Speaking of Rocks . . .

You may be wondering from my last post, what's the big deal about rocks? I lived in Florida for many years, and I went through a kind of "rock withdrawal" while there. The closest thing to a real rock was a styrofoam cliff at Disney World. I never realized how much I missed the rocks I knew from my childhood until I moved back to the Northeast some years back. There's nothing like a beautiful stone wall winding it's way across a New England farm field . . . speaking of which, this is a great book:

http://stonewall.uconn.edu/StonebyStone.htm

So I'm somewhat protective of my rocks, thank you very much. Carry on!

Zen Garden

This was a project I started last summer; it's a corner of my yard known as the "Zen Garden." I hate to see good rocks go to waste, so I used these stones from my yard (as well as some given to me by my good friend Candace) to make a "patio" floor. They are placed in a level, dirt footing (nothing high-tech here).  All I do is sweep them off every so often. Plus, they make a nice stone "mulch" to keep the weeds at bay.

I'm still adding elements to the Garden; a water feature would be a nice feng-shui addition. It's a nice peaceful place to escape to after a long day at work.

Container Gardening 101

I'm a perennial gardener more than anything; I rarely buy annuals, except for container gardening. But this is a great time of year to buy annuals; most nurseries are running specials (2 for 1 etc) before the real heat comes and it's too hot to plant. I put together a container today including  zonal geraniums 'Tango Orange' (isn't that a great color?) and Nieremburgia 'Mont Blanc' among others.

I use a good, organic potting mix and fill the container to approx. half full:

Then I place the pots in the container, moving them around until I find the most pleasing effect:

The last step is to remove the pots, placing each plant back in the container and back-fill with more potting mix until all the spaces between the plants are filled. It can get kinda tight in there; it's important to not leave any air pockets where the roots can dry out.

Here's the finished container; now it just needs a good watering!

Dinner!

 Today I harvested our first yellow squash;  we'll have it for dinner tonight (I'm thinking onions, red pepper strips, brown rice, cilantro). The organic veggie garden is exploding; the rain (and now sun) has really jump-started things. I'll share some photos of the raised beds in upcoming posts.

Sun's Out!

After a very rainy week (again), the sun has finally come out today. The garden's happy - and I'm happy - because my purple coneflowers actually have petals this year! In years past, I suspected the slugs got to them; petals were few and far between. This year, I proactively applied Sluggo, and organic slug repellent (OMRI-listed), and voila! They look great . . .

On Weeding the Garden

Weeds get a bad rap. I just spent the early evening pulling weeds, but I'm not cursing them. For me, it's a meditative, quiet time.

Hard day at work? Go pull some weeds when you get home. Writer's block? Pull some weeds. Creative problem to solve? You get the idea . . .

Now don't go thinking my garden is weed-free, what with all this pullin' going on.  Far from it.  I tackle sections at a time, in a loose, rotating schedule. Maintaining an organic garden can have it's challenges, but after you've done a little reading up on the hazards of Round-Up, you start to see that a few weeds around the garden is not such a bad thing after all.

So think of weeding as stress-reducer (rather than letting all those weeds cause you stress) and you just might enjoy your garden a bit more (weeds and all)!

OK, Back to Gardening . . .

I have a purple sand cherry that for the second year in a row, leafs out OK at first, but then proceeds to get a lot of shriveled leaves by late May/June. It also is a magnet for japanese beetles (but they haven't appeared yet).  Just curious if anyone has seen this problem before .  . .

Here's a closer look at the problem . . .

Princess

And introducing Princess (Jasper's sister).  she likes to keep to herself most days (the bedroom is her domain).  She's a shy little kitty, for sure.

Well, I Did Say There Would be Cats . . .

Meet Jasper - one of two cats who share our home. He's my little shadow . . .

The "Official" Welcome Sign

I probably should've posted this first; it's the "official" welcome sign that graces my back garden . . . it's an old wooden sign on weathered barn board from the thirties, possibly. A flea market find that I though had a charming look to it.

Hello!

Welcome to my blog! I really enjoy gardening, so that will be the subject of most posts. Successes AND failures, they all have a place in the garden.

There also may be the occasional sketch or painting, photos of my cats, and whatever else I'm inclined to post that day . . .

I hope you like it, and can find something interesting, useful, or helpful.

Enjoy!