Kitchen to Hearthroom - Phase One

On Monday the 6th Keira helped me paint the Kitchen Silver Sateen (Baer.)  Then i painted all of the trim Snowy Pine (Baer.)

Where Did the Last Month Go?

The California Poppies have been in bloom for a few weeks. Today I found that the ranunculus I planted in the flowerbed at the end of the drive are all up!  They may even bloom.  I am so excited.  The weather is very much behind this year and there are no roses except for a handful of the climbing rose on the arbor.  The strawberries have begun to set fruit and the cane berries all have at least one blossom. 

I planted 7 tomato plants just after mother's day and all are doing as well as can be expected except for one.

Today I made chive blossom vinegar.

Two weeks ago a friend took the tulip magnolia away and the north garden looks so much better.  I was even able to enlarge and square up the strawberry patch and add a few more plants.

I took som stones left over from the  walk way in the north Garden and made a path through the long east flower bed in the South Garden.  It is darling.

A Month ago we had 1.5 units of bark dust delivered and worked ourselves senseless spreading it all out.  It looks SO good, we put it every where.

Starlings Day!

Starlings Day!

Happy Anniversary!  Starlings has belonged to us for 1 year today.  That was a very happy day, we have been so blessed and I have been grateful every single day.

Starlings, May 10, 2010 in the a.m.

I spent the mid-day moving mis-placed tulips and weeding in preparation for the great bark dust dump scheduled for this weekend. The azaleas are the only thing in bloom just now but they are brilliant, there are a few last tulips that haven't died yet and the poppies and iris are taunting me.   I can't wait to eat from the gardens.
Last night  I  made a very small rhubarb crisp, it was the first rhubarb harvest at Starlings and the first harvest of the year from the gardens. Happily, (considering my sketchy history with crisps) it was a success.

Starlings, May 10, 2011, 3 pm.  With 3 bickering children.

The sun has come out, the birds are singing and I am typing this on my porch.  The kids are running and laughing and swinging.

   Life is Great! 

God is Good!

Thyme for Mint

I love mint and I love thyme but I didn't have a good place to plant them.  A few weeks ago I decided to build a bed on the edge of the porch and put the mint and thyme there.  I want the bed positively over flowing with both someday.  in the mean time I scavanged 2 1/4 circle edging bricks from the cherry trees that were already being pushed up by the roots and bought about a dozen or so grey edging bricks, a couple bags of soil and built a bed.  It wasn't easy digging straight trenches for the bricks but in the end I am happy with the result.  While I wait for it to fill in I planted the remainder of the onion and garlic sets along the back of the bed.  I have mystery varieties of thyme and I am not even sure that any of them are edible and apple mint, orange mint, curly spearmint and chocolate mint.  I can't seem to find any plain peppermint anywhere.

Found Items

I found these cute simple bunnies buried in the dirt in the north garden.  I think they are perfect!

Garden Wanderings

This morning I woke early from a craft store nightmare and since I wasn't scheduled to tend E until 11 I headed out to do some gardening.  There were some blades of grass springing up in the strawberry bed so I pulled those and found a plant that didn't root and replaced it with an extra I had saved in a pot.  We have a hand full of blossoms on the 2 plants that overwintered.

I wandered about looking at the new life and digging up random weeds that I found particularly offensive.  I noticed that the grape vine is just about to flower/leaf as the buds are about to burst.  It is fun watching a grape vine for the first time.

The potatoes that I planted in March in the corner garden on the north side of the house have a couple of leaves poking through.  The rhubarb in that corner is doing better that the rhubarb in south lawn in full sun.  This corner garden is now shaded for a good part of the day by the plum tree.  I am afraid that it really will need to be cut down this fall.  It is so sad because the pink blossoms in the spring are so  beautiful and when they fall and it is raining pink blossoms it is positively enchanting.

There is a hedge running along the south porch  and there are tulips behind it.  I don't know which was planted first or if the planter of the hedge knew that there were tulips planted when they put in the hedge but the beautiful apricot tulips don't do very well because just after they come up the hedge fills in and they get too much shade to bloom.  The few that do bloom are hidden by the hedge so today I began tentatively, to move them from behind the hedge to the front.  I know this isn't the best time to move bulbs but you have to do it when you can A) find the bulbs, and B) when the ground is soft enough to plant them.  I think I moved about 1/4-1/3 of them before M called and asked if E could come right away.  Gardening morning cut short!

While I was moving tulips I found some Lemon Balm and I laughed because I just got a huge chunk of lemon balm from B because I didn't have any.  The balm wasn't doing too well behind the hedge either.  I also picked up some chives from B and put them just at the base of the climbing rose in the drive.

About 3 weeks ago I started some seeds in a mini greenhouse.  The zinnias and Tom Thumb Lettuces have all come up as have the borage but the tomatoes, impatiens, futzu, spearmint and Dwarf Bees beans are not doing anything.  The borage could probably the transplanted but I have no idea where I will put it.

I also noticed some lilies and comfrey poking up through the soil and the wildflower bed on the corner of the drive is showing some life, but the tulips and daffodils are all dying away and there is nothing even close to blooming just yet.

Oh, and these little beauties popped up in the north garden along the fence.  Aren't the gorgeous?

Strawberry Bonanza?

I hope so.
I have always had poor luck with strawberries.
We live in berry country and around nearly every corner there is someone selling berries from their farm.  You would think with these conditions my strawberry attempts would thrive.  I have experienced all manner of strawberry disasters: drowning, drying out, too much shade, sunburn, slug attack. 
This year I am showing no mercy.  I made a bed in the north lawn I made mounds and actual rows and irrigation ditches.  Sluggo will be used liberally.  This is by far the most traditional gardening I have ever done, the closest thing would be the garden boxes.  I really like the idea of making edibles part of the landscape but strawberries are important and they needed a dedicated patch.

I planted Puget Reliance and Tribute Everbearing.  Why those varieties?  Because that is what they had in the bareroot strawberries at Farmington Gardens when I was there.  Maybe I should have looked for some hoods.  I had a few left over so I put them in a strawberry pot I haven't had much luck with strawberry post in the past.

Roses

Saturday the Mr. and the Mrs. dug holes for 18 roses, transplanted 6 and planted 12 bare root roses.  The bare roots were fancy and expensive from David Austin Roses.  The digging was hard, the planting less difficult and we used up all of my topsoil bags.  There are still some manure bags left.  This took about 4 solid hours.  The Mr. went out to buy some much while the Mrs went to buy dinner.  Today (Monday) the Mrs. heaped mulch and watered the 18 roses and planted a Currant "cherry" at the corner of berry row.

The rose varieties are in order of planting left to right from the street:
Mr. Lincoln, Jubilee Celebration, Tahitian Sunset, Pink Simplicity, Mr. Lincoln, Pink Simplicity, Carding Mill, Jubilee Celebration, Jubilee Celebration, Carding Mill, Pink Simplicity, Mr. Lincoln, Pink Simplicity, Carding Mill, Mr. Lincoln, Yellow Tea, Pink Simplicity, Brother Cadfael

Pink Simplicity (tea rose) and the unidentified yellow tea-rose are transplants from elsewhere in the gardens.

Tahitian Sunset and Mr Lincoln are tea roses from David Austen.

Jubilee Celebration and  Brother Cadfael are English roses from David Austin and Carding Mill are Own Root English roses from David Austin.

The Mr. Insisted on the red Mr. Lincoln Tea roses and the Mrs. only chose Brother Cadfael because of the name  and color.  She really wanted to get Lady Emma Hamiltons and Christopher Marlowes as for their names as well but the Marlowes weren't pretty enough to make the harsh cut and the Lady Emma Hamiltons are peach and there were too many peaches in the order already.

The Mrs. thinks that Starlings really needs a "Mrs. Miniver" rose but can't find where to buy one.

More spring plantings

Tuesday began with a trip to the hardware store for 10 bags of sterilized steer manure and 10 bags of top soil.  Miniature princess emblazoned gloves were purchased for Nutmeg and a kneeling pad for myself. 

Then we went to Farmington Gardens and purchased bare root strawberries, a concord grape, a boysenberry, some freesia bulbs, and silverskin garlic.

Then we stopped at Aloha Feed and longed over the Americauna chicks and bought a haybale and a variety of seed potatoes.

After lunch the grape and boysenberry were planted in Berry Row and corner bed on the south side of the drive was attended to.  The sod was shaved off, the retaining wall rebuilt and the soil broken up.  2 bags of top soil were added and 3 dahlias, the freesia bulbs and 36 ranunculus were planted.

On Wednesday I was up early with the sunshine.  I planted seed potatoes from last year's harvest and organic potatoes from the winter that had gone to seed in the North bed near the front door.  5 holes were planted and and I added fresh soil on top of the rhubarb in the corner as it looked like it was growing in a pit.

I also laid out where the roses and tomatoes would be planted in the bed along the drive. Then I added 2 bags of manure and 2 bags of topsoil to that bed.   This in addition to the lime that was added on Saturday.

Still unsure about the east bed for the strawberries and thinking I should keep them where they were last year.  Trying to find places for the remaining seed potatoes, garlic and remaining onions.  Still need to find a place for a mint patch and decide where to move the thymes to.

Need to start indoor seeds including impatiens.

Spring at Starlings

Today there was much work done on the grounds.  The sad, shabby roses from the bed that runs along the drive were removed, taking care to preserve the daffodils and irises growing amongst them.  The earth was amended and turned and is awaiting more soil and new roses.  This summer tomatoes are planned for this bed as well.

The 5 cherry trees were trimmed and the twigs brought inside to force the blooms.  I left a bucket of free  trimmings for all want to take them.  I took a bunch to a neighbor.

 The war against lupines forged ahead in the Battle of the First Spring.  Many lupine lives were lost.  The hand trowel had to call in the spade for reninforcement but ultimately  Starlings won the skirmish with only a few sore muscles.  Many dandelions and weeds were also killed.
Some of the heather in Berry Row were trimmed back to make way for future plantings of grapes.

Most importantly I crossed the Orchard and met our neighbor, Sue.  She told me a great deal of history of Starlings.  I hope to speak with her again.