Beets

Here is Roger harvesting beets with me.

me holding the mother of all beets - it's bigger than my hand!

Results of the cutting of the beets to fit in jars. Chiogga is the name of the white/red rings beet and in the other bowl are Bull's Blood, Early Wonder, and Detroit Dark Red. The chiogga ones look pale in the jars, but I'm sure they will taste just as good. I've cooked them together with the more red ones for dinners and they absorb the dark red color - I think we'll do that if we can pickled beets again next year. We also planted Golden Touchstone which are a beautiful yellow, but there was only enough for one jar. We'd eaten the rest before today - they are delicious!!

Here are the finished jars - we (Sheila and I) got 12 pints and 28 half pints of pickled beets. Some we put cloves in with the pickling liquid. We tested this last year and it was very good. The one yellow jar is on the far right. The harvesting took a couple hours on Monday: digging, washing, chopping off roots and tops. The peeling, chopping and canning took 5 hours today. All well worth it!! yum!

Late Season photos

Here are some of my beautiful rainbow carrots - see the one with a little one hugging it? Cute! they were delicious too!

 Next photo down is my shallot bed. I planted tons of small sets and they all pretty much failed. Don't know why. There are small ones in there that developed new sets along side, so I think I will rescue as many as I can and save for spring, or clean out the whole bed and mulch after setting them back into the dirt. Maybe that will work, anyone else have any ideas? Next photo is this year's potato crop from the compost pile. We are eating some of the white ones for dinner tonight - they are in the oven and smelling almost done, so I better get this posted so I can finish the rest of dinner to go along with them. The last photo is some beets - so pretty and delicious too. These are part of the crop that Sheila helped me with last spring when I was just after surgery on my hip and couldn't do the heavy stuff. Remember she cleaned out the bed boxes and we planted peas, onion sets and these beets. We have been eating on them for a couple months, both of us - there are still some left and we are going to make pickled beets out of them. Yummm!

here are some successes and failures in my garden this year - more potatoes from the compost pile, excellent beets, carrots, and failure of shallots.

Lilies from Verdelle

Verdelle gave me these lilies this past spring. She didn't think they would bloom this year, but look! There are more buds, too.

Thank you, Verdelle!

Strawberries in August

The strawberries just keep coming. We only have a 10-foot row, so there are just enough for us to snack on in the evening.

Summer 2011

So summer (?) is in so-called full swing now. Finally I have some dahlias blooming, only about a month late - but I am grateful to get some seeing as how I finally got all the tubers planted by mid-and late July because of the weather and time restraints. Usually they should be planted by mid-May, but then it was way too cold and way too wet. Enough whining!!! Here are some pix of things going on it my garden recently.

This clematis is two years old, finally big enough to be half way across my front entry. I added a string from the post to across to the post on the other side. I planted two, one I thought was dark pink, the other this color. The "dark pink" is also just about this same color but the flowers are twice as big as this and blooms before this one starts. So that is a good thing, longer show of flowers.I have to be diligent about removing the morning glories though, they would take over everything everywhere in my garden including this lovely plant.

 Here is a bouquet of sweetpeas, white and pink baby's breath and lobelia. Finally thriving! Sweetpeas would be gone by now if it were a normal warm time of summer, but since they'd rather grow in cool weather, I'm in luck to be able to pick some this late in the year - I love sweetpeas! Their smell is so pretty!

More Roses and Other Blooms

The Cinco de Mayo rose made its debut with several blooms at once. I was expecting a dusky lavender rose but it is more red than the rose on the tag appeared. Maybe the blooms will turn darker as they age. Still for a first year rose is has nice blooms with promises of more to come.

This small rose, Happy Chappy, has also begun to bloom and I look forward to its ground hugging blooms all summer. The tea roses and climbers are still being shy, but the Queen Elizabeth is teasing me with a couple of blooms, each on a cluster of multiple buds. I can hardly wait for the clusters to open.

Meanwhile, the bees are keeping busy buzzing around the blooms at the front of the house, where the lilies, spirea and cosmos and providing plenty of nectar while they wait to harvest the roses. You can see one on the center bloom of the close-up photo. There were a dozen or so buzzing around, but they don't sit still long enough to get a shot of them at work:)

First Rose of Summer

Yesterday's warm summer sun finally opened the first rose in my garden. This Spellbound tea went from a tight bud on Sunday to a fully opened rose this afternoon. Guess it wanted to take advantage of the sun while it could. The rest of the tea roses are taking their time. Most have only tiny buds and only one other is showing any color on the bud. That's what this cool spring has brought. That and black spot--the curse of rose gardeners in the Pacific Northwest:)

The Betty Boop has several buds that are also ready to open any day. This one is the closest. I love the bi-color of this rose and the fact that it is almost always blooming. It is usually the first to bloom. I only have one other floribunda, the Cinco de Mayo, which I am looking forward to blooming as it is the newest rose in my garden. I will post pictures when it begins to bloom.

This rose was quite a surprise. It opened yesterday too. It is growing on the side of my arbor where a pale pink climber is supposed to be blooming, but isn't yet. On closer inspection, this is a shoot off the root and not the Pearly Gates rose that is grafted on to this root. The other side of the arbor has a Joseph's Coat climber which is also not doing so hot. Both these roses went gangbusters at our last house--may be they need more sun than they are getting here. I think I'll let this "wild rose" hang on and let it give a little inspiration to its showier cousins:)

Slow-Growing Peas

The peas are now knee high or so. Rather pitiful for the end of May, even considering the temperatures. Here they are, weeds and all. At least now I know they didn't rot in the ground! I hope to take care of the weeds this weekend, and prepare the beds for tomato plants I'll get from my sister.

Peas 2011

I planted my peas fairly early for this year. For weeks I thought they were just waterlogged. But they are beginning to come up now. Not sure there will be much of a crop this year as I think it will get too hot for them before harvest time. Still, hope springs eternal!

This was taken at the end of March. I'll try to get a shot this weekend. They are up several inches now.

Spring?

hyacinths my mom planted many years ago

perennial poppies

tulips, of course

So, one day sunny, next cold and rainy - will a garden succeed with this? Here are some pix from the sunny days and some progress with veggies. The veggie garden is this far only because my good friend Sheila came over two days to help get the weeds out of the fenced-in garden so that strawberry plants could be rescued, beet seeds could be planted, pea starts could be moved in to their proper place and some totally buried shallot starts could be divided and replanted - yay Sheila!!! Thank you so-o much!

strawberry plants. In the barrels, I planted lettuce seeds, herbs (dill, parsley, basil), and spinach. Can't wait for them so we can eat them!

beet seeds planted in the back box, shallot starts in the foreground. Peas are in a box to the right of the beet seeded box - thought I had a picture but couldn't find it - they are about 2" tall. Better get some strings going

Rain rain go away!

Hello gardening friends! From the lakes and puddles of Maple Valley - don't you just wish the rain would go away long enough to be able to plant some seeds? It's just too wet to do that yet outdoors. I did plant some "Jiffy" pots with some sweetpeas, red peppers, basil, pink babies breath. Also a couple big half barrels outside with some radishes, carrots and spinach - these were iffy at best though because the dirt was still a little wet, but I added some potting soil that helped it be a little more dry when I mixed it in.
I am hoping that those of you who told me you had trouble adding photos will find a way to do that, we would all love to see more photos. I hope to add some spring pix soon. I do have daffodils and crocus popping up in my yard despite the cold.

My first spring notification

Here is my beautiful helebore - it always surprises me because of it's early beauty!! Because of the cold and snow and really cold temps due at night (although it got this far without my help), I moved it to the front porch from the north side of the house - it's in a big pot because I wanted to bring it with me from the old house.

Here is another small being waiting for spring:

This picture was taken yesterday before the big snowfall.                  

Garden Consultation

Peaceful Gardeners bloggers - it has come to our attention that maybe perhaps we should have a real live meeting before spring. At least two of us would like to get as many of us together as possible to talk about spring, that wonderful gift of warmer weather for planning and planting and taking care of the garden. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Flower Show

Is anyone interested in attending the Northwest Flower and Garden Show at the Seattle Convention Center? It is Wed-Sun, Feb 23-27 this year. If we buy tickets before the show, it is $16 each. Day of it goes up to $20. There is a group discount for 20 or more at $15 per person. Check it out, and the seminars, at http://www.gardenshow.com/. I usually take a day off work and spend the whole day. Right now I'm leaning towards Wednesday, but I need to take a closer look at the seminars before I decide for sure.