Lettuce, sugar snaps and a cool June in Denver

The good news for me as I've been traveling is that we had a cool month.  Because of this, when I got home June 28, this is what I found:

So enjoying daily salads and one of my favorite veggies, sugar snap peas.

My basil died and the parsley looks bad. I bought a huge basil plant for $2.99 at Trader's Joes on June 29 as I just love making pesto

Maybe I should work at a nursery, anyone want to hire me?

Last week (June 17-21) I had the joy of planting a garden.  I did this for my daughter in law and son, living in Tacoma WA.  First of all, great soil there.  I added some gardening soil but maybe did not need to.  I did not want to overwhelm them so the two little gardens and pots are small but I think they perk up their house.

I had so many plans and was getting so obsessed that it was good I left after 4 days.!

I am kind of eager to get back and do more work. My daughter in law thought that maybe I should work at a garden store.  I guess I like giving people advice. ha ha.  The hardest part was pulling up the weeds.  Lots of roots and dandelions.  I worked some on their lawn but that is going to take more work.  I hope I can continue coaching them with their new house although I don't want to be a bother either.

A report from the Denver garden:  still lots of lettuce, basil plant died.  Dear husband did "dead heading" of petunias. Now that is love, a real act of service.

signing off from near San Jose

PS My daughter in law here has an amazing Cali lily, a succulent pot and a basil plant that I am quite jealous of.  I hope to make pesto and take some home with me

June 1- green grass and colorful petunias

May has been a month of rain.  Never has our lawn looked so green. Is it the rain or the Epsom Salts?  A Southerner told us to try this for a green lawn and here is the result

I love the contrast of the above picture with just 5 weeks ago.


We have already been cutting lettuce from the garden for our evening salad.


I noticed a blossom one of my two Roma tomato plants.

Today I am going to try to make mint tea with all the mint taking over the area near our air conditioning unit

How to Make Mint Tea

 

Author:

Stephanie Stiavetti

Recipe type:Beverage

Cuisine:American

Serves:2

Prep time:5 mins

Cook time:5 mins

Total time:10 mins

Save Print

 

Peppermint tea will cure what ails you, whether it be a stomach ache, nausea, headache, lethargy, you name it. A quick, simple and CHEAP remedy.

Ingredients

• 1 handful of fresh mint
• 2 cups of boiling water

Instructions

1. There isn’t really a recipe for mint tea, but rather a method. Wash and tear up the fresh mint leaves. (Spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint; the variety doesn’t matter.) Put them in a French press or teapot and pour some boiling water over them. Allow to steep for about 3-7 minutes, depending on how strong you want your tea. Feel free to add a bit of honey or even a splash of whole milk if you want.
2. Enjoy.

Mother's Day 2014- instead of planting.....

We got back from church and the snow had really started to accumulate.  We scurried outside, put plastic and pots on the lettuces, some perennials although we probably did not need to and the few petunias I had planted by the pine tree.  Actually the pine tree would likely have protected them.

However, there was really no damage at all.

Week of April 27

Tom bought me two small Roma tomato plants for 88 cents each.  

 I almost killed this plant. It was a cold week and I just did not go outside, kind of obsessed with work and study.  But some water on Friday perked it up

 Went ahead and planted these petunias.  Even when it has snowed a little in May, the snow never reaches near the pine tree. As much as I hate that tree, it does protect these pots from hail and snow

 My tulips from the Southeast garden.

 New lawn ornament. I need more wind chimes.

Just hoping for some Romas to roast this year.  These were from the 69 cent sale at King Soopers.

Rose food May 5 2014

This is from a few years ago.  I read that coffee grinds are good for roses.   I had some leftover coffee, watered it down and gave it to 2 rose bushes out front; There are 3 in the front rose and I gave it to the two furthest from the street.  We'll see what happens.

I read that epson salts are a good fertilizer.  

A warm week April 20th.

This week I put in a few more perennials.  The ones at King Soopers are really nice.  Here are the ones I bought:

Well, I keep hoping the poppies will start liking me. The one I've had for 3 years that grows beautiful leaves but never blooms is again looking lush over in the Northeast garden area.

I bought two of these, English Daisy. One is in the pine tree garden. One is up near the house

Less than a week and the lettuce is coming up already

I bought some watercress at Albertsons and it came with the root ball. SO I cut off the watercress and planted the root ball.  Wouldn't that be great if I grew watercress?

The green plant, called Dead Nettle (what a name) another perennial for the pine tree garden

This is called Rock cress

I get more tulips over in this southwest garden that I completely ignore. Tom's theory is that he dumped dirt there years ago and there were bulbs in the dirt. I really don't do well with bulbs. 

It's 2014- I lost a whole year. What happened?

I will tell you what happened.  I realized that I would be gone quite a bit last summer.  I went to Germany, really enjoyed the tulips there.

 I went to help Catherine and Zane move out of LA. Then I went to N. CA to meet my new grandson. I was at work in C. Springs and then I went to my 40th high school reunion in Ohio, and to Tennessee for the birth of another grandson. Back to attend Alex's flight school graduation, visit hot Texas and last but not least, a lovely week in Alma, CO. I was not home much. I decided to plant some annuals (I did enjoy those) and let the veggie garden go to Cosmos!

Still looked pretty good.

However, it's a new year and my inner gardener is out again. I think I was inspired by the photos of Marg Van Wyck's amazing garden in C. Springs.

So what I've been doing:

April 12

I put in Eko Compost both in the veg garden and the pine tree garden.  I cleaned the soil out of roots, hard clay etc.  Note above that there is part of the garden that is not turned up.  Tom did that.  Not sure why but decided that part will be the Cosmos garden.  

You can hardly see the perennials coming up.  I've given up on bulbs.  One year, maybe it was 2010, I had so many tulips.  Just looked at pictures from 2011, wow, beautiful garden that year.  Yes, things looking bleak this year.  note the covers in the second picture.  I am hoping third year is the charm for my poppy that greens every year but no flower.  Last year there was a bud but nothing came of it.  I covered the tulips that were to bud as the temp was going down to 20 degrees that night. 

I put in the compost as Marg said that she added soil to her garden every single year.  I can see that.  Colorado is just not a natural garden environment like places in Illinois and Tennessee.

April 17

We are having warm weather. I talked to someone and they said I could put a few perennials in.  I saw some at King Sooper that looked so healthy and a good price ($7) so I got a five.  Mountain Blue, a delphinium and two snow flox.