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

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

$68 stay in the community

#shoplocal

#buylocal

#artist

Vegetable Garden for 2023

What is my favorite day of the gardening season?  My favorite day is the 1st day digging into the garden for the the initial seeds of the season. It is about four weeks away. As we prepare for the 2023 Veggie garden, I was working on the design a few weeks ago.  As we stared some seeds, our excitement builds.  

The most important element to keeping our garden happy is the homemade compost we add to the soil every year.  happy to have soaker hoses in the gardens so the water goes only where we need it.  

Shown are a few of the early sprouts of our vegetables and Morrisonite in gold statement pendant.

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.

#bekind
#blacklivesmatter 
#blm 
#standup
#listen
#lovewins

Buy Local from the Maker 

 

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

Garden Design Day 2020 SEASON

My favorite day is the 1st day digging into the garden for the the initial seeds of the season. It is about 2 months away. to prepare for the 2020 Veggie garden, I was working on the design last week. Today, we ordered some seeds of a few varieties we ran out of from last year.

Harvest 2017

Bell pepper seeds will be planted today. Our garden is planted for success.  We use a three year crop rotation to rest the soil and increase production for the Vegetable.  Hoping Mother Natures helps this years by giving a good freeze for the 6 weeks necessary to kill the pests from last year. The yo yo temperatures and wet spring increased disease last year and made it difficult for local farmers to plant crops.


PBS article about the difficulties last spring.  "For farmers, record flooding and a wet spring mean many fields can’t be planted" 2019 Wet Spring PBS Newshour

Looking forward to the seeds sprouting and the growing to begin in my plants. Several inches of snow on the ground now & below freezing temperatures outside.  Yes it is winter in Rochester, NY.

1/19/20 NOW members

Last Month I was able to attend the Womens March in Seneca Falls.  There were three fantastic days of sisterhood in this historic area. This is part of our NOW, National Organization for Women,  group on the 3rd day of the event at the First Presbyterian Church of Seneca Falls.  Yes that is me in the feminist t shirt left of center.

Relatively new style in copper per customer requests for more copper please.  Also have copper bracelets, anklets, necklaces & tiaras.
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Happy Inspirational Monday

Hello and Happy Monday.  As we  nearing the end of Spring, we are grateful & enjoying the bounty of the spring greens.  The vegetables & flowers are doing well this year.  Happy this spring has not been super wet &  bit more ran would be welcome.   

Always grateful for topic suggestions by my followers. 

Some of the beauty found in the garden this week.  Our hope is to have red ripe tomatoes by the end of the 1st week of July.  May you find the joy we do in a hobby of your own.  Gardening is the one pleasure we have daily.  My recent travel has taught me it is universal pleasure to enjoy nature.  As I stopped to take photos in the Phoenix Botanical Gardens earlier this year,  the beauty of the musical voices of many cultures fell upon my ears.  We were all enjoying the same landscape and language was not necessary to understand the pleasure everyone was sharing. 


 As I gardener I was inspired by this quote by Tina Martin of Huffington Post  "No matter what situation is changing, don’t get discouraged! It’s uncomfortable, but great things never come from comfort zones. Embrace and welcome change. Consider it a blessing you needed but couldn’t make happen on your own. "

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Step outside your comfort zone and see what wonderful things develop. 

Dog Days of Summer in Rochester, NY

 

Wrote this back in early August.  I went out to water the plants and it was not posted.  Ab it late but the beauty of the plants are shown. 

This was a visitor to my garden toward the end of August. I believe it is a red tailed hawk.  Hope he is eating the mice and squirrels that seem to be enjoying my root crops.

The summer season ended with a drought and federal disaster area for my county and the surrounding area.

Dog days of summer here in my gardens photos.  New York was in early drought stages, is early August  Seems like we just planted the garden.  We have a happy and prolific garden due to water wise gardening practices.  My most prolific plants have been the early spring crops: cilantro, greens, lettuce, peas, radishes.  As the heat arrived:  lettuce, mustard greens, collards, kale, cucumbers, & yellow beans.

My bush beans are quite happy with the heat wave which lasted the entire summer.  My several days a week watering with recycled rubber soaker hoses keep them happy. We have about 10lbs of beans in the freezer for later, the most ever saved.  They are still producing which is unusual,  normally we take the plants down in mid September.

Another of the prolific vegetables are the bell peppers and the broccoli. A different variety, Jalapeno show below.  Especially with the cooler fall temps now and the much needed rain this past week.  The broccoli has taken off and we are eating it a few nights a week.

Apparently the heat is not done here, yet.  High of 79 forecast for the end of this week.  Grilled dinner outside on the deck is what we will be doing.   Mine as well enjoy the unseasonable warm while it is here.  The leaves are certainly falling and it will back to true fall weather.

The Holiday season is here.  Panda Wear is accepting holiday orders thru 11/1/16 for delivery in December.  Please order early.  

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