Pickin' peas!

We picked three quarts of peas after work this afternoon!

Wishful thinking on a Wednesday morning

All I want to do is stay home and sit on my deck and sip a mug of peppermint and lemon verbena tea and read a book and dig in the dirt and look at my flowers and smile at the hummingbirds buzzing around and watch my tomatoes grow.

I love my house.

Alas, off I go to work.  Pesky job.


'Doone Valley' thyme

Garden 6.14.15

First of all, LOOK!  Tomatoes are starting!  These are the first two baby 'maters, on the Black Krim plant that I bought as a plant rather than starting from seed (because I didn't start my seeds soon enough and I was impatient for tomatoes and I won't make that mistake again.).  The Amish Paste tomato (bought as a plant) also has two babies on it, and the Oregon Spring and Mortgage Lifter tomatoes that I started from seed are blooming!



I didn't check the Tomato Annex today, but when I was there on Friday a couple of those plants were blooming as well.  Watering over there is on my list for tomorrow, so I'll get the full scoop then.

Also of note is the beginning of onion bulbification.  Not much yet, but the stems are enormous and they are definitely starting to swell.  I wish I could remember what variety of onion these are-"Yellow" is all I know.



And Yay! The peas have started!



So many peas coming!  These are sugar snaps, not snow peas, and we're trying very hard to restrain ourselves from eating them all before they fully plump up. The ones we sneaked at the very edge of being ready have been delicious.  Peas just taste like spring.



Strawberries taste like summer, and Emma is always out there foraging.



Other newsworthy items around the yard include the blooming Penstemon barbatus 'Rubycunda' in the half barrel on the deck.  This is such a pretty flower, and I saw calliope and black-chinned hummingbirds visiting it this morning.



The red penstemon looks very nice with the marigolds.



In the front flower bed the columbines have pretty much gone by, but the daylilies are about to start blooming and the foxgloves opened this week, including this spectacularly deformed one.  This is a peloric flower, and while I've seen this several times in orchids, it's apparently also fairly common in foxgloves.  All the parts of the flower are trying to be the lip.



The bed along the east side of the driveway has red roses,



White roses (which sadly, are not very fragrant),



and one beautiful orange iris.



The west side of the driveway has a giant mound of blooming thyme, much-beloved by bees.



And now... back to the backyard for some overview shots.  These are the three original half barrels:

• The back barrel has a threadleaf coreopsis, a 'Crazy Daisy' shasta daisy, a common thyme, and marigolds.
• The middle barrel has the penstemon, catnip, a black petunia, marigolds, and a 'Batik' iris.
• The front barrel has snapdragons, alyssum, lemongrass, and a random clove of garlic that sprouted in my kitchen.  I think I also stuck some nasturtium seeds in there last week.
• The blue ceramic pot in the back has lily-of-the-valley.

This is the container garden along the edge of the deck.  The long edge hasn't changed; front to back there's lemon thyme, Freecycle peppermint, Freecycle lemon balm, rosemary, and oregano.  Then there's the strawberry jar, the pansy box with stargazer lilies (the pansies are almost done due to heat), and the curly willow with the very pretty little 'Doone Valley' thyme in full bloom.



I think I put nasturtium seeds in the rosemary and oregano, too. I also pinned six stems of the lemon thyme to the soil with rocks to propagate it by layering.  I peeked this morning, and they are rooted!  The peppermint stand in the second box was whacked back by half this week, to be dried for tea.  Yum!  It's extremely prolific.

Then we go around the corner of the deck for more herbs. 



Starting at the back next to the curly willow, there are shallow bowls of cilantro, parsley, and dill, and my ginger and turmeric rhizomes.  The ginger is sprouting from four eyes. No sign of activity on the turmeric yet.

The light green pots have a bush cucumber (back small), sweet mint (front small), lemon verbena (back large), and pineapple sage (front large). The orange pot is the freesia (which has BUDS!!) and a random lettuce seedling.

The front shallow green bowl is my favorite peppermint EVER.  This is the peppermint that's grown commercially on hundreds of acres here in the Grande Ronde Valley.  I snitched a 2-inch piece from the edge of a field and rooted it in a glass of water, so don't tell anyone, OK?  If I could have one mint for the rest of my life, this would be it.  It's the mintiest mint that was ever minted.

And the marigolds are because I have A Problem With Buying Plants, and also A Weakness for Marigolds.  It's not like I don't already have 20-30 marigolds around the garden that have sprouted and are almost blooming size already or anything.  These four six-packs were in the dead plant clearance area at Walmart, and I couldn't bear for them to be thrown out.  They were 75% off, and they just needed to be watered.  For 50 cents each I couldn't leave them there. Now to figure out where to plant them...

Ahem.  Moving on.  Here are the vining half barrels: 

• The marigolds and zinnias are well up in the back barrel, and the morning glories will probably reach the first string and start climbing this week.  
• The middle barrel has the Jackmanii clematis (which is about to burst into flower any day now), a peppermint, and direct-seeded marigolds which are also about ready to flower.
• The front barrel has the Princess Diana clematis, bee balm (3 clumps), chocolate mint, and direct-seeded marigolds ready to flower.

I am apparently collecting mint varieties.  I do so like mint tea.  I'm pretty sure I stuck nasturtium seeds into all three of these barrels as well, but I really don't remember for sure where I put all those seeds on that hot day a week ago, after I got home from the first three days in the sagebrush.  It'll be an adventure when they start to come up.

Whew, so that's all the pots in the back yard. The beds are very pretty as well.



I already covered the peas and onions.  The greens bed still has both kinds of lettuce, although the Black-seeded Simpson is about ready to bolt and getting a little bitter.  The Grand Rapids lettuce is still quite delicious and has formed nice heads, and one head makes big salads for two people.  I planted carrots where I pulled out the pak choi and spinach.  Some of the cilantro has flowered but I let it go, for the bees to enjoy and so I can get some coriander seeds.

In the bed behind the peas and onions, which I realize you totally can't see, the tomatoes aren't growing as quickly as I would like but they are starting to set fruit.  I also planted marigold seeds in there, and stuck in a cinnamon basil plant.  I had some pinchings of the basil on my chicken for dinner tonight, and it was extremely yummy. I don't know that I've ever had cinnamon basil before.

Oh, and that plant that I thought was a lemon cucumber volunteer from last year?  I'm now quite sure it's NOT a lemon cucumber, but probably a sunflower. Oops. When I called it a cucumber it only had one set of leaves, and was where the cucumbers were last year.

And last but not least, here's the revised strawberry house that I constructed this afternoon.  This is 1/2" Schedule 40 PVC pipe, held in place with conduit straps.  It's a big improvement over the jury-rigged version, especially since it doesn't fall over if you look at it sideways. I was very skeptical about the PVC as hoop house ribs, but Pinterest and YouTube didn't lie and it really does bend that far without breaking.



I had big plans to make this a fully openable cover, with the PVC and netting permanently attached to a frame on hinges, so all I would have to do to access the bed is lift the lid, but when I got home from the hardware store I realized that I forgot to get the boards for the frame.

A previous investigation of the scrap lumber in the garage had revealed that I don't have any the right length/size, and I didn't want to have to go out to the store again.  Also it was really hot out and I just wanted to be done.  So I revised my plan and attached the pipes directly to the existing raised bed frame, and the netting will continue to be draped over and held down with rocks.  It'll be fine for the rest of this year, and I can make my fancy one for next year.

It's lavender time!

Hold onto your hats, I have an actual crafty post today- I know, I can't believe it either!  And it's even sort of a weaving project!

I have a ton of lavender bushes in the yard (thank you Anne!), and they are just starting to bloom.



I've always wanted to make a lavender wand, and today seemed like the perfect day to sit on the front porch and give it a whirl.

I cut a bunch of stalks with well developed but not-yet-open buds.  You need an odd number so the weaving works out right; this bundle had nineteen.  You also need about a yard and a half of narrow ribbon.



Line up the bases of the flower heads, and tie them tightly together with one end of the ribbon.  Then carefully fold the stems down around the flowers to form a sort of basket or cage, and use the long free end of the ribbon to weave over-under-over-under in a spiral down the length of the flower heads.  Keep the ribbon pulled snug around the flowers, but not so tight that you break the stems.



When you get to the bottom, wrap around the bundle of stems a couple times, tie a clove hitch to secure it, then a rabbit-ear bow.  Trim the stems even.

And voila! My very first ever lavender wand.



This was fun and easy, so I made two more!



I foresee many lavender wands in my future this summer!

Days in the Sagebrush

I spent a total of six long days over the past two weeks surveying a 500-acre tract of land for ground squirrels.  It was beastly hot, dry, snakey, and wonderful.  I'm glad it's over, but I really enjoyed it.

There is so much solitude in open sagebrush country.



This area is on the bluffs overlooking the Columbia River, with views of huge wind farms.  The first thing I saw as I drove up to the site was this pronghorn antelope.  He followed me around for the better part of two days, keeping just within sight and making sure I wasn't doing anything untoward.



The wildflowers are mostly done up there now, and everything was very dry, but the sagebrush mariposa lilies (Calochortus macrocarpus) were in full bloom.



The purple sage (Salvia dorrii) was past peak bloom, but still very pretty.  When this plant is covered in flowers, it's an amazing sight.



And these little daisies were everywhere.  I think (but am not sure) that this is threadleaf fleabane (Erigeron filifolius).  Very cheerful.



So much openness.



I was completely enthralled with the wind-waves in the dry grass.



Oh, and I mentioned the snake factor?  I walked two sets of transects on this 500 acres, every 50 meters in one direction, then every 50 meters in the perpendicular direction to make a grid.  This added up to almost 60 miles in six days, and I saw a total of 32 rattlesnakes.  Talk about heebie-jeebies.



I have snake-proof boots now, and they are my new best friends.

Also, they are SUPER-SWANK!

(Please note that I did not wear shorts in the field.  That was just for photographic purposes, to show off the stylin' boots.)

Strawberry Heaven

I picked a quart of strawberries today!



They were dessert, just as they are.  We snarfed them up too fast to think about making anything like jam or pie or shortcake.  Yum.

I Spy...

Peas!



And hey hey, what could these be for?



Hint:  They are recycled plastic barrels, currently sitting on my deck in the rain.

The best part is that they were free!