The birds in my backyard

This cardinal pair was in my backyard during the rain yesterday afternoon. 

For all the world, it looked like they were dancing in the rain. 

I tried to get a better photo of papa Cardinal.

This one was not technically in my backyard, but on the neighbor's 

house, singing its heart out this morning. It had a long and 

multi faceted song. It made me happy just to listen to it's trills.

Birds make me happy and the birds in my backyard make me even happier. I have a nesting pair of cardinals and a nesting pair of wood thrushes in the backyard this year. They are out every morning and evening gathering bugs for their offspring. Gather away, bird friends, gather away. 

Oh My Goodness!! Rain!!

I know that in many areas of the country you want the rain to go away. But here in South Alabama there is a drought labeled "extreme" (which is a 4 on a scale that only goes to 5) by the National Weather Service. We are 13.46 inches below the amount we normally get by this time of year. Here's the complete  information on the drought. http://water.weather.gov/ahps/water/textprods/view.php?wfo=mob&prod=DGT&page=1

It has been more than 50 days since it rained at my house. The last rain we got was so light that I had to stand outside and feel the mist to tell that it was "raining." And that mist only lasted 5 minutes. It didn't even make the ground wet.

So you can imagine my joy, my rapture, my ecstasy when we came out  of the YMCA to see rain--real, pouring, glorious rain! The kids and I ran through that amazing and glorious downpour to the car.

It rained for 40 minutes!! I was so excited that I took my umbrella and walked around the house to the garden in the rain to see the garden. I knew that rain would help my garden more than any efforts I made. I just wanted to actually see it rain in my garden. It rained today. In my garden. I am overjoyed. I could dance around the house!

See that? Rain!!

Green Envy, Not Green with Envy... Just Green Envy

Today is Monday, the 23rd. I have been feeling the envy for my neighbors who all seem to have these really green really big gardens. Every time I drive past one, I say to myself or my husband, "Look at their garden. It's so GREEN." It just makes me green with envy.

I am trying, trying to be a good organic gardener. I have not put any fertilizer on my crop. I haven't used any 7 dust. I haven't used any bug killer. I am being vigilant to be out there in the garden and pulling bugs by hand. (They are not too bad this year, and I have found out about some good garden bugs besides lady bugs. I have seen some of these wonderful "friends" out there helping me.) :)

But it is simply hard to bear when my neighbors have these amazing green gardens and mine is limping along.

I went out there this morning with a mission. I wanted my garden to have the best I can offer it without resorting to those dangerous chemicals that harm birds and beneficial bugs. Not to mention, they wash down into the water system, causing red bloom in the Gulf of Mexico. I like the Gulf of Mexico, and I don't want to contribute to its demise if I can help it.

Anyway, the mission was this: I am going to give my garden the best I can possibly give it and hope for the best. I lavished the garden with all the compost I have been creating and saving for 6 months now. Then I added a nice thick layer of mulch on top to keep in the water and protect the soil from the high heat and from the drought we are having. The bright sunlight on the garden seems to be a little too bright for the garden this year, since we aren't getting rain.

It looks better. I hope this will help. I guess it doesn't matter how green their gardens are, but how much fruit they produce. That's the attitude I am going to try to take anyway.

Now for the latest pictures of the garden.

This is the jalapeño. I have to keep him separate. He doesn't play well

with the sweet peppers. 

From Top to Bottom, From Left to Right:1st row (top) Rutger's Tomato, Celebrity

Tomato, 2 Homestead Tomatoes

Next row down (2nd from top): Homestead Heirloom Tomato with a bloom, Rutgers Heirloom Tomato, 

Marigolds, Homestead Tomato

3rd from Top: Celebrity Hybrid Tomato, Rutger's Tomato, Oregano, Yellow Pepper

Bottom Row: Celebrity Tomato, 3 red pepper plants

Top row (barely visible in picture): Marigolds, Supersweet 100 Tomato, Napa 

Grape Tomato, and Marigolds

2nd row from top: 24 green bean plants

3rd row from top: Yellow pepper, tiny (almost invisible) cilantro from seed, Homestead

Tomato, and Better Boy Tomato

Bottom Row: Marigolds, Better Boy Tomato, Chinese Eggplant (with one bloom), and Marigolds

Top Row: 2 sunflowers (the birds got my other 2 for their nest), then 2 Homestead Tomatoes (I used to replace my sunflowers. :(  )

2nd Row: Marigolds, then empty space for the watermelons (we have planted radishes), and marigolds in the last spot to the right

3rd Row from the top: Hybrid striped eggplant from Burpee, 2 watermelons, and a "chocolate" pepper with a bloom

Bottom Row: 2 Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, marigolds and then a Cherokee Purple Tomato.

Now you can see why the people with green green gardens make me green with envy. My stuff is all much smaller. I planted later than most other people around here. I went by the Farmer's Almanac recommendations. http://www.farmersalmanac.com/calendar/gardening/

I think it was probably good, because it has been unseasonably cold, but boy, those other gardens.... Well, they just ... they just are so GREEN. 

Short and Personal Reviews of Some Gardening Books I have Been Reading

I read The New Square Foot Garden by Mel Bartholomew early this spring. It inspired me to begin a square foot garden. I was very pleased with the method and with the ease with which one could garden. I was pleased by the thought of more food from less space. I was skeptical of the suggestion that building a “tomato bed frame,” as my husband calls it, would be the best and cheapest method to stake trailing plants, such as tomatoes, and watermelons. I tried three different staking techniques and found all of them to be expensive and wobbly. That caused me to re-read Mr. Bartholomew’s book for instructions for the “tomato bed frame.” For $35 total, my husband was able to find all the necessary items to make 2 of these frames, and they can be re-used year after year. OK. I am sold.

They really do look like bed frames, though, don't you think?

I read Tomato, Garlic, Basil by Doug Oster. This was a wonderful and entirely readable book about the joys of gardening. I read the entire book in one day. This was the story of one man’s love affair with gardening and especially tomatoes. There are some real tips in the book, and suggestions of other varieties of tomatoes worth trying, but mainly it is an ode to the tomato (with some recipes scattered throughout the book to supplement the ode).

He regularly plants 70 or so different tomatoes in his garden and gives them away to everyone he knows. The book satisfied something inside me that has had me searching through blogs and doing Google searches every way I can think of in order to find out more about tomato growing. I wanted to hear that he found that the garden was a gathering place almost as good as the kitchen for his family, that his children all picked their favorite vegetables because of gardening, that gardeners are generous people who love to share their experiences and their bounty. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I read Vegetable Gardening for Dummies by Charlie Nardozzi. I learned that I am supposed to be watering my plants deeply rather than about a cup per plant per day. Also in that book it was suggested that one should mulch around the tomatoes, so they don’t dry out so much during drought. I mentioned this to my husband and he said he had never seen anyone who mulched tomatoes. Well, I think I am going to mulch mine. They seem too dry in this horrible drought.

From 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden by Carolyn J. Male Heirlooms planted in zone 7-10 tend to do better if they are smaller varieties from cherries to midsized tomatoes. Giant tomatoes just don’t do well in this hot humid environment. Medium sized varieties of heirlooms are most prolific but heart-shaped often yield best tasting fruit. Bicolor varieties require long growing seasons like those in the south. Dark fruits like Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Chocolate, Noir de Crimee, and Black from Tula get better coloring and taste in the south. And I learned that the taste of early varieties just isn’t as good as later producing tomatoes.

Her book has a color photograph per page and definitely made me want to experiment with tomato varieties, especially heirloom varieties. After looking at her book, my son said that he would definitely eat a yellow cherry tomato, if I would only grow it.

I then read A Southern Kitchen Garden by William D. Adams and Thomas R. LeRoy. I loved the quote in the introduction: “One of the most amazing ways to garden is through the eyes of a child.”- Thomas R. LeRoy page viii. The authors advocate the kitchen garden as a reminder to celebrate the changing seasons. Because most people learned to garden at young ages from someone they admired, the authors also remind the readers to be sure to continue the link and mentor the next generation.

An ideal plan for kitchen gardening is to include all the food your family loves, but is hard to purchase or expensive to purchase at the local grocery. Suggestions include eggplants “(you only need one—make it the long, skinny and really tender Asian varieties.)” p. 12. Yikes! I’ve already planted two with one on the window sill. Oh well. I really like eggplant. Maybe I won’t overdose my family. I have LOADS of great eggplant recipes. Maybe I’ll get to try them all. :D 

They say the most difficult decision for the fall kitchen garden is what to leave in there from summer and what to remove. The same type of problem occurs in spring when the cool season crops are still producing. Decide based on production, family taste, and whether the new crop will be okay if planting is delayed. These were things I have been wondering about.

They suggested growing a cutting celery in the fall kitchen garden. That way one can cut a stalk for supper and leave the rest in the garden for later. The variety recommended for this was Afina.

I really enjoyed the chatty and humorous approach used in this book. I learned many things about vegetable gardening and had fun doing it.

From Gardening in the Coastal South by Marie Harrison I learned about her love for flowers. The book was an enjoyable read. I personally felt that she used too many latin names, but it was easy to overlook due to her chatty writing style. She told about what actually grows in her own garden, and how hard she works to dig out and separate plants. The most important aspect of this book for me was that it encouraged me to get out there and do the garden project I have been delaying in my front garden bed. I worked for an hour on the neglected front garden bed after reading her book.

The last book I have read so far in my quest to learn how to grow my vegetable garden is American Tomato: The Complete Guide to Growing and Using Tomatoes by Robert Hendrickson. Though very informative, it is dry, especially compared to the other books I have just recently read. It would be a good book to read for a simple how-to book.

Maybe something I have learned will pay off in my garden this summer. (I hope. I hope.)

Craft from the book Basil’s Birds by Lynn Rowe Reed

In this fun picture book, a man falls asleep and a bird builds a nest on his head. He makes them his pets. I don’t know why, but reading this book always makes me want to warn my children: “A bird might land on your head, but don’t let him build a nest there.”

Because of the book, and some blogs where people use children’s book for the basis of crafts, I wanted to craft this one. In the Family Fun magazine, last month’s craft section had an easy way to make a bird’s nest, so that is what we did today. We built the paper bag nests using twigs we gathered from outside and crunched down old fast food bags. It took a great deal of glue to get the twigs to stick to the bags, but isn’t that part of the fun of crafting with kids—getting all messy with glue?

After the glue dried thoroughly, we made the nests into hats using construction paper. That way the kids could replicate what happened in the story. This was not one of our better crafting experiences. Some of our other crafts have been more fun and have turned out better. Oh well.

My middle daughter wanted to use the colorful glitter glue to apply her sticks.

My son was busy breaking up the sticks for his nest in this picture.

Review of Secrets of the Vine For Women by Darlene Marie Wilkinson

I read this book with anticipation, since John chapter 15 is one of my favorite parts of scripture. The book was short--only 110 pages of actual text. And the way she presented the scripture did not have very much depth. 

Each chapter begins with a fictional account of a vineyard at harvest time. From there, Mrs. Wilkinson goes on to say a little about John chapter 15. Her first point is that there will be discipline if a believer’s life consistently bears no fruit. The second point is that there will be pruning if there is some fruit. Then she speaks of much fruit. In this section, she mentions that Jesus “asks us to become more and more dependent on Him, and the amazing result is an abundance of fruit.” P. 83.

The book was all right, but it was by no means outstanding. It did not challenge me in any way. I much prefer books like Radical by David Platt, personally. 
It would be a good book for a new Christian, and would perhaps be a good book for a women's Bible study, but it is not a good book for someone who desires any type of depth or challenge. 

I would like to thank WaterBrook Multnomah for sending me a free copy of this book. They required nothing from me other than an honest review.

What a great soup!

I am not one to post recipes on my blog very often. There are lots of other sites out there for that. But I have been eating soups pretty regularly for awhile now. I had some Lima beans in the fridge that I needed to eat up. The rest of my family are not really fans of Lima beans. So, I decided to see if there were any good Lima bean soup recipes online.

I tend to make my soups in the morning when I have more time and energy and the kids are happy to play with each other. Then I refrigerate them and eat them for lunch or supper. That's why I made this soup at nine in the morning. =D>


I found this recipe http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1948,152184-242205,00.html

I modified it this way.

I put 2 tablespoons of butter in a hot pan. Then added finely chopped onion (about 1/2 of a large onion.) When the onions were translucent, I threw in 1/3 cup of the cream of ... soup mix I use instead of cans of cream soup and then added 1 and 1/3 cups of water. I stirred it while it thickened, about 5 minutes.

Then I threw in all the Lima beans I had (about the amount that 2  14-ounce cans would produce.). I added curry powder to taste. I added pepper, but no salt since everything had already been salted. When I tasted it, I thought a little turmeric would add a nice color and flavor. I threw in a pinch of that. I heated it through, about 5 minutes, stirring regularly.

Then I used my immersion blender to mix everything well.

Then I tasted and almost swooned. That is probably one of the best soups I have ever eaten!! (If I do say so myself.)

Because my "friend" at Life in a Shoe just posted her desire for our best bean/lentil recipes with extra points to those whose recipes are vegetarian, I want to add a link to her site. Here you go.
http://inashoe.com/2011/05/linky-time-i-want-your-best-beanlentil-recipe/

Transformation of a Yard

We only moved into this house a year ago. The first few months were spent trying to unpack and establish a routine in this new house. (There was no closet space, for instance, so we had to create some.) But my heart was in the yard. I wanted to plant a garden. For Mother's Day last year, the "kids" bought me knock out roses and I was given 2 Easter lilies for house warming presents.

I thought I could plant the Easter lilies, but most everybody said, "No, it won't work." With the idea that I would never know if I didn't try, I dug up the ugly dead bushes right by the door and planted my Mother's Day presents and those Easter lilies. Right after planting those Easter lilies, we had a terrible downpour. It rained and rained and rained. I knew that the lilies had probably drowned, but I left them there until they did the thing where they turn all brown and fall over. They did that pretty soon after that terrible rain, I must say.

Imagine my surprise when they started showing out of the ground this spring! The bulbs must have multiplied under there, because instead of 2 lilies, I have about 4 in each place. Here they are. When I walk out my front door, the fragrance of these flowers almost takes my breath away. They smell divine!

A few months later, I decided that I had to have at least one gardenia bush in honor of my grandmother. She had one by her front window (and she never had air conditioning until the very end of her life), so the smell of them just remind me of her. I looked all over and finally found a dwarf variety of gardenia. I planted it last year in July. I know, I know, I break all the rules about planting. I know I am not supposed to plant bushes in the summer time in Alabama. So sue me. It grew like it didn't know it was so hot. :D This is the first time it is blooming.

It has been very dry here, so it is probably not doing as well as it would if it would RAIN. But it is blooming.

I have finally filled all my square foot gardening squares. I decided that I should probably plant 3 boxes rather than 2, since I knew that I would eventually want 3 boxes. My husband is one of those people who likes everything to match. He went back to the big box hardware store and found that the 2 boxes he had bought had been clearanced. They did have one box left, but it was the display. He wrangled up the manager to ask to purchase the display. It didn't match their stock anyway. And it did match our other boxes. They finally agreed, so we have 3 matching Square Foot Garden boxes.

I have "chocolate" bell peppers, yellow sweet peppers, red sweet peppers, green beans, 2 watermelons, Cherokee Purple tomatoes, Supersweet 100 tomatoes, Napa grape tomatoes, Better Boy tomatoes, and Celebrity tomatoes. I also have one striped purple eggplant (maybe Fairytale? I can't remember. I bought it from Burpee.) Then I bought a Chinese eggplant. I planted 4 sunflower seeds, a whole package of marigolds, cilantro, basil and a neighbor gave me some of her oregano. Everything is in the ground now, except for one jalapeño pepper. I will have to plant it in a pot in order to keep it from cross pollinating all those sweet peppers.

The green beans and the grape tomatoes, and the Supersweet 100's have flowers. Yea!

The red things are my tomato ladders that the kids gave me for Mother's Day this year. I love them. They add so much beauty to the garden.

So that's what I have been up to. In the last picture (above) you can see the row of sunflowers. The bottom one is so small and looks stunted compared to the rest. Anybody out there with any ideas of why that would be? I cannot imagine why it wouldn't be growing like the other 3, the ones that are directly above it in the picture.

While I was hard at work with this, my husband decided to plant 15 azaleas as a border between us and the property behind us. (Can you see them to the left of the photo?) It took him all day from "can to can't" as they say to plant those azaleas. I am sure they will be beautiful when they grow. They are white on each end and then pink next to the whites and in the middle is a striped purple variety. Should be quite a show when they bloom. But for now, we just have to keep them watered.
If only it would rain!!

Look what I saw in my back yard today

This beautiful great white heron flew right over our house. These were the best pictures I could get.

Wonderful Garden Blessings

I have been buying things from Lowes to supplement the things I have planted from seeds. I am an impatient gardener. I want to see some green NOW. The things from seeds have done pretty well, but they haven't gotten big enough for my taste yet. So, I have been going to Lowes.

Well, a friend of mine scolded me for doing that when I could pop over to one of the local schools and buy great plants for a fraction of the price from knowledgeable and helpful high school students. Do you have this resource where you live? Is there a school or schools in your area that grow things in the same way a nursery would and then use the money for the school?

I decided that if I want to get in on this I had better get over there. School will be out soon and I don't want to miss the opportunity. I went Friday with my children.

It was really great. It is such a pleasure to meet such well-behaved knowledgeable and upstanding young people. It gives one hope about the future somehow. The boys who helped me spent a great deal of time with me, carried my stuff, took my son to the bathroom and waited for him. They gave my girls flowers from the plants and gave them to my children. This endeared them to my children instantly, because even my son likes flowers. As a matter of fact, it was my son who got the crystal vase out for his flowers first when we got home. The girls followed his lead.

Anyway, they had a selection of 4 or 5 different types of tomatoes and had intelligent suggestions about what I should buy to supplement what I already have. (I love tomatoes, have you noticed? This purchase makes a total of 15 tomato plants. I can hardly wait to eat a tomato sandwich this summer.)

I also purchased 3 red sweet pepper plants and 3 yellow sweet pepper plants. These are vegetables that I enjoy but usually refuse to pay the price to buy. If nothing else, they should make my garden very pretty as they grow.

The cost of these 9 plants? $2. Yep. $2. That is all. I could hardly believe it. No wonder my friend scolded me. I paid $3 per plant at Lowes. Then they threw in 3 marigolds that they had planned to throw away for FREE.

I felt like the Lord had given me His very own Mother's Day present, since I love marigolds so much. What a great day. What a great experience.

How to do the impossible

Funny, isn't it, how you can do a lot more when you haven't heard that you can't? I planted tomatoes from seeds. I had not been told then that it wasn't easy to grow tomatoes from seeds. I planted them, and the kids helped. We had a great time with it. We had a great time watching them break through the soil. We had a great time watching the first leaves appear. We had a great time watching growth day by day. We had a great time watching the second set of leaves (what real gardeners call the "true leaves") appear.

After all this, I heard that new gardeners shouldn't grow tomatoes from seed. One person said that they are hard to grow. Another said you need more time than I had. Yet another said, "You can't grow them at all in the house unless you have a grow light." Well, guess what? Not all of them survived. That is true. I planted 12. Several of them did not survive the hardening off process. One did not come up at all. But of the original 12, today I was able to plant 3 of the hardiest ones into my garden. They look small compared to the others, but they are out there. I am rooting for them. I hope they grow and prove what can be done if you don't know you can't.