Green Thumb Sunday 11-25-07

Green Thumb Sunday

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All the pictures were taken on the morning of 11-23-07 after our first snowfall-that-stayed-on-the-ground-long-enough-to-take-pictures.

I've been meaning to photograph this tree for quite a while. There was no tag on it when it was planted by the developers, but one of our neighbors thinks it might be a flowering pear tree. Whatever it is, it has beautiful flowers in the spring, and has lovely fall colors.








The Canada Geese decided it was time to start flying south. In this picture they're actually North. Our theory is that they all congregate at Marketplace Mall before flying south. They were flying over our house for about 3 hours the morning I took this picture.








Here is my garden all covered in snow. The cold frame seems to be working better now, so maybe I finally got it right.


Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here's a copy of my Thankful List that I posted at my other blog.

• Medical Science; if not for modern medicine, my Dad would probably have died from kidney failure. Praise the Lord, he has regained some kidney function and his cancer is in full remission.
  
• My vegetable garden this year. We still have tomatoes ripening in the basement, carrots in the fridge, chopped peppers in the freezer, and jars of canned tomatoes and tomato sauce. It's so nice to have home-grown produce.
  
• My hobby of collecting seeds has become a way for us to save money in the spring. I have two types of tomato seed, bush bean seeds, and a lot of flower seeds.
  
• Living in Rochester, NY. We don't get hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, droughts, floods, or tornadoes. Just an ice storm every 5 years or so.
  
• My relatives in California didn't lose their home to the wildfires this year.
  
• I have a wonderful family who loves me no matter what my shortcomings.

Enjoy your celebrations!
~Sarah

8 Things You Didn't Know About Me

Blueblue at A Spot With Pots tagged for the 8 things you didn't know about me meme. When tagged you must list the person who tagged you and post the rules. At the end of the post you must tag and link to 8 other people.

1. I am a Christian and my life's goal is to glorify God in everything I do.
   
2. Besides my parents and sister, our house is inhabited by 2 cats who tolerate a dog and have a passing interest in my fish.
3. I love shopping at Build-A-Bear Workshops.
4. I was home schooled from kindergarten through high school. My favorite subject was (and still is) history. My least favorite was math.
5. My current favorite Pixar movie is Ratatouille.
6. My favorite colors are lavender and yellow.
7. I have a natural blond streak in my hair.
8. Astronomy is one of my hobbies.

I tag: My Mom at A Crafter's Chronology, Grace at The Picture Effect, Lisa at Greenbow, Diane at Lace-lovin' Librarian, Chigiy at The Gardener's Anonymous Blog, Chris at Through My Garden Gate. I can't think of anyone else, so if you want to join the meme, consider yourself tagged!

~Sarah

Leaves & Cold Frames

Yesterday I finished spreading the leaves I got from my grandparents. Two bags went in Mom's garden, and the rest went in my garden paths and compost pile. It was only after I'd finished that I realized I'd need some for the Russian Sage. I guess I'll just have to borrow some from my garden paths when I get around to mulching it. I was planning to so it today, but then decided it was a little chilly to be fussing with burlap and leaves. I don't know why I decided that since it's just going to get colder. I guess I was just being lazy. Anyway, hopefully I'll get it done before the end of the week.

The cold frame seems to be working better and I planted some lettuce and radishes in it. I'm still not sure I'm doing it right, but I started reading Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman. I studied the book briefly in school, but we never used much of the information in it. This is the first time we've tried extending the growing season. I hope it works out.

Farewell for now~
Sarah

Green Thumb Sunday 11-18

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It's getting harder to find plants that are blooming outside. Next week I'll probably have to photograph something inside. This Alyssum is hanging on though.






My 'find of the day' was this lone 'Mum blossom. I was very surprised since the rest of the plant is done blooming and the cold weather these past few weeks should have discouraged any blooms. I was reminded of these verses from Matthew chapter 6, verses 27-29: "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these."(NASB) I realized that if God cares enough to give this little plant a single blossom, then how much more He must care for me!

Happy Green Thumb Sunday!
~Sarah





Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Perennial Garden: Installing Edging

One of the things on my To-Do list was to put edging around my perennial garden. Today seemed like a good day, so after breakfast I headed out to start digging. As I dug, I found rocks. Lots of rocks. I found pebbles too. I think I spent more time pulling rocks and pebbles out of the trench than I did digging it. I finally got my trench dug, put in the edging and put the soil back around it. It's not the most attractive thing in the world, but it should help with the runoff problem next summer.

Last week I went over and helped rake up my grandparent's leaves. I ended up with 6 bags. I've already used two bags on my veggie garden, and the rest will end up around plants that need extra insulation for the winter, in the compost pile, and whatever is left will go on my garden paths -check out this blog for more things to do with fallen leaves.

My outdoor project list:

• Wrap/mulch transplanted Russian Sage
• Finish spreading leaves around gardens
• Figure out how to make the cold frame work right and plant some more lettuce in it

Farewell For Now~
Sarah

'Dronkles'

I started a new blog about my crafting hobbies. I just finished the cute little critter below, which I've dubbed a 'dronkle'. (The directions were in Swedish). If you're interested check it out, if not I'll post sometime this week after I finish reading all the GTS blog posts.
Farewell~
Sarah

Green Thumb Sunday

Green Thumb Sunday

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We finally had a really hard frost last night. This volunteer Sunflower survived; also among the survivors were a Gerbera Daisy and Mom's Lavender.












The Japanese Maple was so pretty with the frost on it's leaves; it was just begging to have it's picture taken.











Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Happy Green Thumb Sunday!
~Sarah

You Know It's Fall When...

1. It's hard to find something in bloom
2. Plants appear in every nook and cranny of your house
3. The dirt under your fingernails starts to disappear
   
4. Your hands get so cold you consider wearing gardening gloves
5. Your compost pile gets really big
6. You have trouble finding storage space in your shed or garage (or both)
7. You spend less time in your garden and more time on the internet reading garden blogs
8. The weatherman starts talking about snow flurries
9. You wish you had a greenhouse
10. You're making plans for next year's garden

We really got spoiled with the warm fall. Now the temperatures are in the 30's and 40's and not going any higher. Buffalo, NY is having their first snowfall of the season. A possible accumulation of 5-7" is expected. The forecast for Rochester predicts a possibility of snow every day through Friday.

Yesterday we finally bought some heavy plastic for the cold frame. I put it over the frame this morning and got half the job done, but between the wind, rain and numb hands I had to stop. I'm going to try planting some scallions in the cold frame, along with more lettuce, and maybe a few radishes. I finished harvesting the veggie beds - all that's left is what's under the cold frame. The carrots were smaller than I expected. Half of them had their growth stunted from the bean foliage that sprawled everywhere. I also pulled out the beans, harvested my scallions and some lettuce that managed to survive the cold weather. The scallions are pretty small since the tomato foliage blocked out most of their sunlight.

Farewell, and stay warm!
~Sarah
Sarah

Green Thumb Sunday

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As I was searching the yard for something to photograph for GTS I found this little Dandelion that is obviously very confused about what season it is.










I also discovered these pretty Cupflowers that are blooming profusely.













Happy GTS everyone!
~Sarah

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Fall Chores

I spent my afternoon today planting bulbs and 'helping' (ok, supervising) my Mom with her flower beds. I planted 8 Hyacinth and 20 Anemone bulbs in my perennial garden. CountryMax had a nice selection of bulbs last year, and I'm hoping they do this year too. If I ever get around to stopping in and they do have bulbs, I'd like to try Gladiolus, and maybe some Irises.

Mom's flower bed had a lot of volunteer plants in it (we suspect Rose Campion). We were hoping that they were just growing in the mulch or on top of the landscape fabric. It was, so Mom pulled up all the landscape fabric before she planted her bulbs. She planted 8 purple Hyacinth and 20 Anemone bulbs. (The Anemone bulbs came in a pack of 40 so we split them.)

My Dad mowed the lawn this afternoon, for the final time this year, we hope. I noticed a lot of leaves got mowed over. If they're still there tomorrow I'll rake them up and start spreading them over my vegetable beds. I'm also going to try and get over to my Grandparents for some more leaves - they have more trees than we do, hence more leaves.

Stay tuned for my next project: putting edging around my perennial garden. I've never done it before, but how hard can it be?

~Sarah

Possible Frost Tonight

When I checked the weather this morning I noticed that the temperature was supposed to get down to 31 tonight. Tomorrow night it's supposed to be 33. In fact, the nighttime temperature for the next week doesn't even make it out of the thirties. With this sad news in hand I decided it was time to start winterizing my garden. First I picked all the tomatoes and peppers and filled a half-bushel basket.

Then I started pulling out plants, knocking the dirt off, and hauling them off to my compost heap. In one bed I have a cold frame set up over a basil plant and some lettuce. I set up a grow tunnel (similar to the one here, but mine is smaller) over my scallions and another lettuce plant. I covered the tunnel with the 'fleece' that came with it and a blanket over that.
Most of the tomatoes I picked were still green, so I punched holes in some paper bags, put a layer of tomatoes on the bottom, folded the top over and took them down to the basement. I'll probably freeze most of them after they ripen. I also harvested about half a dozen peppers.


After lunch I helped Mom and Dad move one of the Russian Sage plants. It was very hard to get out of the ground - the roots were really strong. I had to break a couple, but I think most of the roots are strong and healthy. It should survive the transplant pretty well. The picture was taken in August when the Sage was a honey bee magnet.

Still on my To-Do-Before-It-Snows-List:

• Get rose cones or other coverings for Mandevilla and Mom's Heather
• Plant more Lettuce and Scallions in cold frame
• Get heavy plastic to help insulate cold frame
• Rake Grandpa and Grandma's leaves, mow over them, and spread on garden beds
• Wrap transplanted Russian Sage and Japanese Maple with burlap
• Plant bulbs
• Install edging around Perennial garden

Farewell~
Sarah