So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

Kim

"So, how's the garden doing?" you ask. In short: FANTASTIC!

Stuff is popping up and overflowing everywhere. Here's a run down of what's happening.

Pot 1: Taters

They are going "a house a fire" as Grams would have said. The pot is full of green stalks each of which is a tater plant. Part A of the strategy is working; at least I have a pot of green stalks.

Pot 2: Bush Beans

They now have flowers on them but our recent heat wave (+106F) sort of left them a bit dazed but they are perking up well. It also helps I'm giving them more water too since our Central California Summer is starting up.

Pot 3: Cherry Tomatoes

We've had several small harvests and added them to salads and they taste.... YUMMMM!

Pot 4: Pot Cucumbers

I don't think they understood the word “pot”, as they are growing and vining everywhere! They have lovely small yellow flowers though and nice green leaves. Nothing yet but I'm hopeful.

Pot 5: Pot Zucchini

Now surprisingly, these guys know the word “pot” and I have 2 plants that are large but not overflowing. They have the standard zucchini look and flowers but it took me a bit to realized that the veggie part was sort of a dwarf zucchini.

The plants have rather large stickers on them and I use plastic gloves to reach in and get the harvest. I also found out you need to harvest when the flower is still open. These dwarf zucchini's don't get any bigger like the traditional zucchini.

I see them in the stores now called Gourmet or Petite veggies. We've had several harvests and they are just wonderful sliced raw on a salad.

Pot 6: Tomato

It's a tomato! We have several green ones but no harvests yet. So nothing there to brag about.

Pot 7: Watermelon

Hmmm... I dunno here. I have a lot of plants with pretty leaves and some have flowers but I thought watermelons were going to vine like the cucumbers and flow over the pot sides, but these are not doing that. I think they should be having a chat with those cucumbers.

Past Harvest Report:

My garlic was not successful though. I harvested it, and well, it was rather a disappointment. Not even really garlic. So no “stinking roses” for me.

But the carrots made up for it. I harvested out the two pots and I had about 15 lbs of wonderful and colorful carrots! We've had them in salads, soups and stews. These will be on the winter plant list for sure!

Pot Zucchini Flower

Cherry Tomatoes and Petite Zucchini

Wall of Passed Time

I share a fun activity with my two adult children playing a computer game called A Tale In The Desert 6. Every year and a half a new Tale starts and the game varies in the requirements to reach higher levels, but the basics of the game remain the same each telling. There is no violence in the game; avatars learn to do the menial chores of a burgeoning society in Egypt.

Growing flax, weaving thread into linen, making bricks, gathering clay to make jugs and firing them in a kiln, feeding camels and and sheep, growing vegetables and mining for ore and gems are among the jobs avatars do as well as solve puzzles and build monuments.

When the three of us are in the game at the same time, we talk on the phone, conference style and play the events and projects as a team. At the beginning of ATITD 6, my son commented that he wanted to make bricks, a million of them. I said if he made a million bricks I would make a million jugs and wondered what a million of either would look like.

I said that I would make a wall with the bricks, but it was explained to me that the game wouldn't allow stacking them in a heap. Being virtual, you can make them, store them carry them, but not stack them. You can only see them as single units. The same with jugs. When I saw what they would look like as single units if dropped on the ground, I began to think of ways of using them in a statue vignette.

Since a vignette can have 25 items raised at different heights, I came up with the idea of making a wall using a pattern of jugs and bricks .The next step was experimenting with the idea and building a practice model on the top of a near by sand dune. Stacking two statue bases doubled the distance of the wall, then by repeating stacked bases, we could continue the wall for any length we wanted.

It was decided to build the wall in a straight line and in an area without mountains or sand dunes if possible so the next move was a walkabout to fine the right spot for our wall. Between scouting trips I made over 6000 jugs and added them to the stash of bricks and other materials we needed for the wall.

In order to make the jugs and bricks we had to collect clay from clay beds, build kilns in which to fire the jugs, build a warehouse to store all the materials and grow flax to make the rope and linen required for the statue bases.

The wall project will last as long as this phase of the Tale does. So far the wall reaches beyond 100 coordinates of the map grid and we continue to add to its length.

[Editor's note: you can follow our progress from the game wiki: Wall of Passed Time.]

Wall of Passed Time 100 coordinate milestone

MrsB's PDF Book for 2011

[Note: Editor's Post]

MrsB's blog stories from 2011 are now available for download!  Click the link in the download section to get your own copy of all the wonderful posts made by her and other members of the MrsB's blog circle!

While you're over there, you can get some of the other books and copies of the fabulous cookbooks made by MrsB and Esther too!

Hope you enjoy all the stories and memories.

So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

Mrs B

My gardening gene has prompted me to plant something so I've started propagating African violets from leaves. Besides germinating avocado seeds in water, I hope to be successful with mango seeds.

Years ago I watched Aunt Nettie plant the top of a pineapple, but I never thought of growing one myself. Seeing how easy it is in YouTube demonstrations, I plan on trying my luck growing one or two.

At one time I had carrot tops thriving in glasses of water on a kitchen shelf and I may start growing a carrot plant along side the avocado seeds. Propagating geraniums and chrysanthemums are also easy and fun to propagate.

I once attended an adult evening Botany lecture where we were shown how to clone ferns in water, but I'll not get around to cloning one since it seems my mission in life is saving the planet by germinating avocado seeds.

I hate to throw the seeds away when I make guacamole so I have a continuing supply of them, but I forget to keep the proper water level for germinating, consequently my stash of seedlings range from several to none.

[Editor's note: I had no idea you could plant a pineapple but you can! Here's a link to a site that tells you how to do it. How to plant a pineapple ]

Pineapple top can be used for planting

Tea Parties

Tea Parties

When Taffy was a little girl
She often came for Tea
She and I would sit a while and talk
as we munched on sugar cookies
And drank tea from pretty cups

Taffy's all grown up now
And never comes to call
She's too busy now for parties
So there's nary one at all

Perhaps she would come again
If she had time to spend
She and I could sit awhile and talk
And once again eat cookies
And drink from pretty cups

Marion Bigelow June 2012

Memories of Iowa Falls by Richard

The past few days, I began thinking about our life in Iowa Falls Iowa, and recalled several good memories about the wonderful times we all shared which included the following:

• I recall living in town in a two story home, and then moving to the country to a small farm the folks rented from Mr Brown.


• It was really great to have our own garden and raise our own vegetables, which Mom use to feed us.


• I can see Mom now, cooking on that wood burning stove and baking bread and cakes which we all enjoyed.


• Can you see us all making ice cream on those hot summer days? I can.


• I recall going to those country schools which were one room and one teacher, teaching all the grades.


• We had to walk about a mile or so, and when it was time to go home, I was always hungry. So when we passed an apple orchard I would go over the fence to get an apple or two.


• In the winter months we would each take a potato and put in the school furnace to have with our lunch.


• I remember the swimming pool, which was a long walk from home. Jerry and I would go anyway. We didn't have the money to get in, so they let us to pull some weeds for access.


• We moved back into town when Mr brown sold the property.


• Things begin to change. The war came and all our lives changed also.


• Marion and Adeline went into the service. Mom went away to work at a factory on the war effort. Dad stayed home to watch the younger children.


• Then Mom and Dad went to California to visit Marion and Adeline and were so impressed with California, upon their return to Iowa Falls Iowa, they decided to move to California. Dad quit the Telephone Company. They packed up everything and we moved west.

I hope this note will help you also to recall some those fond memories we all shared.

[Editor's note: This story was written by Richard]

Apple Tree