Spring Planting Time

Hello & welcome to spring planting time in my veggie garden. The seeds were started back in February and now are excited to feel the dirt. Not sure which of us is happier, me or the greens. 

Red kale here in the dirt. so happy to be digging in the dirt today. the spring has been wet with periodic short dry spells. Hard to plant when there is standing water in the backyard.  Several days, you could squeeze the water out of the soil. Success today.  

Swiss chard & Collards were also transplanted into the veggie garden today.  Looking forward to greens in my salads soon. 

Candid pic of me from the 2024 Eclipse yesterday. Grateful to have been in the path of totality in Rochester, NY.  Support local & shop small.  Wearing an epic shirt from Lake Ontario Press & my Buffalo Bills hat for the event.  

Big Thank you to Matt Saxton, of Lake Ontario Press.  His site : https://www.lakeontariopress.com

#shopsmall #supportlocal #smallbiz 

As always, celebrate the way you want for yourself.  Many I know traveled or attended large events. That is not how we wanted to remember the eclipse. We stayed home and enjoy this once in a lifetime event in our own backyard. Happy day after the eclipse. 

Tomatoes Time Arrives

The long awaited day has arrived in my Rochester, NY garden.  We took last year off to treat the garden for a tomato problem.   We are planting tomatoes this week.  Happy dance over here.  Their harvest will be the next BIG celebration.  

The current harvest or happy plants include leaf lettuce, mustard, and collards. Our  snow peas are vining but not producing yet. Lettuce in the picture at right. 

Happy for the normal temperatures to return so the spring growing season can produce the food we enjoy.   The climate emergency has shown types of plants we choose will need to change.  With strong fluctuations as wet and dry as well as hot and cold this spring we need to prepare.

Black Lives Matter

We need to change the way we treat others in this country. #blm #blacklivesmatter #ally #bekind #lovewins 

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY.  

 Free the People ROC

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April Showers Bring Spring Flowers

Welcome Spring plants

Certainly have had rain this spring.  Rochester is 1.5 inches above normal for rain since March 1st.  For my backyard garden, that means standing water or mud everywhere & no planting until it dries out. Wet in spring is an annual thing but have not had to wait 3 weeks to plant my peas in quite a few years. 

Hello bicolor crocus in my front yard bed from 2 weeks ago.  Happy to see you as we enter and exit our property.  beauty to greet the dogs as they walk by in the morning and their owners with them.  It is fantastic to have my garden to talk to my neighbors about thought the year.  they stop me and ask questions.

Hello to my tatsoi mustard thriving in my garden. always one of the first seeds I plant outside.  will be thinning and enjoying them in breakfast next week.  Homegrown is best.  Love my backyard garden.   patiently waiting  for the snow peas to pop out of the ground, ( well actually to sprout). 

The other greens in the dirt are mesclun and black Simpson lettuce.  We will be transplanting the kale and collard in a few weeks.  I started the seed later this year.  It was so wet, afraid to not be able to plant them when they were ready.

Nothing make it fell like spring arrives until I can dig in the dirt in my garden.  Happy gardener here and happy plants.  

Earth day today and glad to have edibles in my yard to enjoy for the growing season.

Black Lives Matter

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY.  FB page  Free the People ROC

I invite everyone to stand up, listen to others, be kind and support our sisters and brothers.  

 

#bekind

#blacklivesmatter 

#standup

#listen

#lovewins

Buy Local from the Maker

Why shop small?  For every $100 you spend at a local business,  

$68 stay in the community

#shoplocal

#buylocal

#artist

October Beauty

 

Final harvest from the two large pots on my deck from this summer.  could not go completely without tomatoes.  These will ripen over the next two weeks and be amazing in salads.  

Currently enjoying the mustard & kale from the fall plantings in the vegetable garden.  We love fall veggies as much as spring veggies.  

I will be trying to make fresh pumpkin for pie this year from our compost pile volunteer.  Happy to share pics of this project next week.  Fingers crossed it works well.

VOTE

It is that time of year.  Verify you are registered to vote and bring a friend.  Make plans and be sure to know where your candidates stand on the issues you care about.  Mean things I look for: BLM, ERA, Reproductive rights, abortion rights, women rights.

Use this League of Women voters sight to look up your ballot and where your candidates stand.  

VOTE411

Black Lives Matter

 

We need to change the way we treat others in this country  I invite everyone to be kind and support our sisters and brothers.   We need to teach history accurately all year.  

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY.  

 Free the People ROC

 

Buy Local and Shop Small

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Buy Earrings 

 

 

Why shop small?  For every $100 you spend at a local business,  $68 stay in the community

October and Fall is here

 Hello Fall. What has kept me occupied recently?

• Closed the pool
• Made Sauce from scratch twice, canned once
• Fall yard clean up
• Travel to see family
• baking 
• Looking at events for rest 2022
• Volunteer work. NOW local board member

As you know, Huge Apple in fall person here. 
The volunteers from the compost pile.  For a number of years we had told our neighbors we take old pumpkins.  Annually we add 6-8 neighbor pumpkins to our compost pile.  This years they germinated into a vine.  

Black Lives Matter

 

 

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY.  
  

 

Free the People ROC

 

We need to support our brothers and sisters.   

 #BLM #blacklivesmattter 

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This stunning piece is beach glass from ROC combined with sterling silver to create this necklace.  Have a vacation find you want to wear?  Happy to help you create the wearable art.

Success and Celebration

 Happy to have rain for my vegetables this past week.  The yellow beans are doing great as this shows. The snow peas are about finished  & there is a succession plans for them as well as other parts of the garden.  Lettuce and greens takes over when this spring crop finishes.  

It felt time to show off my mascot again.  He is a rock hound and model for my small work.  he travels to shows and enjoys his time outside.  His name is Paddy.  

this is one success for the season, happy beans because of meticulous water management.  We use soaker hoses for our gardens. 

Black Lives Matter

We need to change the way we treat others in this country  I invite everyone to be kind and support our sisters and brothers.   We need to teach history accurately all year. #blm #loveislove #pride

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY. 

 Free the People ROC

One of my copper creations to support Black Lives Matter. 

 

 
Buy Local & Shop Small

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Need this necklace?  buy here

 

 

Why shop small?  For every $100 you spend at a local business,  $68 stay in the community

July Fruit Season in here

 his is most of  one of the 4 quarts of raspberries so far this month.  Yes this month.  Happy chef here will have homemade raspberry jam from my own garden?!

 

The warm summer of July has arrived and the heat with it.  We almost set a record low last week at 49 and it was 90 yesterday. Our gardens are doing well with the soaker hoses to keep them moist. 
There is a partial drought with us two inches below normal at this point. 

Hope we have some good rain in the near future so we do not have to use the faucet so much.

 

We finished the pond remodel.  Relined and moved some of the water and landscape plants. As you see the waterfall is larger  and has a nice stone wall on the sides.  It was a big  & labor intensive project.  

Happy to be finished and able to enjoy the sounds of it ans the backyard habitat it creates.  We have seen up to four birds in the bird bath at the top of it at one time. 

The first yellow beans of the season were harvested Sunday.  Happy dance for me one of my favorite veggies. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY. 

 Free the People ROC

I believe in supporting my local community hence my choice of The Mocha Center for the Pride donation.  As an ally I know we need to listen and show up to support local groups.

 

 

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These are part of the Copper Geometry line. 

 

 

Why shop small?  For every $100 you spend at a local business,  $68 stay in the community

Gardening as Winter Ends

Spring Countdown

 In 27 days on March 20 it will be spring.  I love the color burst of Spring. My love of this comes from my paternal Grandma.  Growing up, I helped her in her gardens.  I have fond memories of her yard in the spring bursting with colors.  I helped pull the weeds from around the roses.  While her children were growing up, she grew fruits and veggies.  She had plums, raspberries and blackberries when I was growing up. Summer flowers in Grandma's garden included: roses, zinnias, geraniums, peonies, pansies, petunias, snapdragons.  She had a second garden at the family cottage near Alexandria Bay, NY in the 1000 islands.  The flowers were in whiskey barrels at the entrance to the home.

 Backyard Visitors

Our suet feeder seems to attract a wide variety of Woodpeckers to my garden.  they enjoy the food in the winter we provide and in the warmer months they feast on the insects in the garden. It is nice to have a back yard habitat they enjoy. 

 My pond is right next to this feeder.  When it is warmer, the birds enjoy the waterfall and their bird bath at the top of it. Have you made a space that is friendly to local wildlife?  Always be kind ot others.  I was taught this by my Father and honor him by my practice of it.

 

 

 

 As I countdown to spring, the garden design is finished for the veggies.  Very happy to have a plan to grow by so I do not end up without space for a favorite vegetable.

 

As winter is winding down, my garden catalogs help me plan for the warm season.  As the designer in me is active, there as some new jewelry designs for spring, too.  Working on Earrings, necklaces, and bracelets in Copper and Sterling Silver. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Black Lives Matter

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY.  FB page  Free the People ROC

 I invite everyone to stand up, listen to others, be kind and be ready to support our sisters and brothers.  

 

#bekind

#blacklivesmatter 

#stopasianhate

#standup

#listen

#lovewins

 

 

 

 

Shop Small

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For every $100 you spend at a local business,  $68 stay in the community. 

 

Summer Fruits and Mother Nature

 

It has been a hard summer here so far in the garden.  The alternating heat & extreme wet is stressing the plants.  We are doing our best to care for them in this dichotomy of conditions.  We had several bouts of 90's by the end of June.  When you add to that the 9+ inches of rain from 7/09 - 7/23( two weeks time) in my yard, it has been hard on the plants  We have lost peppers & beans to pests, kale and lettuce to rotting, and the berries stopped fruiting in the wet spell. 

 These are the 1st 2021 TOMATOES! These are along side today's harvest of fennel, wax beans and cucumber on the bottom. 

 

 I am reminded to enjoy the moment often this year.  Mother Nature had this so show us a few nights ago.   

Last week I had the privilege of seeing a one women show on RIT campus that was invitation only. It was incredible.  As we left the theater and headed to our cars, another attendee pointed to the moon. When I arrived home it was still peaking through the clouds.  This is phone pic without filters.  Wishing I had a long lens on campus for the great shot there. 
      

 

Black Lives Matter

Free the People ROC is the group in Rochester, NY.  FB page  Free the People ROC

I invite everyone to Join me: 

stand up, listen to others, be kind and to support our sisters and brothers.  

#bekind

#blacklivesmatter 

#stopasianhate

#standup

#listen

 

 

Buy Local from the Maker

 My shop:  Panda Wear Website

Facebook:  PandaWire Facebook
Twitter:  Panda Wear Gems  
Instagram: Instagram

 

Why shop small?  For every $100 you spend at a local business,  $68 stay in the community.