Aloe Harvest

I made the decision in September to not bring the big pot of aloe back indoors for the winter. It overwhelmed the breakfast area last year. By mid-October when we started having some cooler days, I dug up two small plants that had come up from the roots of the parent and moved them to smaller pots that would easily fit on the plant table in front of a sunny window this winter.

I also harvested some of the larger plant. Instead of doing a lot of work peeling the pieces - I cut them in small wedges to expose the gooey pulp and piled them into ice trays to be frozen. Now the aloe cubes are popped out of the trays and stored in the freezer in a gallon Ziploc bag. My plan is to thaw a cube frequently to pamper skin and hair all winter long.

Revisiting Wheaton Park and Brookside Gardens

Earlier this month, I decided to walk around Brookside Gardens with a guest from out of town and had a different experience than I anticipated. When we got there the parking at Brookside Gardens was limited by construction and full. There was no parking next door at the Brookside Nature Center either. I remembered a path through the forest from Wheaton Regional Park’s play ground to Brookside Gardens…and found parking near the playground.

I had not been to Wheaton Park for almost 20 years (we went to this park frequently when my daughter was the age to enjoy it) and it had changed dramatically in those years. Gone were the wooden structures that supported slides and swings and climbing walls. All the supporting structures now are brightly painted metal. There is more color in the slides (yellow tubes) and synthetic mulch (blues and greens). The hill has been terraced to reduce the erosion since the heavy use thins the grass. I liked that the park had been renovated….and that it was still a popular place.

There are still animal sculptures just the right size for children. I managed to get this picture when the elephant did not have a rider.

The path was just as I remembered through the woods - asphalt and wide enough for maintenance vehicles. And then we were at Brookside Gardens. The hibiscus will have to be brought in soon but the flowers were enjoying the last of the warm days. Seed pods were showy on some plants. The lily pads did not have flowers but there were buds; would they have time to bloom? The mums were just beginning to open.

Sweet Potato Crop 2014

I clipped the leaves from my sweet potato plant was grew in a trough on my deck all summer over a week ago … enjoying that bounty in salads. Now I have harvested the sweet potatoes themselves. There are 5 good size sweet potatoes and two smaller ones. I cut up the enlarged roots (about the diameter of my little finger but orange inside) for a stir fry before I remembered to take a picture!

I planted a sweet potato that sprouted last October and enjoyed it as a house plant during the winter.

It went out on the deck as soon as the weather was warm and I added a bell pepper and zinnias to the pot. But the sweet potato vine was the dominate plant. I’ve already got the ends of the vines rooting in my kitchen and I’m preparing to plant them as houseplants. Now that I know the leaves are edible, I might trim the plants for fresh salad ingredients this winter - long after this crop of sweet potatoes has been consumed.

Fourth Mint Harvest of the Summer (2014)

The weather is getting decidedly cool here in Maryland so I have made the last mint harvest of the year. The weather and the additional plantings have made for a very good harvest this year. Almost every pot on the deck has some mint in it; I pushed stems from the early harvest into pots and they are overflowing just about everywhere they were planted. The pot that I planted last year has stems growing round the inside rim of the pot (I discovered this when I made my final harvest)! The front flowerbed has grown vigorously as well. It would have been even better had I watered it more consistently between rains.

Most of the mint I am drying and then combining with black tea to make a ‘blend’ for winter.

I have re-purposed a soup tureen to hold the blend; it looks great on the cabinet next to the ‘tea’ maker. One eighth cup tea in the basket of the tea maker makes a ‘just right’ carafe of tea to drink either hot or cold.

I am also putting some mint leaves in the smoothie maker with water and then freezing the resulting slush in ice cube trays for use in smoothies or soups during the winter. It’s a bit more work and requires freezer space but I like the flavor of fresh mint!

Tomatoes

The first tomatoes of the summer were from my deck garden. I enjoyed watching them ripen. The heirlooms were a new treat. I already knew that eating a tomato ripened on the vine and eaten within hours of being picked was something to savor. So I watched both the two pots - heirloom and patio with anticipation as the tiny green fruits formed and then grew until they ripened. They ripened so that I spread the eating of that first little crop over a week.

Now I am making progress on the load of tomatoes that came from the CSA during the 2 weeks I was away. I may have to freeze tomato sauce before I pick up the next share!

But I am enjoying the bounty of tomatoes two times a day and hope that I’ll be able to finish off most of them by Wednesday morning. The heirlooms go first…then the cherry tomatoes because they are so easy to cut in half and include in salads.  I’ll make homemade tomato soup tomorrow - that always uses a lot of tomatoes.

There are more tomatoes on my deck plants (a second crop) and I’m sure there will be more coming from the CSA. Tomatoes are summer food to celebrate!

The Deck Garden - July 2014

The deck garden is growing vigorously. My favorite plant this season is the sweet potato vine. It was started last winter when a sweet potato sprouted before I got around to eating it. I cut the sprouted end off and planted it in a pot. It did not grow very fast until it to outdoors in this summer. The soil in the pot is already being pushed upward by the tubers underneath - and the plant has two other appealing characteristics: the foliage is purple and it has occasional blooms. I’m going to root some clippings from this plant to take through the winter indoors in pots so that I’ll more the plants next summer for the deck.

Several of the other veggies have been an interesting experience but I probably go back to growing flowers on the deck next year. I get plenty of veggies from the CSA each week. The tomatoes are good picked fresh and eaten immediately. They might be worth it.

I have a spaghetti squash that is starting to grow. Watching it mature will be a learning experience. I also have a pot full of pepper plants that came up when I stirred some kitchen parings (including the waste from bell peppers) into one of the pots before I planted a squash plant in it. The squash has not done so well but I have several small peppers.

The cucumber plants are the ones that scream ‘water’ the fastest. I planted them in a pot that is too small. They need water every day - and more than that on very hot days.

And that leads me to the big lesson learned from the past 4 weeks: my shoulders hurt after only a few days of carrying big jugs of water out to deck to keep the plants hydrated. I’ve maneuvered a hose from the faucet below the deck to water the plants from now on!

Dragonflies at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

The lotuses are blooming profusely at the Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens in Washington DC; I’ll post about them later this week. The dragonflies are the focus for today. There were so many of them when we were walking around the ponds yesterday that I managed to capture quite a few images. They like to perch on dried seed pods,

Folded lotus leaves and

The tips of lotus buds.

The sun reflects off their wings giving them a metallic gleam.

Sometimes their color is jewel like: powder blue, deep green, black veined gossamer.

Sometimes their thorax looks muscle bound

And sometimes it looks it has sub-segments.

This one has droopy wings.

This last picture is my favorite - the color of the uncurling lotus and the dragonfly perching for a few seconds before flying out again over the water.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for May 2014.

Daughter’s visit. What’s not to like about having a daughter around! It was a very short visit - every part was a celebration of family.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits. This was the first year I found them blooming at the forest’s edge in our yard. These plants always seem special to me because I saw them only in pictures until I moved to the east coast.

Getting seedlings planted. I got all the seedlings planted and celebrated they were all thriving (until the hail battered a couple to oblivion last week. Still - enough are growing rapidly in there pots on the deck that I am pleased with the results of my efforts to get them started early.

Wall of green. Every my I celebrate the return of the wall of green view from my office window. The tulip poplar and maple trees are through the spring greens and looking as lush always get in summer. The sycamore that I see from my kitchen window is a little later unfurling; it’s leaves will continue getting larger and larger all during the summer.

Blueberries and yogurt. It is my favorite mini-meal in May and June….a way to celebration almost every day.

Driving neighbors. I thoroughly enjoy volunteering to drive senior citizens to their appointments in my community. What a joy it is to have them stay in the community where they have lived for years!

Hiking in the forest. Spring is one of my favorite times to hike: wildflowers, not a lot of biting insects, water gurgling. It was wonderful to be outdoors after the cold and wet!

Phone conversations. I find myself celebrating the normal ebb and flow of conversation with people far away. Sometimes it is the ordinary that turns out to be a treasure.

Birdbath and iris. Every time I go by the front door of my house (either outside or inside) I glance and the view and celebrate!

Chives. Here’s to celebrating plants that just come up every year on their own….and taste wonderful in salads!

My Deck Garden - May 2014

I am enlarging my deck garden this year and done some planting in small pots indoors to be ready.  It was finally warm enough here late last week for them to all go outdoors. I’ve planted combinations of plants in larger pots - one that will spill out over the side and one that will grow upward….or one that makes a large root and one that grows tall. I’m not sure it will work or not, but at least the deck will look interesting this summer and I’ll do a monthly post about the deck garden until the fall. I supplied the plants I had started from seed with potted plants bought at Home Depot once they were sale priced. The mint that wintered on the deck has already sprouted so I simply added something else to those pots. I have pots or troughs of:

Sweet potato and bell pepper

Watermelon and tomato

Zucchini and cilantro

Tomato and spaghetti squash

Cucumber and cilantro

Tomato and cucumber

Spaghetti squash and mint (in the old ‘turtle’ sandbox)

Tomato and carrots (in a repurposed bin that cat litter came in)

Cantaloupe and cilantro

I just realized that I probably should plant some basil somewhere.

Seedlings Finding Sun - April 2014

The small pots of seedlings are going out into the garden soon: cucumbers, tomatoes, chives, cilantro….and one sunflower. My husband and I did a daylong photography session with the tray of small pots earlier this week to see if we could catch the seedlings turning toward the sun. We put the camera on a tripod and set it to take a picture every 15 minutes. The slide show below shows the seedlings moving around as the day progressed. The sunflower seedling is the large one closest to the camera that moves around a lot.

 

Star Magnolia at Brookside Gardens

The Star Magnolia at Brookside Gardens was just in bloom this past weekend on the southeast side of the Fragrance Garden (map of Brookside Gardens). It is one of the earliest blooming deciduous magnolias. The slide show below shows the whole buds and flowers.

Using the 8x loupe, I took some more detailed images of the blooms at various stages: the flowers just beginning to emerge from the bud,

The petals opening a little but still curved inward,

The expanding petals opening outward,

Opening more,

And, finally, the center of the flower.

Garden Dreaming - March 2014

Spring is getting a late start this year….more time for garden dreaming.

• The racks of seed packets are hard to pass by. I bought colorful beans and carrots…and decided to start chives and cilantro indoors immediately.
• I’m always on the lookout for items that can be turned into ‘pots’ for the deck. The big plastic containers from cat litter are my latest target. We buy the big jugs of cat litter so I’ll have to cut off the top but that means I can make the ‘pot’ the depth I want. The maximum depth would be enough to grow sweet potatoes or carrots on the deck!
• It seems like freebie seed packets are coming from all directions. So far I’ve collected sunflowers and marigolds….cucumbers and tomatoes!
• It is pretty obvious that garden success will require some control of the deer browsing in my garden area (fortunately the deck is not accessible already). I’m going to try a ‘liquid fence’ repellent for my garden (and right away from my ornamental shrubs and bulbs coming up….the deer are starving….eating everything right now).
• I had to cut the sweet potato back in the pot I have growing indoors….and it is rooting in a glass of water. Now that it is putting out fresh leaves I probably will need to plant it soon but I need a pot of it (may be the first thing planted in an empty cat litter jug will be the sweet potato)!
• I’m thinking about what will go in the garden plot. It gets a reasonable amount of sun on one side although a young sycamore is shading part of it late in the day. The veggies have priority and I’ll try to start some indoors to give them a head start. The sunflower may be too large for my garden so I’m contemplating planting them along the sunny side of the house - which is not even a flower bed right now.
•  I enjoyed the cardinal flowers and zinnias in the pots on the deck last summer. This year I am getting more organized and thinking about combinations in the larger pots; the thriller - filler - spiller idea appeals to me. The first and last on the ‘dreaming’ list below is already started - assuming the cardinal flower survived the winter in its pot and the pot I have growing inside now makes the transition to outdoors after the last frost.