it's really hot underneath all those tiny locs
so i realized saturday afternoon while out baking in the sun that i don't post too many pictures of me on the blog. i'm really not the photogenic type. really, i'm not. my sis and brother are so much more photogenic than me. i promise you. i also like to be behind the lens...looking for new ways of seeing what's in front of me..
well, i decided i'd poke my face in...and put a face to the words. won't be too many more of these, so i'll go for broke and include 3 e took of me while i was working in the garden saturday.
the squash-corn-melon bed
i think i'm most proud of this bed, well, i should say its my favorite. it is growing so big...and well it just looks impressive no matter what angle i look at it from. it's made me fall in love with raised beds, and i guess it won't be long before we have more.
the melons...creeping along
i've got a collection of melons in there, a few different varieties of watermelons, a couple of different musk melons/cantaloupes, and a honey dew. i really crowded them in there...knowing they were creeping plants or vines, i rationalized that they just need space to sprawl -- even if that means vertical space.
the tall corn
i planted the corn on the northern side of the bed, so that they would not shade the other plants. i've learned in past years that the greatness of freshly grown sweet corn cannot be beat, and that each plant only gives you 2-3 ears if your lucky...more like 1-2. to get around this and prolong our corn harvest i planted corn that matures at different times and i also planted two successions of corn about 3 weeks apart, if i'm lucky -- and i planned it right, we should have corn throughout the major part of summer. i would of liked to do another succession, but i ran out of room.
i also wanted to companion plant some gourds alongside them. next to the blocks, in front of the corn is a couple of plants of bird house gourds, and luffa gourds. these i started from seed...so we'll see how they do. so far the birdhouse gourd seems to be doing great, and looks to be putting out it's first flowers.
i realized that i didn't plant as much gourd plants as i wanted, so last week i started some more seeds, but this time outside. i'm hoping i wasn't too late. gourds need a lot of growing days, somewhere around 120-130. i'm thinking i should be fine as our summers last well into the beginning of fall. our first frost doesn't come till about december, and we have the heat of summer through the end of october.
*fingers crossed*
yael's weed floral arrangement
i've taught the kids how to identify weeds, and the weed seedlings of the weeds we have growing wildly here. yael took it upon herself to make this "arrangement" of weeds. it was really quite stunning and beautiful. she had been quite, and then she called me over to see what she had done. i was speechless. she was proud.
i promised her i'd plant more flowers this fall, maybe some bulbs so she'll have more flowers to work with. right now most of the flowers we have are thorny -- roses, bougainvillea, or unreachable -- the flowering vines growing up the house.
i did plant a few perennials and flowering herbs (lavender, sage/salvia, calendula, echinacea, chamomile, nasturtiums) a month ago, but not enough for her to work with...the flowers haven't came in.
me...picking weed seedlings...a never ending job
i spend a lot of time weeding, a lot. our grass has taken a back seat in the past 4 years to our vegetable gardening, and we've not feed or de-weeded it. ever. hopefully we'll get around to it, and by next year it will be nice, but still, it is just the back drop to our vegetable garden.
as a result, there are quite a few weed seeds sprouting around this time. because i practice organic gardening, i don't use round-up or things like that. i do it the hard, old-fashioned way...rounding them up with my hands. that bucket was nearly filled in that picture, with teeny-tiny weed sprouts.
i know a lot of people hate weeding, but i don't really. not that i enjoy it, i just don't mind it. i use the time to think, and i also enjoy being able to identify plants in my yard, even the weeds. (which i don't know by name, just sight now) i'm never really aware of how long it takes, cause i'm usually thinking so deeply about something...what my granma used to call worrying...and my mother too.
i think i've started to turn worry into creative thinking...perhaps ruminate is a better word?
our charlie, enjoying the fresh air and filtered sunlight
we've even been taking charlie out to enjoy the sun and fresh air. he loves it. he sometimes calls out to other birds, but most of the time he sits on his perch and watches. here he is close to the cage...allowing us to rub his tummy...and pet his little bird feet.
baby pigeons, hatched in our backyard
speaking of birds, remember when i told you about the birds nesting in our window? well, these are the babies and they hang out next to our vegetable garden.
they have been there for a couple of weeks now, sitting in the shade watching us and watching the garden grow. they don't flutter off when we come near them, however if i get to close, they will get up and start to walk -slowly and softly away. not far away, a safe (to them) distance.
one seems more fearful than the other. i can get about 2 feet before they start getting "nervous" and walk away.
we've enjoyed having them in our yard, even if it means giving them space and not intruding by walking behind the vegetable garden. they are sweet birds, never a sound out of them.
there mother is back up on top of the window, sitting on another egg or two. the father checks on her and the babies often. he has a distinct call, he makes one when he sees us and flies off (when we get to close) and another one when he's just out there doing his thing. the second call sounds like a "whooo-whooo" sound...i promise you he sounds like a owl.
a beet, an artichoke (that i think i let open too much), juliet tomatoes, zucchini and yellow summer squash
our harvest this weekend. we are officially up to our eyeballs in squash, and the tomatoes are earnestly starting to kick in. we have lots of green tomatoes on the vines..so tomato season is gearing up.
these little ones here are a heirloom variety called juliet. the card promised that they would be perfect for canning and saucing, so i bought them. i make batches and batches of tomato sauce in the summer, freeze them and we eat it during the winter and spring as red sauce, pizza sauce, and any other ways we can think of.
i planted a lot of seeds, and hopefully, they will grow big enough to bear fruit. They are still fairly small maybe because they're in 5 gallon pots...hopefully that doesn't slow them down too much, because i've run out of ground space.
laughing at myself in overalls
true, they are not the most fashionable things i could wear out in the garden, but surely the most useful and comfortable. i'm so happy i never got rid of these, even though they are enormous on me...i lived in them when i was expecting yali.
i can carry so many gardening tools, seed packets, small veggies and things in the pockets. not to mention i don't have to worry about mud splashes or getting down on my knees and digging in dirt. they are so practical, and useful...i'll never give them up!
e, the weed wrangler
as you can see, e has a gardening "fit" too. he burns easily and though not horribly bad...i still cringe when i see his red ears, neck and arms.
so he wears long sleeved, collared shirts, long pants, and a gardener's hat to protect him.
the morning glory vine growing around my house has gotten out of control on the north side. it was out of control in the front, but some years ago his mother cleared it :'( and it hasn't gotten out of control since then. e did go ahead and cut it down to the ground this spring, and he promises that he'll train it to grow around the windows as it once did. we'll see.
but, and that's a loud but. the north side is waaaaaay out of control. words can't capture the habitat i've got growing over there. it is scarrrrry. so e has decided to tackle it (literally) in the coming weeks. little by little he is bringing it down and out.
this large piece is only 1/20th of what we got going over there.
i'm going to be sad to see it go, but i'll also have much more earth to grow plants in. i told e i wanted a secret garden....so that's what it'll be. i'm also sure the vine will grow again, it is like a weed now, evasive. we've found it growing everywhere. with a little effort, i'm sure we can train it up the house again.
so that's that. that's the run of my weekend, the run of my garden.
i'll leave you with this:
it took me and e 3 houses to finally learn how to garden. our first place we were young newlyweds, with a condo and a small concrete "yard." really small. we pounded at the dirt one day, it was brick hard, and then woke up the next morning sore and ready for another hobby.
at our second house, the land was much more fertile, bigger, but it was too big. we had a corner house and had way too much land for our lifestyle, the front yard was large and the back yard was too. we planted a small patch of vegetables and grew some cucumbers. we had forgotten about it, again - we were a young married couple on the go, and my mother in law came one day and discovered a couple of cucumbers. she made me take the first bite, before she put the rest into a salad and told me that the mexican tradition said that the young woman of the house should always take the first bite of the harvest, it guaranteed her fertility.
well, within a year or so i was pregnant, and a year later from then, again with yosef.
as young parents we had absolutely no time to garden.
we sold that house and brought this one, much wiser we choose a house with not too much and not too little land. finally settled, wiser and patient, we started our first garden about four years ago.
each year it becomes more a part of our lives.
now our social lives play out in the garden amongst the grasshoppers, birds & bees, snails and ladybugs.
luv, ki
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