tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27883817526746848452024-03-17T23:02:05.007-04:00Green Jeana gardening journalJeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.comBlogger4496125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-25781087293941052642024-02-25T13:35:00.002-05:002024-02-25T13:35:44.782-05:00how's my Tuckerdoing, fine. Better color now again-
though hard to get it in a photo (as usual) because he starts zooming back and forth when I'm near. So most pics a blur or simply backlit-
or he lurks in the large anubias corner. Got this decent pic from the short side of the tank.Something's still going wrong when I do the water changes. I admit it had been too long between them again, and I had Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-35277388339370478782024-01-31T22:26:00.001-05:002024-02-01T12:27:28.428-05:00our old man catwent to his final rest yesterday. We miss him so much. He was a great cat. Super friendly, handsome and confident-
Loved to be with his people. He would sleep on your lap for hours. Keep you company if you were sick. Greet anybody walking by our house (unless they had a dog). This photo taken years ago by one of my kids with a toy camera.When they weren't at my house for a week, he'd go Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-66006955712439986632023-12-12T16:27:00.001-05:002023-12-12T16:27:49.470-05:00pink cactusSeveral weeks ago I noticed my little zygo cactus had a bud. I thought it would bloom in time for Thanskgiving.
It's only just now opening up fully. Timing's kind of off, but still pretty!Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-48480582546530048272023-11-29T10:28:00.003-05:002023-11-29T10:28:59.583-05:00my paradise fishI'd had concerns about him lately. He'd been off color (see end of this post), and then was suddenly darting away, hiding after taking a few bites of food. He refused flake and NLS pellets for a few days, then I offered him one of his favorites- frozen brine shrimp. A bite, and then he hid under the ceramic arch (a spot I never saw him go into before). Spent days either there or under the filter Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-29122857984143395552023-11-12T15:50:00.002-05:002023-11-12T15:50:46.566-05:00last acornsI finally cracked the last gathered white oak acorns a few days ago.
They were all bad. Had been in a single layer in a basket that I agitated quite often, I didn't see any visible mold on the outsides, but once opened, those not insect infested or rotted to a powder, had this discoloration- starting to spoil.Threw them all out. I'm still gathering a whole lot of pin oak acorns out of the Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-84070949849297242052023-11-11T16:03:00.000-05:002023-11-12T16:07:33.299-05:00FredThere's only one plant in our household that has a name- the huge schefflera in the dining room window, that my husband had for years before we married. It's Fred (and we hang Christmas ornaments on him in Dec). After the chop, lots of leaves are turning yellow and falling off. I kind of expected that. Dismayed maybe I've harmed the plant, more than just a setback. But no fear- new tender young Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-53874689411605889602023-11-09T16:01:00.000-05:002023-11-12T16:03:25.451-05:00I cut downall the dead cardinal climber vines off the deck- after the first freeze they go from attractive with a bit of color change, to limp and slimy all at once. Couldn't help collecting the fallen seed off the deck, even though I don't really need to save any- there's still plenty in the original packet.
Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-80803452915175073682023-11-05T15:50:00.000-05:002023-11-12T16:01:16.433-05:00just beforethe freeze, I took these pictures. My older sister sent me a packet of wildflower seeds (deer resistant). It was late in the season, but I scattered them in one of the empty garden beds. And some grew! They came up a month or so ago. This is definitely a marigold- and one of the few left still alive after the chill.
These I think are alyssumand this one came up in the middle of something else, Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-32075619485714136022023-11-02T13:31:00.000-04:002023-11-02T13:31:11.077-04:00first freezewas last night. I spent the last two days raking leaves and picking up more pin oak acorns out of the grass. Put some leaf litter/grass clippings mulch around and over some of my plants just as it was getting dark yesterday- the new rosemary, sweetspire, hyssop (which also got cut back to two inches), wild geraniums, lemon balm and tarragon, etc. A few days earlier I had spread the compost Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-74549547505586009532023-10-28T22:20:00.000-04:002023-10-28T22:20:06.954-04:00work outsideTurned my compost pile. Thought a post was missing that holds up the perimeter of the bin container- but it was actually broken a third from the top, and bent down inside the edge. Don't know how that happened. This was my process, same as last time but I don't recall if I wrote it down: pull off the perimeter and move to the new spot. Lay small sticks or dry stems (usually from monarda, Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-78512649513958435252023-10-27T22:20:00.012-04:002023-10-28T22:28:16.859-04:00end of acorns, first stepWell, almost. There's a few left in the last basket. I spent a few hours going through all the acorns. Because I'd forgotten to sift them around for a day (or maybe two), and also perhaps the baskets didn't have an open enough weave on the bottom, and I found that a lot of them were suddenly going moldy. There was also film of mold growing on the bottom of the baskets, I threw one out and scouredJeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-31335152468074010502023-10-25T14:48:00.001-04:002023-10-25T14:50:02.880-04:00acorns day 4of the shelling stage, still. Heaped a plate again with ones that were starting to split open. Learned that the quick spoilage happens from the nutmeat getting exposed to air, so if you drop them immediately in water, they don't start to discolor. So I tried that.
It definitely made the job go quicker- instead of making continual trips across the room to freezer, I just plop them all in the bowlJeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-48164316965244607742023-10-24T10:27:00.002-04:002023-10-24T10:27:57.479-04:00first frostLast night. I had just planted out more of my new plants during the day- slender mountain mint, sedum and New England aster on the larger sunny sideyard. (Probably the last will get eaten by the deer, though I'm taking the chance. These plants much bigger than the ones I tried setting out before, if that makes any difference). They'd been in the mini greenhouse until now, I still have the Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-25533272246820398942023-10-22T22:10:00.002-04:002023-10-22T22:10:16.081-04:00more acornsYesterday I planted out the sweetspire, on the larger slope. And trimmed berries off the nandina. Mixed firepit ash into the vermicompost and spread on both front and back lawns (most of it on the front, as I think the back lawn gets nutrients that wash downslope out of the garden beds). Sorted this pile of acorns out of the baskets, that were starting to split
and got this much good stuff Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-12389500153829096882023-10-20T13:59:00.000-04:002023-10-22T21:51:36.284-04:00fall flowersMy wild chrysanthemum is so pretty
I really need more of this in other places in my yard. And I think I can do so easily- I had cut a few stems that were growing out of the space just few weeks ago, stuck them in a new spot, and didn't expect much. But look- not only did they survive, they're blooming too!The standard mums in the front are full of flowers. Even though I only pinched once, they Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-61595455888401975502023-10-19T13:37:00.003-04:002023-10-19T13:38:52.798-04:00planted stuffI put my new rosemary in the ground. In the corner of the garden. By the rue- so you can see it's really still quite small, considering the final size it might get- but four or five times larger than any rosemary plant I've had in the past!
I trimmed those droopy tips a bit too, to reduce the transplant shock. Also planted out- on the backyard slope that I want eventually to have no grass- the Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-89861195541789257432023-10-19T13:25:00.003-04:002023-10-19T13:25:19.852-04:00acorn processingThere's definitely fewer to pick up now. Either the tree is almost done dropping them, or the squirrels have wised up to the competition and are getting out there ahead of me each morning. Collected from the yard day before yesterday:
and today. (Still plenty of pin oak acorns, which I toss out in the woods).I got a bunch of baskets to have good airflow and contain them for drying out- nobody Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-80087709722860624232023-10-18T13:42:00.002-04:002023-10-18T13:42:35.420-04:00acornsBumper crop in the yard- it must be a mast year. I noticed there's tons of big fat white oak acorns falling, I can actually hear them thump onto the ground if I'm outside. Don't know if I never noticed them before, or if this year the tree really is producing more than usual. And it's smaller and scrawnier than the big straight pin oak. Perhaps because the leaf mulch pile was near base of the Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-48308191775769915882023-10-16T09:56:00.000-04:002023-10-17T09:57:30.382-04:00plant swap!I made this bench on the front porch (some of the legs a bit wonky, it's not nearly as sturdy as I'd like, but it does the job of holding up whatever I need to set down for a moment)
and here it is with plants ready to go to the swap. I took two rue, four pots of echinacea, the mini geranium, some coleus, three potted catnip, and some aloe vera babies. But nobody wanted the catnip, I had to Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-24457654148227597692023-10-14T21:59:00.000-04:002023-10-16T22:09:35.361-04:00the coleusI potted up all my cuttings. More than I'd planned on, took the ones off the aquarium and put them in pots too (changed my mind on that). I liked the look of this handful of the 'witchy' cuttings in a jar, with all the growing roots visible,
but those got potted too.(Parent plant looking good still)My favorites are in the kitchen windowand almost every other tooLots of these 'gay delight' as Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-19207627199080607652023-10-12T10:38:00.000-04:002023-10-12T10:38:15.322-04:00structureI've been working a lot outside- the cooler weather plus my improving health makes me delighted to be outside for hours getting sweaty and sore muscles. It's great! But not a lot of work to do with plants, although I'm pulling weeds, raking, trimming stuff per usual. Straightening garden bed edges, where some bricks had fallen out of alignment over the past few years. And digging small rocks withJeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-16727438616508047752023-10-11T23:36:00.003-04:002023-10-11T23:36:34.023-04:00around the gardenI've been doing some work on the garden structure- the bed edges and such. But too tired from that to write it all out now, so here's some incidental pictures from the past few days. More on the actual work tomorrow. Found an unknown caterpillar- black and spiky!- on the boneset plant.
Which is doing great- it grew so fast, already the height of my small camellia.I want to get more of thisJeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-34976126556895924902023-10-10T23:36:00.001-04:002023-10-11T23:48:54.399-04:00a few thingsin the garden- not much, but there is stuff growing. One blue collard from last year, actually producing since I took all the catmint out of bed eight. (Ate most of this with salmon and quinoa for dinner). There were green caterpillars. I plucked them all off, and fed the two smallest to Tucker.
Big soft leaves of nicotiana. The borage has succumbed to something - heat a few weeks ago, or insect Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-55851930293568710972023-09-29T13:26:00.001-04:002023-09-29T13:26:02.728-04:00greenhouse repairsFinished the fixups I started two weeks ago.
It needed more work than I realized. When I took off all the plastic panels- only left the roof piece on- found that some wood pieces across the bottom were rotted. So I pulled them out, cut and painted new pieces to go in. Again from scrap wood, so probably this won't last long either. But I cut one piece too short, so had to patch in another Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788381752674684845.post-30868224294940421422023-09-27T19:01:00.004-04:002023-09-27T19:01:43.392-04:00more butternut squashAte the second one! I made a soup. It was pretty good- and very filling. I used a recipe that also added potato, celery, onion and carrot. I also added some thyme and sage. With just biscuits on the side, this was a great meal.
Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0