and Carol is the connoisseur of cucumbers in this house. I enjoy them in salads but I don't have the discernment of flavors like Carol.
This poor brown twig is my wigelia. It couldn't withstand the heat. It is a first year plant, it even flowered for me but it was one the tail end of where our sprinkler range was and it got even less water than the good day cucumber, and this was the result of me being down or having doctor's appointments and not checking every day. Needless to say I repaired the cut hose and now can get water to the far end of the back yard but I'm afraid I'm too late for this youngster.





Now here are the 'bad day' plants. There are two of them that came up as opposed to three 'good day' plants and these are going nuts. They got more water due to the hose being okay where they were but I'm amazed at how many blooms and babies cukes are loaded on these two plants. So, Tipper, while my experiment with planting by the signs was flawed this year due to my health problems but hopefully if you do another experiment next year you will keep me in mind... after all, you got me back to blogging and I can't thank you enough for that.


The flowers on one of the bad day plants. The leaves are mostly looking good. There are a few burned up leaves but for the most part it is holding up good.

Be sure to drop by Tipper's blog, Blind Pig And The Acorn, to explore how other intrepid gardeners have done with their experiment. There's always good stories, good music and recipes.







The white cone flowers are loving the heat.













As are the pink cone flowers...
















The plumbago and the yellow and white lantana are enjoying the heat.


















I love the blue with the yellow and white...














And, of course, the sunflowers are loving the sun and the heat.

You know I'm not loving the heat. I have trouble dealing with it so I stay in most of the day. I go out and move the sprinkler around and go back in the house. Then later in the evening I do hand watering if it's needed. Carol gets up way earlier than I do and she goes out and waters early in the morning so that is probably why we've managed to keep the things alive that we've kept alive so we are a pretty good tag team when it comes to gardening. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this Sunday stroll. Come back and visit anytime.

It's Farm Report Time Again...

As you know, Tipper over at The Blind Pig And The Acorn is having another planting by the signs experiment. It's cucumbers this year in case you missed my first post.

Let's give the 'bad' day cucumbers a chance to be first for once. There are two plants that made it and are starting to grow pretty good despite being planted on the 'bad' day. I fight to keep the grass away so each time I go out I weed out a bit more. Don't want grass to get the water for the cucs now.




These are the 'good' day cucs. There are three and of the three there is one that is especially vigorous. They are sending out tendrils to climb the pickets and the plants themselves are about twice the size of the 'bad' day plants. I'm fighting the encroaching grass here also. It would help me out if we weren't having 100F. weather on a daily basis. Four of the last five days have been 100 F. or higher. That means it only cools at night to the high 70's of low 80's and since I'm one of those late sleepers it's pretty much hot and I only stay out a bit at a time.

The 'good' day plants are loading up with blooms. I'm looking forward to fresh cucumbers before long...














I found one almost bloom on one of the 'bad' day plants. It's in the center bottom third of this picture. Just to the right of the finger tip below my thumb... I won't tease anyone who doesn't see it but I will try to duplicate the photo when it is open so you can see where it is. I almost missed it and I was there, touching the plant!


For the fun of it I'm going to share pictures of some of the other stuff on our little piece of the world.





A sunflower Carol planted from seeds is just getting ready to share it's beauty with the world...














Two types of Mexican Blanket flowers. The big ones are new to us. The smaller pink ones we've grown before but the new ones are big in comparison.















This is a joyous little yellow flower in the coreopsis family.... I don't remember it's given name I just know it makes me smile... a lot.












This plumbago has proven to be just a delightful plant. It's light blue blooms seem to love the heat as long as it gets it's drink of water. We planted it close to a couple of yellow and white lantana and they look so good together. Again, please ignore the grass. We are working on it.










Here's the neighbor of the plumbago. This plant and one like it almost didn't make it through the first of the heat waves... but thankfully we were able to pour enough water to them because they are now blooming their little stems off. It's wonderful.









Last but not least for this post anyway... gotta have some red flowers here and there to brighten up my life. This lantana is such a wonderful color next to the green leaves.

I don't think I'll ever give up the fight to get back to my old self as long as I can walk out in my yard and see colors like all of these that lighten my heart.

Being in a garden is about as close as I think you can get to being next to God.

I'm Not Dead...

I'm just not alive but I'm working on it. I hate depression and fighting it gets more difficult as I get older.

Now that that is out of the way... I have been doing something besides vegging on FaceBook playing games. I planted a small garden...

Here are some potatoes and onions. We've already started eating on the onions, some sweet whites that I don't know the name of but they sure are good.



Baby jalapenos. I love the flavor and spiciness of jalapenos. I'm hoping that the docs figure out what is going on with my belly so that I can eat more of them without worrying about them jumping on my last pain nerve inside. I used to be able to eat them anytime, no worries, but the last six months it has been a crapshoot.








Bell peppers... one of Carol's favorite veggies. She loves green bell peppers. I like all of the bells and think all of them have very distinct flavor, the reds, yellows and orange as well the green.

We have also planted four tomato plants and Carol planted some squash and green beans in the infamous yellow tubs that we had such good luck with in the past. I went from almost three acres to play and plant on year before last to last year's large garden at my cousin's to this year.

A small garden, little what I call "pocket gardens", raised beds, and our tubs. I can't say as I mind having less space to tend as it has been very hot already in Oklahoma and it's not even legally summer yet.

These raised beds I made a couple of months ago with 2X4's that I had bought to build a picket fence around the front part of the trailer to match the one I built off the back door side of the trailer. The management said I couldn't put fence all the way around our trailer so we have a couple of raised beds. I'll be nice and not tell you what I think about that decision.

You can see a bit of the picket fence in this picture of the sunflowers that Carol planted in a little pocket garden spot. You can also see the ramp I built for Chloe to the back porch. She has been having some problems with the steps, the shorter in stride they are the harder it is for her to get up them. She is in good health still so I did for her what I hope someone will do for me someday... made her life a little easier. I do get teased for it by my family, but they love me despite my peculiarities where my pups are concerned.


One of our neighbors, when we moved into this trailer park, was a tree cutter/trimmer. We got a bunch of pine stumps and used them on the front porch side to make a little barrier to have a place to stash the shovels, rakes and hoe or to sit and take a break without being right out by the cars. We started a bit of a shade garden since the trees in our front are volunteers that were never properly ripped out or tended to. And there had to be a flamingo for me.




This small, long flower bed is on the east side of our lot. You can see the two volunteer trees and the stump and the stump barrier on the right. This area is our front and side yard. The good thing is not much area to mow and by this time next year we hopefully will have even less to mow. Carol and I are both proponents of the English style garden where all the yard is flowers and plants. Carol because she loves the flowers and me because I don't like to mow behind a push mower, power or otherwise, and the property is really not big enough for our rider.

This little plant got me to get the camera out to go on this little tour of the plantation. I didn't know that hens and chick type succulents had flower spikes with little blooms on them. This is as full open as I've seen these little blooms. I don't know if they open like a little flower or if this is the only way they grow. I figured if I hadn't seen bloom spikes like these there was probably some other gardener out there that hadn't seen anything like them either.






This other little bloomer I hadn't seen before either. It's another simple succulent that is in the same container as the previous photo. Maybe the copper from the pot gives them some type of mineral or something that encourages the little ones to bloom... who knows?.

I just know that these kind of surprises give me hope that tomorrow will be better. Sometimes the least little things give us hope that the sun will shine again inside us.



This photo is just 'cause I liked it and wanted to share.

Keep me in your prayers, okay?

Tomorrow... a farm report on this years seed trial. Thanks to Tipper at the Blind Pig and The Acorn I'm doing this year's planting by the signs. We are doing cucumbers this year and I'll be posting my first report tomorrow.

Everywhere…

You’ve seen a lot of here through my posts of the past and I’ve shown you quite a bit of there through the last few posts. I’m having trouble finding the rest of the photos I wanted to wind up there with so now we are going to everywhere so you can see the blank slate that I am starting with… This is a rental home so I won’t be able to be as comfortable in doing any radical creativity but I can certainly make the place feel more like a home.

Here we go…

The house is on a corner and has this fourteen foot wall in the front yard. I’m already planning on what I’m going to do out here.

There are a few neglected and older shrubs along the about 3 foot wide bed that goes along the walk heading up to the front door.

then the walk is right along the house to the nook where you find the front door. This is looking north to the stockade fence. The shrub on the right is a rose of sharon that was there when we rented. Our rose of sharon that I’ll be bringing is younger and shorter and I will plant it closer to the brick pillar.

This is a crepe myrtle and there is one planted on either side of the drive way and you know that something else is going to be planted in there so it doesn’t look so plain.

This is looking up the side yard from another gate in the stockade fencing. I love the fence, SueSue doesn’t. She can’t see what’s going on in her world except for the occasional squirrel that drops into the yard, the she is on a mission to get that critter. Being the ornery and lazy woman that I am, I’m going to start feeding the birds AND the squirrels. After I need some entertainment to lighten my day occasionally, too. And if she catches one and kills it, I know how to skin them and fry them. I’m not too worried about that happening, because while Suess is fast she is not quite bright. She runs straight at them and you know squirrels can twist and turn on a dime…

This is the back yard. It is pretty large which the girls love, except with the stockade fence they can’t keep track of what all might be going on in their corner of the world.

This is the side of the house that the front is on, just the other side of the fence.

As I do my planting thing, I will take pictures along but I must tell you that Carol’s sister has her ideas about how we should plant the place. She, besides being rapid cycling bi-polar, has got to be ocd as much as she likes and needs order in her life.

She likes things in a row, I like things the flow. When I got to the house I took my babies out and looked around. When I saw a number of plants all along the back fence all in a row and almost exact distance apart. I just got my shovel out of the truck and started working on them… even as boring as she like it. Carol and I have lived together for so long that she know that there is method to my madness and whatever I do usually comes out somewhat unusual. And usually she loves what I do even if I do things somewhat with odd combinations that I enjoy trying odd colors and/or textures. So I know that while I will keep as many plants alive as I can, this will be essentially a plain, basic garden because the riots of color and shapes of a garden that Carol and I both enjoy is like raucous noise to her sister.

So as I get things planted and growing I’ll keep you posted but for right now, besides my life being bland, I’m so exhausted from the moving that I probably won’t be a very interesting blogger. And if I don’t live through this move I just want to say thanks to all of you who have become my friends through this wonderful blogging medium.

Tired To Tears Thursday…

I finally got hooked back up to the internet and it’s cable, not satellite, praise the Lord. But I’m so dog-assed tired I can’t even think so this will be a flowers I left behind in Bartlesville post.

This iris I dug up and brought with me. It blooms spring and fall.

This is one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken. The red trumpet vine I planted along the back fence grew around a dead tree stump that grew up around the fence so I just left it there. I like the contrast of textures.

Joseph’s Coat Rose. One of the few roses I’ve ever had any luck with so therefore also my favorite.

This is the climbing Joseph’s coat rose, the one I took the individual rose shot from.

This beautiful Jackamani Clematis was growing on the property line with the people that lived in the house just east of us. They were kind enough to let us claim it and care for it.

We had columbine in the shadiest part of the rock garden in the front yard.

This beautiful clematis was white with the most delicate pink stripes going down the petals.

When we move to this house in ‘95 there was a square of cement out toward the N.E. part of the back yard. It took a long time before it dawned on me that whomever had lived there before had a big satellite dish. I decided to plant wisteria there because it was strong enough to support it as it got older.

Wisteria blossoms just starting to bust open.

More wisteria a few days later in full bloom. It had the most beautiful scent.

Lilac… beautiful old fashioned lilac and what a wonderful smell.

lilac blooms in the shade.

And more lilac.

Sand cherry bush. I loved the contrasting colors.

Hosta “Freedom” if I remember correctly.

Ferns just beginning to greet the world. These plants were fascinating to watch unfurl in the spring

This is one of several irises that we brought back from one of our trips to Minnesota. We actually went to the farm where they were grown and picked out the ones we wanted. The gentleman also grew hostas and had some gorgeous varieties that we drooled over. The fellow said it was okay to drool as they were down in there water that year.

Mmmm, weigelia. This beauty was one of my favorite bushes.Sand cherry that we brought back from Minnesota. Beautiful coloring.

This dark iris was just about read to unfurl and show off it’s beauty but I loved the look of it at this stage.

I have no freaking clue at the moment what this flower is called. I planted it in our front yard water/rock garden but I've slept since then and don't remember it's name... which also happens with people... a lot.

This was another Minnesota iris.

More red trumpet vine.And one final iris.

Be patient with me and I’ll soon be back to stories. I’m so exhausted and still have much to move but don’t give up on me.

I get this move out of the way and my body and brain rested I’ll be back to the same old me…