Just 15 Minutes

July 4th storm blew down this Star Jasmine

Sometimes I get more done in a day when I have a short deadline than when I have the whole weekend to accomplish something. I think that deadline gives me a sense of urgency to get the job done without procrastinating.

Lately I've taken to using my timer for almost everything, especially my computer time, to try and keep myself on task. One of the things I'm working on is to work on certain aspects of my life 15 minutes every day.

So this is today's 15 minute session in the garden. We had a big storm on July 4th and I haven't yet cleaned up all the damage. So today I worked on this Star Jasmine. The big white post had rotted a bit at the base and fallen over. I got rid of the old wooden trellis bit and trimmed a lot of dead wood out of the Jasmine. Then I found part of what was an old greeting card rack (you just wouldn't believe some of the junk laying around here!) and put it around the vine. It really did only take about 15 minutes to accomplish this.

Star Jasmine after

I know it's kind of hard to see in the photo but now there is a bare trunk and on top of the card rack trellis is all the green branches that were laying on the ground.

I also trimmed up some of the green parts and put some of the cuttings to see if they will root as I would like to have more jasmine.

I love Star Jasmine, it is a pretty hardy plant, sort of shrubby and sort of viney all at once. It is not the sort of Jasmine used for tea, that is another type that is very frost sensitive so I can't grow it here. Star Jasmine is often seen in the southern US states, blooming in early summer, it fills the evening and early morning air with it's sweet perfume.

Daffodils, Tulips & Pansies

Planting daffodil bulbs by the peach tree

I picked up a bag of 14 mixed daffodil bulbs and 14 mixed tulips. I planted the daffys on one side of the dwarf peach tree and the tulips on the other.

after planting the purple pansies

After I planted the bulbs I put in a drift of purple pansies along the edge. I'm planning this bed to be mostly flowers of different sorts to bloom through the year. In late winter I'll sprinkle some annual seeds over it like poppies and wild flowers to bloom in the late spring, then replace the pansies with marigolds for the summer.

Are you laughing at my bottle edging? A lot of my friends call this "The Drunkard's Path". :-)

A Little Bit At A Time

east side after

east side before

 Here is the east side of the house, before and after I worked over there. Lots left to do. I took some time out from cleaning up to do some seed starting. I took lots of pictures and soon I will be writing an article on making and using soil blocks.


In the meantime I'll keep working on things a little at a time. My regular job really puts a kink in my plans sometimes.

Here's a few other pictures from around the yard for you to enjoy.

Bowl Gourd Blossom

beets & carrots planted about Aug 1

Heavenly Blue Morning Glory

Asparagus going to seed

Clean up, Spruce up

dawn through my bedroom window

I love fall, with the weather cooling off, the crispness of the early morning air. The fact that dawn is no longer right in my eyes because the sun has shifted a bit.

I also love that this is when the Heavenly Blue Morning Glories are at their most outrageous. I grow them because they remind me of my Granny, who loved them.

So sorry not to have been posting; came home from vacation and jumped right back into work along with trying to unpack and tidy up.

But the past few days I've been working out in the yard a bit. A lot of things didn't make it through my vacation, but the beans managed to survive and if you look closely at this pic you will see a nice little bowl gourd hiding among the Morning Glories. Most of the beets and carrots made it and I replanted some of the spots where they didn't.

I've been busy planting lettuce and peas. The peas are just practically jumping out of the ground. Bleushokers and Sugar Snaps so far, along with a few sweet peas in the front yard because I'm addicted to their scent. Can't wait for the lettuce to be big enough to eat, probably 2-3 more weeks yet.  I'm slowly getting weeds, debris and trash cleared out and thinking about what else I want to plant.

The volunteer tomato plant turned out to be a Yellow Marble

Violas in the tub, planted sweet peas on the little tower

 

culverts, downstream side

This week I also began on the downstream side of the culverts. Yeah, the one in the middle is bent, my son straightened it out as good as he could this evening. Neither of us were here when the culverts were installed or we could have fixed it and had the bent part installed at the top. You can see that the culverts are uncovered by about 3 feet; that happened during the storm July 4th. This area will take a lot more work than the upstream side did.  In the meantime I blew the motor on the mixer and had to mix the last two batches in the wheel barrow. My son replaced the motor with a used one that he had, so we'll see how long it lasts.

The front steps, with assorted herbs & flowers in pots

east side of the house

Yesterday I started working on cleaning up the east side of the house, so here's the before pic, tho I forgot to take an after pic, so you'll have to wait till tomorrow!

Flowers in Italy

Early morning shadows

I'm having a lovely time in Italy. We spent 3 days around Perugia, staying just outside the town at a bed and breakfast called Agritourismo San Fellissimo. There are more photos on my art blog of other places, The Artist's Way.

The swimming pool on the terrace

San Fellissimo

Begonias near the stairs

blackberries

Elise meditates in the early morning light

The pergola near the swimming pool

potato vines in bloom

quince

Of Record Keeping and Stone Walls

Vegetable Garden Journal

It is always a good thing to keep records of your garden from year to year. I haven't been so good the last couple of years, but in the past I have filled large binders full of plot plans, crop rotations, old seed packets, photographs, plant lists, planting times and harvest records. All of these bits of information really help me plan what, where, when and even how to plant next year.

I designed this binder to be completely customizable. You can change any of the text and pictures to personalize it to your garden. Add in your own page protectors, photo sheets and journal pages and you'll have a record of this year's garden for years to come.

I've finished up the last bag of cement that I had so I'm done with that until I come home from vacation in September. I still have quite a ways to go on this wall and when I finish this area I have to start on the other side of the crossing. That storm July 4th caused a lot of erosion on the other side. Perhaps I'll get a picture of it tomorrow.

Beets, Carrots, Rocks

Beet Seedlings, Aug 7, 2011

Well the beets and the carrots are up, wow in only a week, that is probably a record breaker for carrots!

carrot seedlings Aug 7, 2011

More work on the rock walls around the culvert in the creek. I have about enough cement left to make one more batch and then I'm done until I come home from vacation in September.

I tried to do that last batch this morning but it just got too darn hot. Now there are thunder grumbles so I suppose I should just go ahead and clean up and do something else for the afternoon.

rock walls from above

Walls from above and to the side

walls and culverts in the creek

I did spend some time this morning after it got too hot to write an article about how you can build your own green home, with lots of links to introduce folks to all the different alternative building materials and techniques, including passive solar and underground houses.You can read it at Build Your Own Green Home

Getting The Most from Gardening on a Budget: Organic Gardening

This is a really awesome article about gardening on the cheap. Loads of great ideas and how to for everyone. Getting The Most from Gardening on a Budget: Organic Gardening

Hard Rock Labor

I've been working on getting the retaining walls built around the culverts the last couple of days. Here's where I left off this morning.

The warm weather and light showers have really been helping the garden grow. Here are the beans and the potatoes.

This gourd vine has been growing almost 2 inches a day! At the base of the trellis are Heavenly Blue Morning glories. I just love them. By the time I come home from vacation they may be in bloom.





If you haven't tried Botanical Interests seeds I've bought them off the rack at retail stores many times. Now I've discovered there is even more variety on their website.  Great seeds and their packets are a wonder, full of information on the outside AND the inside!

Carrots, Parsnips, Beets & Fennel

Last night we got a nice little rain, about .6" It's trying to rain again this evening but I don't think it's going to make it, the clouds are moving off in the other direction.

I decided I would plant just a little bit more before I leave for vacation. If I'm lucky things will survive and I'll be a month ahead than if I wait until I come home.

When I was cleaning up the silt and leaf mold that washed down onto the patio and sidewalk I dumped it onto one of my garden beds. I decided it might be good for my root crops. I added some potash and some seaweed meal and loosened everything up.

This evening I planted a few fennel seeds, some Danvers carrots, parsnips and three different kinds of beets. Cylindra is a carrot shaped beet that is easy to slice for canning. In 2004 I ordered a mix of Heritage beets from Bountiful Gardens. There was a large white beet in the mix from which I saved seeds, so I planted a row of them. I had some of the original Heritage mix left so I planted those too.

Here in the desert since water conservation is so important, I plant at the bottom of the furrow. That directs any rainfall straight to the plant roots. After I watered the seeds I covered the bed with my trusty old door and window screens to keep out the pesky quail and the neighbors cat.

When it looked like it wouldn't rain again today, I mixed up the rest of the open bag of cement and worked on the walls down in the creek bottom again. I worked on it a couple of hours early yesterday morning, too.

I've actually moved quit a bit of sand and rock the past couple of days. My mortar joints aren't very pretty but I think they will do the job. This wall follows the creek bank and the cement is mostly in the front face, with loose rock for back fill. Every once in awhile I lay a bigger rock that goes back farther to help tie things together.

All my life I have wanted to build a stone house. I still do. In fact working on this wall reminds me of how much fun I have doing this sort of work. And I'll certainly get in some practice in making nice mortar joints with this project!

Of course you can always use slip forms. This is where you use shallow forms, fill them with stone and cement and when the cement sets up you move the forms up the wall and do it again. Once the wall is completed you go back over the face of it and 'point' it, that is using a fine mortar mix and a small trowel you smooth out the joints and fill in any holes or gaps.


Or what these folks did; they just built a frame house and built stone walls on the outside of the frame. They covered the interior walls with sheet rock and it gave them a space to run their plumbing and electric lines.

People have been building with stone for thousands of years. Here in the southwest the Native Americans  used rocks and mud, many of their pueblos are still standing 200-500 years later.

The same in Italy. I saw farm houses there with walls 18-24 inches thick, built by the farmers themselves. Rocks with at least one flat side are set on each side of the wall and the space in between is filled with mud and rubble. This is also a common building technique in many other countries, from Irish cottages to great English Castles.