Gardening Tips

October is rapidly approaching and can be such an uncertain month for gardeners. Though winter can come to stay at any moment we often can get an Indian summer throughout the entire month. If heavy snowfall and cold weather seem likely, rush to complete outdoor work...with emphasis on harvesting and winter protection.


After mounding tender roses, cut the tops back to half their height, then if there is time defoliate the remaining canes. Before snow and after defoliation is a good time to prune all deciduous trees and shrubs. Consider the fall seeding of Swiss chard, head lettuce, Spanish onions and parsnips. Here are a few gardening tips for fall.


Before the ground freezes down
~ Complete the harvesting of vegetables such as cabbage and sprouts.
~ Dig remaining root crops.
~ Dig gladiola and cure corms in a warm, dry place.
~ Complete planting of tulip bulbs for spring bloom.
~ Continue to water woody plants if soil becomes dry.
~ Mound up tender roses before snowfall.
~ Rake up leaves and save for compost area.
~ Clean out eaves' troughs.
~ Dig the vegetable garden, turning under decomposed organic matter.
~ Pot up special tulips, daffodils and hyacinths for winter forcing.
~ Repair fences, walks and other elements of your yard.
~ Plant your spring flowering bulbs as early as you can so they have time to send down a few roots before the ground freezes hard.


After the ground freezes down
~ Prune trees and shrubs.
~ Complete the mounding of tender roses and place straw covering over strawberries.
~ Protect woody plants against wild animals if they pose a problem.
~ Service the lawn mower and other mechanical equipment.
~ Store cold frames, wheelbarrows, and other garden equipment under cover.
~ Clean and store hand tools under cover.
~ Reduce watering of houseplants but increase humidity.
~ If snow cover is uncertain mulch perennials.


When harvesting vegetables, you may wish to save the waste leaves and return them to the garden later in the form of compost. Make sure they are free of disease before adding them to the compost bin; if uncertain then toss them out.

Prepare bulbs for indoor winter bloom
Flower bulbs for winter forcing indoors are specially selected kinds pre-treated to provide mid winter bloom. After potting and watering they are kept in a cool, dark place to grow roots. When the roots are developed they are pulled out of the dark into the warm sunlight of a window where they will delight you with blooms to enjoy in the cold of winter.

Serenity Sunday

Lemon Thyme

A sweetly scented, evergreen herb and a cultivated form of wild thyme. It is a popular culinary herb due to its mild citrus flavor and is often used in stuffings, with chicken dishes or added to fruit salads and jellies.


Lemon thyme has therapeutic effects as well and is popular as an alternative to standard Western allopathic medicine for a variety of problems, including anti-ageing properties, relieving muscle spasms as well as easing a tight chest and promoting relaxation.


I have a couple varieties of Thyme in my herb garden and highly advocate adding the Lemon variety to yours, it's creeping and mounding nature adds a wonderful, scented addition around water features such as a pond or just as a terrific contrast along with other herbs.




My List:


1.) My kids


2.) Great friends


3.) LOTS of laughter

4.) Frogs serenading me from our pond at night.


5.) Weeding the flower beds


6.) The scent of Hyacinths 


7.) Roses bursting with foliage


8.) My readers..you guy's are the BEST!


9.) Mowing the lawn


10.) Smudging the house in honor of Spring

Frosty Friday

The nights are getting rather chilly around here and the past few mornings have found me scraping ice off of my windshield, (and every other glass surface on my car) grumbling and mumbling the whole time because my mittens have decided to part ways and only one can be found.

Sorry, I digress...Today I thought I'd talk a little about the plants in our yards and gardens and how to care for them during the winter months so in the spring they can pop their little heads up and dazzle us with yet another season of beauty and function.

Roses

Many people have roses in their landscaping and in my yard my roses are my pride and joy each blooming season. Caring for them over the winter is very easy and it only takes a few minutes to have them all ready for winter slumber.Start winterizing hybrid teas just before the ground freezes, which usually occurs about a month or two after the first frost.

If in your area, temperatures remain above 20° F Hybrid Teas need few special measures beyond adequate mulching. If roses are growing in sites exposed to drying winter winds, wrap the plants or build a windbreak with natural burlap or white polyspun floating row cover.


If your temperatures fall as low as 10° to 15° F for 2 weeks or more at a time, begin winterizing roses after the first hard frost. Mound fresh, loose soil or compost 6 to 8 inches high around the base of each plant. Prune canes back only enough to prevent them from whipping about in the wind and to allow them to fit under a protective covering. 

Detach climbing roses from their supports and bend them down to the ground. Carefully bunch the canes together ands peg them to the soil with wood or wire hoops of some kind. Finally, cover them completely with 4 to 6 inches of well-draining soil, compost or organic mulch such as wood chips.


Perennials and Bulbs

Let perennial plants die down to the ground naturally to allow them to store energy and nutrients in their roots for the winter. Cut back and discard the dead aboveground parts to reduce the risk of disease and deny winter shelter to insect pests. Mulch the soil to moderate the effects of freezing and thawing, and/or cover tender perennials and bulb beds with boughs cut from evergreens to trap snow for additional cover.


Protect bulbs that are located in the open from small animals by stretching plastic bird netting over the ground during the winter. Alternatively, line planting trenches with chicken wire or put individual bulbs in hardware cloth cages when planting bulbs in the fall.


Well, with all that said, we can now take care of all those other winterizing tasks such as wrapping outside pipes and making sure that the nasty draft under the front door is taken care of!


Bright Blessings

Roses And Cookies

My first rose to bloom this year is French Lace so in honor of one of my sweetest smelling roses, I'm adding a recipe of the same name....enjoy!.

French Lace Cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 6 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1 cup finely chopped nuts
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup shortening
2/3 cup brown sugar

Preheat Oven to 375 degrees

Preparation:
Blend flour and nuts. Bring corn syrup, shortening and sugar to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; gradually stir in flour and nuts.Drop batter by level teaspoonfuls about 3 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake only 8 to 9 cookies at a time. Bake about 5 to 6 minutes, remove from oven and allow to stand 5 minutes to harden slightly before removing from pan.

Serentity Sunday

Wow, what a beautiful day it was yesterday! The sun was shining..... the temperature reached 82 degrees.... a refreshing breeze caressed my face and there wasn't a cloud in sight. It was the perfect day for the the annual Hazel Dell parade in Vancouver, Washington. My roommate Coral's oldest daughter, Isabella, (affectionately called Bella) played her clarinet in the Chief Umtuch ( pronounced Um- tuck) Middle School Marching Band and they were enthusiastically cheered on by the huge crowd that lined the sidewalks and streets.

With the beautiful weather yesterday and today (another 82 degree day) just reinforced the feeling of what is really important in this life...a small town parade...great weather... family and friends and a very laid back weekend.

My List:

1.) My kids

2.) My cats

3.) Good friends

4.) Cool breezes

5.) Picnic lunches

6.) Lemon flavored Propel

7.) Tolerance and education

8.) Music

9.) An old rusty Weber barbecue

10.) Taking life one day at a time

A Beautiful Day

What a beautiful day we had yesterday, the children and I all made flower baskets and flower wreaths to give out to neighbors and family, we sang a few songs and ate a very nice meal outside in the evening. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, it was a little bit windy towards evening but we all enjoyed ourselves very much.

I noticed some gorgeous mini rose plants in the local Safeway store...on sale for Mother's Day...and of course I couldn't pass up grabbing a few. Okay, I grabbed exactly four...one for my roommate, one for her mom, one for an elderly neighbor and...look, one left over for myself...what a bonus! I planted the two roses in a nice green pot on the porch so we can all enjoy them...they even have a heavenly fragrance! (That's almost unheard of in miniature florist style roses!)

I'm a bit worn out from all the fresh air and activity so I'm going to cut it a bit short, as I write my blogs around ten o'clock the evening before, so I hope that everyone enjoyed their Beltane or May Day...which ever suits you best. Enjoy your Saturday, and blessed be to you all!

Magic Rose Elixir

Just as “Milk does a body good,” Epsom Salt may be one of the most perfect nutrients for flowers and plants. And mid-to-late spring is the ideal time to nourish the soils and roots of your favorite foliage and flowers with this inexpensive and easy-to-use compound. According to the Epsom Salt Council, research indicates Epsom Salt can help seeds germinate; make plants grow bushier; produce more flowers; increase chlorophyll production; improve phosphorus and nitrogen uptake; and deter pests, including slugs and moles.

I have a small rose garden in front of my house and each year I treat them to 1/2 cup of epsom salts in mid spring, along with the rose food I feed them regularly. I learned of this little trick years ago when I worked at a local nursery and later as a master gardener in my area. At first I scoffed and was very skeptical but one year I figured that I would be open minded and try it, lo and behold my roses started pushing new canes from their graft and were generally hardier and more full. I promised myself that I'd be open minded from then on because sometimes...you just never know when a great tip might turn up!

Love Is In The Air

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and was originally a pagan festival of love, which was taken over by the Church and disapproved of for it's romantic and sexual connotations, and renamed for "Saint Valentine" and a day for martyrs. This day is commonly connected with the exchanging of Valentines Day cards and other such tokens of affection like heart shaped boxes of chocolates and large bouquets of red roses.... symbols including heart-shaped outlines, white doves, and figures of little winged cherubs named cupid are seen everywhere. I still remember to this day how incredibly important it was to put together the perfect cards for your friends and that cute boy that sat next to you in English class (after all, this was THE day that it was totally acceptable to make sure you gave him the best card without drawing taunts or jokes from your other classmates!) It's changed a bit since I was in school and now my children are writing out cards and giggling about that boy or girl of interest and which card should they give to them and I find myself thinking of what this day really means. Where did the days go that found you coloring and gluing red felt and white lace scraps together, actually making your Valentines with your own two hands? Ah, those were the days.... when everything seemed a little more special because you came up with the idea and put it together all by yourself...the days mom baked late into the night, frosting pink and white cupcakes with colorful sprinkles for the great occasion the next day, the days you wrote out poems in the very best handwriting that you could muster in order to impress that special someone that you just couldn't come right out and admit you were smitten with? Have I really gotten that old ( I'm almost older than dirt)...have times changed so much that that kind of effort is no longer the in thing to do? Tomorrow, I ask you to think of those you love and just pull them aside and tell them how special they are to you and that they will always be the most important people in your life, tell them thank-you for simply being themselves and then plant a big fat juicy kiss right on their cheek!

Coincidence Or Universal Gift?

There's this gypsy purse I've had my eye on for quite awhile, it has black fringe, a long shoulder strap and best of all...it is an antique rose tapestry fabric that I simply thought was the coolest! ( I love roses!) I could put my wallet and keys in it...my cell could fit quite nicely and best of all, I could fit my tarot cards snugly inside and take them with me where ever I went! It's been on a wiccan/pagan website that I look at now and then and for nearly a year now they've had only one left in stock. Many times I'd go to the site and gaze at it longingly but always, other obligations came up and I put it on the back burner in lieu of Cheer Camp, zoo trips and various other things that kids need as they grow up. It can be tough raising kids as a single parent but I feel that if you invest in them now, they will be such a gift to the world later so I always told myself "When tax time comes, I'll be sure to purchase that lovely gypsy purse." I got my taxes back the other day and my first thought was..."Ooh, gypsy purse here I come!" I brought up the website and low and behold...they still had it! I could not believe it and of course, ordered it straight away. I couldn't believe I was finally going to get this beautiful handmade purse (and now I'm waiting none too patiently for my poor mail carrier.) I wonder how it was still there...I'm sure there were other folks that thought it was the greatest...? I suppose you could chalk it up to luck, chance or coincidence but maybe, just maybe the universe is just a little bit smarter than I and had a design of its own all along...