Root Cellar

With the harvest of our garden finished, here'a a photo of our stored food for the winter in our root cellar. A root cellar is one of the oldest and easiest ways to preserve fresh fruits and vegetables through the winter months in cold storage.  Our root cellar is an underground room used for preserving fruits and vegetables for several weeks or months. Shown hanging are cabbage and in the bags are potatoes, all root vegetables. Good eating this winter!

The Hum of Bees in My Vegetable Garden

I love seeing the bees in my vegetable garden and the results from their pollination. Pictured top left are squash, peppers, and tomatoes gathered from the garden; bottom left are sugar pie pumpkins and the photo on the right are honeybees gathering pollen from the sugar pie pumpkin blooms.

 The hum of bees is the voice of the garden. ~Elizabeth Lawrence

Digging Potatoes

It's that time of year...harvesting potatoes

Great yield of a variety of potatoes

Always fun to see what shape nature may provide...a heart!

Sugar Pie Pumpkins

Sugar pie pumpkins are favored for pumpkin pies and have the highest concentration of sugar than other type pumpkins. A typical 6" Sugar Pie pumpkin is enough for one pumpkin pie (8" pie pan).

Sugar pie pumpkin blossom

Small Sugar Pumpkin - Turning Orange!

Bee on sugar pie pumpkin blossom

Chasing Butterflies!

Across my dreams with nets of wonder I chase the bright elusive butterfly… (Bob Lind).” As a child, I loved to chase these butterflies but now am happy to watch them gathering nectar from my butterfly bush.

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is a quick and strong flier making it difficult to capture a photo. The males are a bright yellow, while the females can exhibit two different color forms.

This Pipevine Swallowtail has a shiny blue body and white spots on the upper side of the hind wings. The blue underneath the hind wings encircle one row of orange colors. These swift fliers are usually low to the ground and do not stay at one flower for a long period of time but this fellow is enjoying my butterfly bush.

The Great Spangled Fritillary is a sparkling beauty and is a medium sized butterfly that can fly very quickly and is easy to see while gathering nectar.

Canning Green Beans

In the past two days my brother and I have canned 54 quarts of Contender bush and 14 quarts of Half Runner green beans for a total of 68 quarts. Not finished yet - have two more rows of green beans to pick and process. Thanks to all the bees for your help in pollinating and increasing our yield.

Garden

Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity. ~Lindley Karstens, noproblemgarden.com

One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. W. E. Johns, The Passing Show.

The garden sentinel!

Swallowtail Butterfly

Male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail foraging on Phlox which is almost spent.

This butterfly had tattered tails but is still beautiful.

Close-up of Swallowtail butterfly using it's proboscis to drink from the flowers. Fascinating to watch!

For the Beauty of the Earth

“For the beauty of the earth,

for the beauty of the skies…”

Folliot S. Pierpoint

Spring has finally arrived in the mountains. The field is plowed and ready to plant when the danger of frost passes.

Seed Catalogs Promise Hope

The weather outside may be cold and snowy but nothing gives a gardener more of a sense of hope and anticipation in the middle of winter like those beautiful,  glossy seed catalogs arriving in the mailbox. I have received my first seed catalog from Burpee. Looking through the catalog,  I am reminded that spring can’t be too far off. What a wonderful way to escape the winter doldrums and  plan for this season’s garden!

Last year I ordered a package of basil seeds from the seed catalog along with lavender and lupines. I grew them inside in peat pots and then later transplanted them to larger pots outside on my deck and then up to the garden at the mountain house. I had really good luck growing basil. Its highly fragrant leaves are used as a seasoning herb for a variety of foods but  but I love to make tomato basil pie.

Common Orange Daylily

These are photos of the orange daylilies, which have been blooming since about the first of July at our mountain home.  This lily is a species of a daylily called Hemerocallis fulva, and has many common names, including orange daylily, tawny daylily and the “ditch lily.” These lilies came from a friend, who  was thinning them out and told me to help myself to as many as I wanted.



The flowers open and greet the morning with their six-part petals facing the sun and close around dark, never to open again therefore the “daylily” name. With many flower buds on each stem and many stems in a clump, these lilies may bloom for several weeks.The orange petals often have ruffled edges and a stripe down the center of each petal and maybe doubled. With all the rain this summer in the mountains, they have thrived and are very showy and attention getting.

Getting the Garden Ready to Plant!

A Poem Garden 


Author Unknown 

Tomato, 


Perfect, round and red,


Growing in your garden bed. 


Cornstalk, 


Tall and green 


With yellow corn inside, unseen.


Melon, 
Sweet and round,


Resting on the ground. 
 

String bean, 


On the vine, 


Green like this garden of mine.

Field plowed and ready to plant when the danger of frost passes.

It's Planting Time!

This huge rock pulled from garden before plowing - amazing how it grew over the winter.

Newly plowed garden ready for planting potatoes, tomatoes, peas, green beans, squash, cucumbers, and peppers. Also planning to grow pumpkins, lettuce, beets, carrots and onions.

Another view of the plowed garden

Victory Garden

This summer I felt as though I was living in the Forties by planting a Victory Garden, purchasing a pressure canner, and wearing my hair in Victory Rolls for the play Evita. My brother and I planted a Victory Garden in June with tomatoes, green beans, October beans, peas, banana peppers, hot peppers, squash, and potatoes. We froze the squash in quart bags as they were ready and made squash casseroles. Couldn't get to the green beans quick enough to process but still managed to can 48 quarts. We also  made and canned apple sauce, apple butter, and apple pie filling. The garden and canning was a great deal of work but the taste of food you have grown is worth the time and effort.

Victory Garden in early Spring with potatoes and tomatoes growing

Canned goods from Victory garden and apple trees

 

Harvesting potatoes and preparing garden for next season

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How Does Your Garden Grow

A New Garden by Emily Dickinson

New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green,
New weary sleep below;
And still the pensive spring returns,
And still the punctual snow!