Category Archives: garden

First Tomato!

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Pamela

Someone needs major tutorial action on the latest version of Photoshop. It took me about an hour to do this. In my defense I am a tad run down and my brain isn’t on full strength.

This was waiting for me when I returned home. It’s now on its velvet pillow in the kitchen awaiting a major life change. There’s one more close and I’m guessing I’m about two weeks away from inundation. I can’t wait.

I had a wonderful vacation in Orleans and the day we arrived home I had just enough time to clean up and then drive to the airport to get on a plane to go to a work trip. I arrived home from that last night and I put in most of a day at the office today and now I’m looking forward to some couch time.

Lots of great photos and possibly a few stories to come.

Posted in garden, Orleans, pamily | 1 Comment

Make it Rain But Not Too Much

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Pamela

There are only about 3 months out of the year when we have to worry about watering. And we don’t water our lawn, only the flowers and vegetables.

For the first half of the summer I enjoy it. It’s nice to be outside and wandering around looking at all the plants, checking out corners of the yard I don’t normally look at. And I always think: how could I ever get tired of doing this?

Then there’s the inevitable moment when I switch over to hating it. It always seems to happen in an instant and it happened last night.

Mostly it wears me down on the weeknights. Even to do a crappy job, it takes at least an hour and the traffic is worse in the summer so I get home later than usual. Then I’m rushing around and if anything looks even a tiny bit droopy I feel bad. I just transplanted my cucumber sprouts out there and they are all wilted in the dirt. Wimps.

I only water every other day unless it’s gruesomely hot. But I get all worried when I’m going to be home late and how to arrange my schedule to make sure I have time to do it.

The way the plumbing is outside, there is no way to set up an automatic system unless we open our wallets and get a few guys in here. Plus I think we’d have to tear the deck out in the back because the spigot is half under it. We just deal. It’s not that bad but last night it made me grumpy.

Meanwhile, my weather gadget says possibility of rain later this week and I felt bad being really excited about that.

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Wander in the Garden

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Pamela

They’re facing the wrong way!

The tomato cages are wrapped in plastic to keep the plants from shivering at night.

First pumpkin.

I was wrong about no applegeddon this year. The tree is loaded.

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Garden Update

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Pamela

Big pink dahlias. These are massive and droopy. Even staking doesn’t seem to help.

I think I’m going to have someone help me make a better trellis. I can’t find a sample photo right now but I want them to be able to grow up more.

Smaller dahlia.

Peas, detail shot.

Half of the tomato plants. When I was buying plants they had this one variety that was grown specially to be healthy. What a relief after all the unhealthy tomatoes we’ve got in the world. It made me mad. I didn’t buy that kind.

Beets! I love beets and didn’t get any last year. Not a problem now.

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It’s Everything I Wish I Didn’t Know

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Pamela

Hey, check out these little watermelon sproutlets, surging toward the window.

I keep promising myself that I’m not going to write about being busy because, d’oh! Everybody’s busy.

But holy avalanche of documents and activities, this week has been another crazy one. Lots of stuff going on and an unusual blip at the office that has resulted in a bunch of stuff needing to be happen at the same time. On separate occasions, both colleague and I stood in front of our desks and stared down at the piles and said: I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing right now.

But, I think we’ve got it under control. (Unless by writing that I just jinxed myself.) I still have plenty to do but all the pieces are in place.

Rainbow of Piquionne (name of our player who scored 4 goals in 45 minutes at this game. Yes, it was awesome to watch.)

On Wednesday my team played the first round of the U.S. Open Cup which is a competition among all the teams in the US Soccer Federation. Last year’s game was an abomination and a forbidden topic.

This year’s game was not. I have never seen my team score 5 goals in one game and I liked it very much. This is separate from Major League Soccer. I’m telling you, soccer is a part time job. The boys have the weekend off for the international break (That’s for competitions among national teams, so above and beyond the league and the US federation. There’s also a regional federation. No, I’m not messing with you.) so we only have a lady team match to go to this weekend.

Here are a couple other updates:

I still don’t have a shower door. I’d tell you all the missteps but it’s too exhausting. The latest snafu is that the glass was the wrong size.

Now they’re saying they can install next Wednesday. Everybody think good thoughts.

Our house is apparently a portal for giant hairy flies. There is always 1 giant hairy fly in the house. It lurks in the kitchen when I’m cooking, the bedroom when I’m trying to sleep or nap, my room when I’m on the computer or on the TV when I’m watching a show. If I follow it around with a fly swatter until I kill it, the next time I go into the kitchen there will be a giant hairy fly. Is there a way to monetize this?

Yesterday I participated in a rally for the Klamath salmon. Coverage here and here.

The power company has agreed to take down the dams but Congress needs to take action to make it happen. An Oregon senator is committed to the cause so the rally was to reiterate that there are still people who want this to happen.

A whole bunch of my family was up from California so it was fun to be with everybody and show our support.

Update on the windowsill sprouts. Look at these pumpkins growing like crazy. it’s warm and dry this weekend so everybody is going to be planted outside. I have a spot out front where historically, the pumpkins have done really well. I also am going to put some in back where I’ve had mixed results. I need to get out there and see what’s going on. It looks like there’s already some stuff bolting and the volunteer sunflowers are still coming on strong.

That’s the update for now.

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The Pumpkins Start Here

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Pamela

I’ve got the viney plants started on the window sill. These are the watermelon. See anything? Neither do I. I don’t have high hopes for the watermelon but I’m going to try again.

Also, I downloaded an app that’s supposed to make my photos prettier. What do you think?

Yeah, this one is definitely blurry, but I only took one because I am in a hurry. Things have kicked back up into insanely busy while simultaneously throwing new and surprising problems my way.

These are the Cinderella pumpkins. They look pretty good.

I had a low tire so I swung by Les Schwab on my way home from work. How long has it been since I sung the praises of Les Schwab? It was 30 minutes before closing. They were fairly busy and the phone ringing. Unfailingly polite – like they it was the highlight of their day looking at my tire. I love that place.

I had a screw in my tire and it’s fixed and I was on my way by 6pm. And one problem, easily solved.

The little tiny sprouts are basil. They get to stay inside. The next one is the single cantaloupe sprout and then more pumpkins.

I still don’t have a shower door. Boo! I haven’t had a decent shower in over a month. I remember writing about the front door knob but can’t find the post. Whatever I did to fix it was only temporary so we need to deal with that. I still don’t have any tomatoes. It goes on and on. I always feel like I’m one day off from getting caught up.

I’m taking off for the weekend. Hopefully it will be blissful sitting around. Also a hotel shower. Yay.

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Suntaters of the Future

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Pamela

This afternoon I grabbed all the withered potatoes in the drawer and buried them out in the yard so I’d have suntaters later this year.

While I was out there I found these carrots from last year. I bet they still taste good.

Here I photographed them with an alien for scale. But the alien wouldn’t stand up by him/herself so I had to prop him/her up with the carrots.

Today I did an exercise class, garden digging and bread kneading and I now have noodle arms. And I’m behind on everything.

Happy Friday.

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Garden is Finished

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Pamela

Yesterday afternoon the light in the backyard was amazing. In the time that it took to get my camera it disappeared. You can kind of see it at the top of the photo.

I haven’t managed to get out there for a couple of weeks and there was tons to do. I dug a bunch of trenches and raked zillions of apples and leaves into them. I picked up a giant box of the prettier looking apples and I’m about to get started on my applesauce project.

That black mark in the bottom corner is Toes. He was doing his business in my garden and than ran over to say hi when I came out.

I told him: You can’t crap in my yard and then expect me to act like friends.

This is the flower garden part that still needs a lot of cleaning up. There are still a few dahlias out there but mostly everything is shriveled up and ready for the bin.

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Hedge Haircut Time Again

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Pamela

We’d lived in this house for years before I started giving the hedge an annual haircut. I wonder how it wasn’t growing crazy out-of-control in the earlier years of neglect. I guess it’s not really a hedge, it’s a bush that could be a hedge but for whatever reason someone planted it under the bedroom window.

This time I did it in a big rush because I was in this obsessive drive to complete as many good weather dependent projects as possible.

Also I did the 150 bulb project.

Bob said, “You don’t really have 150 bulbs.”

I said, “Yes, really.”

Then I brought in the bags. They were 75 per bag on sale for $17.99. I took a photo but I think it’s still inside the camera.

Once I started digging I remembered that 150 bulbs is not as bad as it sounds.

The first time I planted bulbs I only bought about 25 and dug 25 holes and thought it was the worst. Then I saw my little pitiful individual 25 flowers and realized I was doing it wrong.

This time I dug trenches and planted 25 at a time. It’s going to look cool in the spring.

While I was planting I kept finding previously planted bulbs and I thought it would be a terrific idea to take a photo in the spring so I know what areas need bulbs. Then I remembered that I did that last spring. I have no idea where the photo is, probably in a photo folder called “garden” with 900 other photos of flowers and pumpkins in it.

I need an app that will keep a photo of my garden that I take in the spring and email it to me in the fall when it’s time to buy bulbs.

I haven’t dug around in the front yard in a long time and I forgot how wretched my soil is. All yellowy dry with huge rocks. Some of the rocks were as big as my fist.

When it started raining I noticed some snails and decided get the bucket and do a run through. I must have picked 100 snails. They just keep coming no matter what I do. The next day I saw a few more and ended up picking another 100. Then when I got home the other night there was a giant snail loitering on the wall next to the garage.

To conclude, I leave this link from the NYT food section about a snail rancher which includes this quote, “It may often look as if snails aren’t doing anything. Ms. Stewart has learned that they are doing quite a bit. ‘That’s all they’re doing, is making love,’ she said.”

Posted in doing it wrong, garden | 3 Comments

Storms Are Coming

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Pamela

We’ve had a record breaking dry streak. It’s hard to complain about no rain when 3 months ago I was weeping and beating my head against the concrete because it wouldn’t stop. Now that everything is all dried out I’m not heartbroken to hear the rains are coming back.

The weatherman says we’re in for a series of storms starting on Friday. I’m getting home late tomorrow and Thursday so tonight the minute I got home I dropped everything and put on my work clothes and ran outside. It’s amazing what you can get done quickly when you’re motivated.

I yanked a bunch of dead stuff out front to make room for the 150 bulbs project. Then I brought in all the tomatoes and ripped the plants out and yanked most of the sunflowers. The cucumbers are still out there, although they look dead. The garden is finished. I think there are carrots but that’s about it. Well, apples. When I tore out one of the sunflowers I thought I found another suntater and I was pretty excited but it turned out to be a rock.

The real purpose of this post is to tell you about Roasted Pepper Vinaigrette. That’s it in the squeeze bottle posing with the tomatoes I just brought in. I’ve had this recipe forever. I don’t recall the origins. I made a note that “goes good with lots of things” so must have been part of an article. I finally made it on Sunday and it is amazing. We’ve had it on corn and salad. I think it would taste great on just about any vegetable and also, a swirl on a piece of cheese would be good. Probably good on pasta. It’s way more delicious that this recipe would suggest.

1 roasted red pepper or drain it from a jar (that’s what I did, thank you Trader Joe’s)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar
1 T chopped shallot (I never measure stuff like that. I used half a big one.)
1/2 t. salt
fresh ground black pepper

Whirl it all in the blender until smooth. Add more vinegar, salt and/or pepper if you think it needs it. Put in a squeeze bottle because you feel all fancy squeezing it on stuff.

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