bearded garden keeper.

hubby, er the bearded man below, is tending the garden this summer.


he also is tending a beard that won't be chopped off until school is back in session.

grand margaritas.

you know you've been drinking a lot of grand margaritas when...


you have empty grand marnier bottles serving as your garden art. here's the TASTY recipe for anyone who hasn't enjoyed one of these yummy concoctions.



they are a nice accessory to our garden sticks.

acorn squash update.

**editor's note**

for those curious about the 'fruit', here is proof that squash is growing in our garden!! we've never grown acorn squash before... so we're excited for the harvest. who knew it got so darn BIG, it's already toppling over the broccoli!

acorn squash.

have you hugged your acorn squash today?

gardenin' fool.

we're not just eating lettuce these days. my other half planted a lovely garden which he tends to day in and day out! so far we've been enjoying fresh herbs like this rosemary plant.

we didn't go too crazy like last year with our tomato plants but we're still hoping to produce some monster size fruit. i'm excited to be trying out some new plants like acorn squash and broccoli.

i love these glass flowers that i got last year at the corn hill festival. they are such a nice splash of color for the growing-like-mad SAGE plant.

happy summer everyone!

spring has sprung.

spring has FINALLY sprung around rochester. there are birds chirping, children playing outside and plants coming up all over the place. this is a plant in our yard that I like (despite not knowing what the heck it is) that is sprouting. this is a good thing b/c i transplanted it last fall without really knowing whether it'd make the move. happi-day!

garden success.

mcallister's aunt maybeth gave us clippings from her garden to transplant last year. they all had roots except these 'sticks' that she had been keeping in a bucket of water. i was laughing when she told us just to stick 'em in the ground with a coat of rooting powder and they would grow. (she IS like the president of NOTL's horticulture club so what could I say)

it wouldn't be the first time we smuggled plants over the border - but check out these sticks now! they grew like CRAZY and bloom these beautiful WHITE daisies (just a guess) each FALL. I have no idea what the plant name is - but we like to call it white daisies on a stick.

SUMMER 2006

FALL 2007


we need more plants like these in our garden. does anyone know what they are called?

tomatoes.

remember how big our tomato plants were? well they are producing some monster OVERSIZED fruit! i don't think i've ever seen one so BIG!

sunflowers.

not only is my mom pretty cool, she takes GREAT pictures too. Her and Tom went for a motorcycle ride along the 150 acre SUNFLOWER farm in Camillus, NY and took photos of the endless sunny sunflowers. i've been enjoying sunflowers from the public market but i'm still JEALOUS!

she called this one 'achu'. hah. he does kinda look like he's sneezing.

stick support.

I must have been so BUSY the last week, I didn't even notice the new support materials being used in our garden!

It looks like McAllister cleverly traded my ornamental bamboo garden stakes in for some old (and already broken) HOCKEY sticks to support our heavy green pepper plants. They have been toppling over with all the rain we've been getting. Hah.

My crazy hockey man wins the 'new uses for old things' prize of the week!

Our rhubarb is growing like MAD too. Quite a big difference from when it almost bit the dust back in June. I'm convinced it is the addition of my good luck rocks to the planter.

Now if only my 'Die Weeds' would work harder than the 'Grow Up'.

harvest.

We've been eating banana peppers for awhile now, but our green peppers and tomato plants are bursting with veggies to be picked. Yea for fresh veggies!!

just stuff it.

Some of the banana pepper plants in our garden are in HARVEST mode. We usually cut them up to throw them on sandwiches and homeade pizzas. But these plants are producing a TON of them which kept me thinking, what in the heck are we going to do with all these banana peppers?!

Meet BOB. We don't know who he is, but he has a tasty recipe for stuffed banana peppers that McAllister found online. He stuffed all sorts of GOODNESS in them, like italian sausage, onions, breadcrumbs, basil and oregano from our herb garden and then topped with Bob's tomato sauce.

They were very YUMMY and reminded me of my mom's homeade galumpkis. (which I never knew how to spell until now). They also taste just as good cold as lunch leftovers.

Now I'm on a mission to find things to STUFF in our peppers. I'm drooling over the idea of a three cheese stuffed banana pepper, kinda like stuffed shells or manicotti sans the pasta. MMmm... cheese.

tomato stalks.

Even though the rain is keeping me on the bus and off the bike - it is doing WONDERS for our garden. Our tomato plants are HUGE (that is Mc behind them) and the fruit is finally starting to turn RED.

i paint rocks.

Another summer hobby of mine.... is painting ROCKS.

While we scour Lake Ontario's shore for lake glass, I also pick up baskets of rocks for painting. They don't seem to miss them! Sometimes, a rock's shape will tickle my fancy and inspire a certain SOMETHING to be painted on it. Like a strawberry or a flip flop, for examples. Both are two of my other FAVE things about summer!

Check out some more rocks!

robust rhubarb.

McAllister and I went to Niagara on the Lake for Memorial Day weekend. We did our USUAL - visited with friends and family, had bonfires in the orchard, took long walks along Lake Ontario looking for lake glass and shopped at Ikea.

Now from time to time, we may SMUGGLE stuff on our way back across the border. Since I was quite envious of my soon-to-be mother-in-law Sue's crazy big rhubarb plant, this time was no different. (I'm convinced they feed it steroids) We decided to try to risk it all and smuggle a couple stalks home with us.

Unbenounced to the US custom officials, our well-travelled rhubarb made it all the way back to the Roch. However, by the time it made it's way out of our trunk and into a planter - the wilty rhubarb's outlook didn't look promising.

Around day two, I decided to put one of my lucky rocks ('GROW UP') into the planter to help the poor thing's transition to US soil. Within a couple days, the droopy stalks all fell over and died. Then just as I was ready to shove something else in the dirt and pray like MAD it would grow, 2 teeney-weeney stalks starting SPROUTING up!

If this keeps up, I may need to start making more good luck rocks.

Day 3 - 4 dead stalks

Day 21 - two 6 inch stalks!

tipping the scale.

garden art
Originally uploaded by cunhatuna.

Our front porch got accessorized last night.

I had some flowers left over from the market and no fun pots, containers or baskets to put them in. (boo) After rummaging through the basement, I 'found' the old scale I 'found' a couple months ago on a junk outing.

It was like CHRISTMAS all over again!! I threw in some dirt, the flowers and added some water and POOF - our porch got a fun new hanging basket!

I think the Empress of Dirt would be impressed!

flowers.

For the first time all year, I went to Flower City Days at the Rochester Public Market last weekend. I can't believe how late in the season I got there!

That said, the weather was NICE and cool for it and I went early to beat the crowds. Without McAllister as my runner or a shopping cart, I had to make many trips back and forth to the car. As the morning went on, I found it tough to remember all flowers piling up in the car!

I usually pick up all my annuals here each year to make my hanging baskets. Which I did the rest of Sunday morning. I also am testing my gardening skills b/c I picked up a Japanese Maple tree as well. The price was right and I've been eyeing one since last summer, but it will be a tough guy to lose to my not-so-green thumbs. I'm off to research tips on how / where to plant it!

Flower City Days' last weekend is this Sunday - so if you're looking for some gardening supplies, head on out!!

gardening gold.

In our attempt to be good, green citizens - we've started a compost. It's introduction required a change in my 'toss in the garbage' behavior. However, like any quick learner - I was speedy up the learning curve. I now look forward to reducing our weekly waste that used to go to the curb.

Up until last night, things with the compost had been going GREAT. Granted - I don't like the look of the ugly thing in the back of the yard, but McAllister has promised me that our gardens will flourish as a result of the organic material that it produces. Plus I'm now distracted with some fun composters I found online and rekha's great comment about using the bamboo fence to hide it.

Well - last night McAllister informed me that those crazy city squirrels of ours have dug a little tunnel underground that leads up and into our compost bin! Those little buggers are FEASTING on what is supposed to turn into gardening gold for us!! BOO.

I guess it's better they eat our onion scraps rather than the onions we planted in the ground - but I'm still fuming. And they better NOT call on all their friends about the feast like they did with our Indian Corn last fall. I'll be really steamed.

Perhaps I'll call my friend Sondra for the ingredients in her squirrelly cocktail. That'll teach 'em.

bamboo fence.

In our backyard, we have a pretty unsightly chain link fence that stands about 4 feet tall. It's so ugly, that I had to go back to the photos I took at our engineer's inspection 2 years ago to find a picture of it. It does it's job, but I really don't like looking at it too much.

Last year, we priced out a wooden fence option to replace the chain link. Even with a teeney-tiny yard, it was going to be PRICEY. This year, I've been debating an alternative to the wooden fence which is much more affordable. I've been looking at BAMBOO.

Bamboo is a natural, architectural material that is both durable and economical. There are a lot of different styles, however the one I like (to the left) is a rolled bamboo made of split canes. It is affordable and fits right into the GREEN environmentalism trend that is sweeping the nation. It would be quick and easy to install, we could do it in an afternoon and wouldn't be so permanent like the wooden fence.

Thoughts?

spiderettes.

I've had various unsuccessful attempts at keeping houseplants alive over the last couple years. I usually buy them b/c they look cool and then pray like MAD they'll be able to fight my inconsistent, indoor-watering patterns.

The only plant I've managed to not-kill is my spider plant. I got it from an old friend many years ago. Wikipedia notes it is very easy to propogate and I agree wholeheartedly. I've spawned many little spider plants from what I've always called 'my lil spiderettes', although I noticed the wiki calls them 'plantlets'. It must be spiderette season now, b/c my spider plants are COVERED with little ones. Perhaps I'll plant some babies for my friends!

Does anyone know of any pills you can take to grow GREEN THUMBS?!