Guess What Came In the Mail?

I have been waiting, rather impatiently I might add, for a certain item in the mail – a magazine with my published article!

And, I am happy to say that it arrived a couple of days ago….

Birds & Blooms

Here it is!

Companion Gardening

Although, I have written articles for magazines before – but this is the first one that I wrote for a national magazine.

Companion Gardening

Last year, I was asked by the editor of Birds & Blooms magazine to write two articles for their magazine this year.  (I do write twice a week for their blog).

This is the first article, which is about ‘companion gardening’.  

Companion Gardening

I practice ‘companion gardening’ in my own garden and have written smaller articles about it, including posts on this blog.

But, I did do some additional research for this article and was pleasantly surprised to find out more combinations and practices that use combining certain plants together that benefit each other.

Birds & Blooms

I wrote this article from a hotel room back in March, while we were temporarily evacuated from our house when it flooded.

The next article is due out next month and is about ‘drought-tolerant’ gardening.

**Birds & Blooms is a Reader’s Digest publication.  I have found it at my local Kroger’s grocery store as well at Barnes & Noble.

Of course, you can always subscribe to it.  It has lots of great gardening ideas and DIY projects.

**If you would like to order an individual issue, you can get one here 🙂

A Unique Place to Stay and a Mystery

Many of you have visited Williams, AZ along with us as I share the adventures of our annual vacations spent up there.

Besides being located along the historic Route 66 and being the gateway to the Grand Canyon – we also enjoy the cool weather, spending time with family and fishing.

Each year, we are fortunate to stay in cabins that are owned by my sister-in-law’s family.  They are very generous and we are so thankful to have places to stay each year.

Typically, each family stays in an individual cabin.  In the past, we have stayed in the ‘grandmother’s cabin and also in the ‘main’ cabin.

historic Route 66

along the historic Route 66

However, this year, we were excited that we were to stay in what my youngest daughter, Gracie, calls the “Dead Animal Cabin”.

This cabin is owned by my sister-in-law’s cousin.  

And, he is a hunter, who has decorated his cabin with some of his ‘trophies’…

historic Route 66

There are a total of three large heads of elk mounted on the walls…

historic Route 66

This one was so large, that he had to remove the blades from the ceiling fan to fit the head.

historic Route 66

Now, we don’t hunt and so the culture of hunting is somewhat foreign to us.

But, the kids love the seeing all of the animals hanging off the wall.

In addition to the elk, there are also other animals as well…

historic Route 66
historic Route 66
historic Route 66

Now for the ‘mystery’…

When we arrived in the cabin, it was a bit dirty.  My sister-in-law, Marisue, who had arrived earlier did some cleaning and found the first clue of our ‘mystery’:

An empty condom wrapper

I promise it wasn’t used for what you think….this a ‘family appropriate’ blog after all 😉

We found the second clue to the mystery on the dining room table.  It was a list.

Unique Place

Take a closer look at the third item on the list, which is the second clue to the mystery…

Box for testicles

Yes, it does say that.

I couldn’t imagine what these two clues pointed too.  At first, we didn’t even know that they were connected and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to.

So, my sister-in-law, Marisue, called her cousin and got the entire story.

1. Hunter friends of her cousin had recently killed a Desert Bighorn Sheep while hunting.  

Unique Place

Photo by: Andrew Barnes

2. So they contacted him so that he could collect the testicles.

3. He then put the testicles into a condom (remember the empty condom wrapper?)

4. Then he packed the testicles on ice in the box for testicles and drove them to the airport where they were shipped to a sheep farmer up in Montana.

Why?  Well, farmers use the semen in the testicles to artificially inseminate their female sheep.

So, that is the story behind the empty condom wrapper and the list including a ‘box for testicles’.

I couldn’t have made this story up, even if I had wanted too.

An Icy “First” For Me…

Route 66 and Blue Corn

We recently returned from our vacation in Northern Arizona.

It was a great week and as always, we spent some time along the historic Route 66.

historic Route 66

Along the main road, I saw half-barrel planters with corn planted in them.

blue corn

As I looked more closely at the corn, I discovered that it was blue corn that was growing.

blue corn

Blue corn, or ‘Hopi’ corn has been grown in the Southwest for over 500 years.

It is used for making blue cornmeal, blue tortillas and chips.

I was also surprised to find that it also has a higher percentage of protein and iron then the more traditional yellow sweet corn.

I think that blue corn is rather pretty, don’t you?

To learn more about blue corn, check out this link.

I love the fun and interesting sights along the iconic Route 66.  You can view some of the fun and quirky things we saw along Route 66 here.

Antique ‘Junk’ for the Garden

A couple of weeks ago, we all traveled up to the quaint town of Prescott, AZ.  One of the best things that I like about going there is that they have some very good antique shops.

To be honest, I hadn’t planned on buying anything.  I was just going to browse – but you probably know how that goes….

Two different items caught my eye and I thought that they would be perfect for my garden.

antique from quaint town of Prescott, AZ

Okay, maybe it isn’t obvious what I am going to do with these two antique pieces.

antique from quaint town of Prescott, AZ

 My plan is to use the old watering can as a planter in my vegetable garden.  I plan to add annual flowers that will spill out the top.

All I need to do is to add some holes for drainage on the bottom and put a drip emitter on top for water. 

antique from quaint town of Prescott, AZ

I really like this wire basket.  According to the the seller, it is a wire basket that held wine bottles.

Well, I don’t drink much wine, so I think I will use it in my vegetable garden later this year.

Don’t you think it would make a great trellis for sugar snap peas?

I will simply place the basket in my vegetable garden and plant the seeds around it.  Once they sprout, they will have a great place to grow upward.  Later, when the plants are finished for the season, I will simply take the basket out.

How about you?

Have you discovered any antiques or items that you can use in your garden?

Please share them with me 🙂

An Old, Antique Watering Can Re-Purposed

Snapshot of a Summer Week in the Garden

Summer is officially here.  To be honest, I think it is funny that summer ‘starts’ on June 20th when we have already had temperatures above 100 degrees for weeks.

It may be hot, but my vegetable garden is thriving. 

Here is a snapshot of the past week in my garden:

newest vegetable garden

 My newest vegetable garden is doing very well.  Actually, it is doing better then I had even hoped.  The reason for this is that it receives filtered shade in both the morning and afternoon.  

newest vegetable garden

The result is that my marigolds and nasturtiums are still thriving even though they normally die off by the end of May.

I am a thrifty person by nature and like to save money when I can in the garden, so I collect the seeds from dried flowers in order to plant them again the following season:

Hollyhock seeds

Hollyhock seeds

Marigold seeds

Marigold seeds

I save the seeds in regular envelopes.

Snapshot of a Summer Week in the Garden

About 3 weeks ago, I cut back my spent hollyhocks and have been pleasantly surprised to see them come back.

Snapshot of a Summer Week in the Garden

My vegetable gardens continue to produce corn, tomatoes, string beans, sweet bell peppers, cucumbers and herbs.

Before you see the following picture, I need to remind you that I am far from a perfect gardener…

corn

 This is what happens when you are out of town and don’t get to harvest your corn.

You can see that the kernels are sunken and even dried out.

Now if you grew an heirloom variety of corn, you can save the dried kernels for planting next year.

(Heirloom varieties of vegetables aren’t hybrids and will grow the exactly the same as the parent plant).

OR, you can allow the corn cobs to dry out completely and set them out for the birds, which is what I plant to do since I planted a hybrid type of corn.

(The seeds from hybrids won’t produce the same plant).

Basil, Thyme, Sage, Rosemary and Purple Basil.

Clockwise from top: Basil, Thyme, Sage, Rosemary and Purple Basil.

I normally dry my herbs in bunches, hanging upside down.  But my sister has done it by drying them on cookie sheets.  Because we live in a desert, this is a viable option. I must admit that I haven’t tried this before, so I’m anxious to see how it works.  I set the cookie sheets out in my garage, covered with a dish cloth.

We’ll see how it works.

newest vegetable garden

Lastly, I have planted some vegetable seeds outside of my garden.  More about that later….

As for the rest of the week – I will be spending much of my time indoors in air-conditioned comfort, viewing my garden from indoors 😉

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How about you?

What are you doing in the garden this week?

My Newest Favorite Thing…..Vegetable Gardening!

Harvest, Canning and a Flight

I always think of the week of Memorial Day as the first ‘unofficial’ week of summer.  The weather is getting hot, the kids have their last day of school and it is also a time of harvest.

Memorial Day

For the past few weeks, my tomato and bush bean plants have been fruitful.

Every week, I blanch my tomatoes by putting them in boiling water for 45 seconds, which makes peeling them easier.

Then I remove the green part of the stem and then ‘squish’ the tomatoes to get rid of the seeds and excess liquid.

What remains the tomato, is the delicious part and I put it in a plastic freezer bag (making sure to get all the air out).  Then I freeze it until I am ready to use them to make sauce.

*My tomatoes aren’t flowering any longer, because of the hot weather – but the tomatoes are ripening.  By mid-May, you should put some sort of shade cloth protection for your tomatoes.

I am thrilled with how well my bush beans are producing.  I have six plants and they produce enough for us to eat for dinner once a week.  I take the extra and blanch them for 3 minutes and then place them in ice water before freezing them as well.

The end of May is also time that I start canning.

Memorial Day

The peaches at Double S Farms (my mother & sister’s family residence) are heavy with sweet fruit.

The trees are so generous that my other sister and I have plenty to make into jam, even after my mother has made hers.

I made three batches so far and have also tried my hand at making ‘Peach Cider Vinegar’, which I will share later.

Memorial Day

Soon, the plums at Double S Farms will ripen and then the apples, which I will can as well 🙂

Last Sunday was my son, Kai’s 10th birthday.  We had a family celebration with his grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins present along with his best friend.

Monday morning, Kai went on a flight in a two-seat airplane based at our local airport.

Memorial Day

Kai was excited, but also a little nervous.

His best-friend’s father was the pilot.

two-seat airplane

Kai was strapped in and all ready to go.

two-seat airplane

Up in the air and having a great time!

After his flight, we headed to Target with along with his best friend so he could use his gift cards.

Pokemon cards

Not surprisingly, he used them all to buy more Pokemon cards….his friend also bought some too.

Kai had the best day organizing his cards and trading with his friends.

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I hope you all are having a great week!

Snapshot of a Summer Week in the Garden

Leaving on a Jet Plane….

In just a few days, I will be boarding a plane with my mother as we embark on our second road trip together.

Last year, we toured the Midwest.  We started in Holland, Michigan and ended up in Springfield, Missouri. On the way, we visited Indiana, Illinois and Kansas.

Visiting Lincoln's tomb in Springfield, Illinois

Visiting Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield, Illinois

Our goal for road trips is to avoid major highways and take smaller highways.  The reason is that major highways are often screened on the sides with walls or trees and you don’t get to see the surrounding area.

My mother and I have road trips planned for the next few years – each one focused on a geographical area of the United States.

So this year, we are traveling to the……

Northeast!

 

geographical area

We will fly into Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday and will end up in Kennebunkport, Maine at the end of our journey.

On the way, we will visit:

Amish Country in Ohio

Washington, PA (just outside of Pittsburgh)

Niagara Falls, Canada

Geneva, NY

Potsdam, NY

Burlington, VT

and

Kennebunkport, ME

Although I have visited the Northeast before, my visits were usually confined to the coastal cities.  So, I am very excited to see all of these places.

Have any of you traveled to these areas?

Or maybe you live nearby?

What do you recommend we do?

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I will be bringing my laptop and camera along with me and will be blogging from the road.

I hope you’ll join me 🙂

Road Trip: Day 1

Red Poppies

Red Poppies

I like to include flowers in my vegetable garden.

I could say that the reason is that they attract pollinators, which in turn help to fertilize my vegetables.

But, the real reason is that I think they are just pretty.

Every year, I grow bachelor’s button in my garden because I love their bright, blue flowers.

This year, I threw some red poppy seed into the garden.

Seriously….I didn’t even cover it with soil or designate a certain area for it.  I simply threw it in there on a whim.

Red Poppies

Just last week, they began to bloom.

I love the way their unopened blossoms gracefully droop downward, don’t you?

And I must say, that I am just overwhelmed at how beautiful they are….

Red Poppy (Papaver rhoeas)

Red Poppy (Papaver rhoeas)

I will definitely collect the seeds so that I can plant them again next year.

How about you?

Have you ever grown poppies?

Vegetable and Flower Containers

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*This blog post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). Thanks for your support in this way.*

Last winter, I was enjoying a rare moment of peace….no kids or husband in the house, the garden didn’t need any attention and no articles to write. So, I decided to see what was on television.  As I was channel surfing, I saw a gardening show and of course, I stopped and watched.

What I saw was the host and featured garden expert, showing how to grow vegetables and flowers together in containers. Since I love both vegetables and flowers, I was intrigued.  So I bought the book written by the featured garden expert and got started.

I found nice plastic containers on sale along with some tiny trellises, as well as planting mix (NOT potting soil, which gets too soggy for container plants).
Planting mix is specially formulated for containers – it has a light texture and holds just the right amount of moisture for plants.

Then, I started planting.  I came up with the vegetable and flower combinations on my own and I must admit that I was happy how they turned out…

growing flowers in containers

The first container has purple violas, spinach, bell pepper plant and nasturtiums. I started all of these from transplants, except for the nasturtiums, which came from seed that I planted.

I periodically snip the spinach for salads and I have harvested a single bell pepper so far.  However, there are flowers on my pepper plant, so more peppers are on the way.

growing flowers in containers

This container was planted with red and green leaf lettuce, pink dianthus and cucumbers.

I snip the lettuce for salad and the dianthus has been blooming nonstop. The only problem that I have had with this container are the cucumbers.

Cucumbers do best when started from seed, not transplants.  I have grown a lot of cucumbers over the years.  So, I placed two small trellises in the back of the container and planted cucumber seeds at their base. I picked a variety of cucumbers that were small and would do well in a container.

Unfortunately, they never came up.

I tried planting them in my regular vegetable garden and they never came up.

I tried starting them indoors and they didn’t sprout.

*I had purchased the seeds online from a very reputable seed company, but the entire package of seeds was defective.

So I planted my go-to cucumber seeds and they are starting to grow beautifully.

growing flowers in containers

My last vegetable/flower container has romaine lettuce, sugar snap peas and Icelandic poppies.

The lettuce has done very well, BUT my little dog discovered that he likes lettuce, and he would take some little bites from the sides of the lettuce.  I simply put some plastic patio chairs around the pot and he kept away.  Later, I took the chairs away and he left the lettuce alone.

The poppies haven’t bloomed yet, but I can see their buds, so it won’t be long now.

I have been picking off sugar snap peas every time I am in the garden and eating them on the spot.

So, does the idea of growing vegetables and flowers together appeal to you?

The book I read was “Easy Container Combos: Vegetables and Flowers” by Pamela Crawford. (I haven’t been asked to promote her book – I bought it myself and really enjoyed it so much).

I can’t wait to try some different combos this summer once the lettuce fades away.  I promise I will share 🙂

**One thing I love so much about gardening is trying new things. This one was a home run for me.  

Growing Annuals: An Unusual Flower Container

3 Sisters Companion Planting Minus One…

I love using companion plants in my garden.  

Companion or complementary plants have qualities that help other plants in the garden.  They can repel bad bugs, attract pollinators and good bugs, fertilize the soil, prevent plant disease and in some cases – improve the flavor of fruit and vegetables.

companion plants

I am a huge fan of using companion plants in the garden.  Nasturtiums and marigolds are planted among my vegetables and help to repel damaging insects.

I also plant garlic and onions, not only to eat, but also to help keep the bad bugs away.

The other day, I was researching an article that I was writing for a magazine and I found out that companion planting has its roots in early American history.

Native Americans would practice the “3 Sisters” method of companion planting.  They would grow beans, corn and squash in the same area.

All of these plants help each other:

– The corn provides support for the bean vines to climb upon.

– The beans take nitrogen from the air and convert to a form that the corn and squash can absorb in the soil.

– The squash shade the soil, helping to maintain moisture and keeps weeds from growing.

So, my daughter, Gracie and I decided to adapt this plan for our garden and called it the “Two Sisters”.

companion plants

We decided to plant some of our Kentucky beans (that we had been growing indoors in Starbucks coffee cup sleeves) next to the young corn in our garden.

(Gracie was happy to help me.  Please ignore the unbrushed hair, but it was an early Saturday morning and we had better things to do – like PLANT!)

You can see how big the beans had grown.

companion plants

They grew quickly in the 2 weeks on my windowsill – just look at all the roots.

companion plants

We planted them next to our corn, keeping the cardboard sleeve around them.  (The cardboard will disintegrate in the soil).

Just 3 days later, I can see the beans already climbing up on the corn.

I realize that we did not plant any summer squash to complete the “3 Sisters”, but to be perfectly honest – I don’t like squash.

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I spent 4 hours this morning, helping to add a hummingbird / butterfly garden with a pathway and benches in an area that is dear to my heart.

I can’t wait to share it with you soon.

On another front – we have been told that our insurance company will replace our carpet and paint some of our walls.  They took a piece of untouched carpet and padding and sent it to Florida to a place that will determine the quality of what we had, so that they can replace it with carpet/padding of comparable quality.

So, our living room is full of furniture of the kids rooms and other stuff.  We aren’t sure how long we will have to wait for our lives to get back to normal, but I am so grateful that insurance is covering the damages.

I hope you are off to a good start.

What are you doing in your garden this week?