Landscape Designs

So lately I’ll I’ve been doing in the garden is weeding and picking tomatoes and some other veggies. Lots of tomatoes. But you really can’t have too much. I have been eating large amounts of BLT’s too. They are delicious. I harvested a few leeks (my trial crop for the year, and they turned out better than a bunch of other stuff) and made a leek and potato soup, which was yummy.

Today I went and bought a whole bunch of plants for a landscape project. I would highly encourage people to make planting plans. I see so many gardens planted willy-nilly. But with a good planting plan you know exactly what and how many plants to buy, and make sure you have plants blooming/looking good the entire season. You can also avoid doing things like planting azaleas in Utah (very stupid and any good nursery won’t carry them), buying plants with nowhere to put them, or putting a plant in the wrong place.

Not saying a planting plan is set in stone. I never spec out exact varieties, preferring to finalize those when I buy them. Sometimes you have to substitute out something because you can’t find it. And there is always improvements to make after it’s all planted up, maybe some plants are struggling in a certain spot, or you don’t like the way a certain perennial looks. An occasional spur-of the moment purchase is fine too. (I have chocolate flowers to plant. No idea where yet, but I bought them for 1.5o a piece at a year-end garden center sale. They are awesome plants so very worth it.)

Planting plans aren’t hard to make with a decent plant encyclopedia. I made a bunch of plant lists that I use with my favorite and common plants, and I’ve posted them here.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is I had lots of fun buying lots of plants and a landscape design made that happen.

Zoo and a 5K

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We went with my mom and Peter to the Zoo. It was a lot of fun. Peter liked the elephants, gorillas, and all the little animals. A couple of the dinosaurs on display scared him. I don’t think he quite understands that they are models. He also got lucky and rode the train and carousel. He was in tears after getting off the carousel, the ride was much too short for him. It was fun because Joe was there, even with finals this week.

Yesterday, I ran a 5K that Joe’s school did. I have never ran that far. Generally a mile is long enough for me. Joe and I have been running in the morning for a while, and I was surprised to find that I could run the whole thing. I was very proud of myself. I did not run very fast however, it was 3.5 miles (it was a little long) in 40 minutes. I’m still alright with that. My parents, brothers and Joe ran too. My mom beat me, but not by much. My little brother Daniel did really well and was 7th overall and beat everyone else in the family. He’s 15, so he would have won is age class, except the race wasn’t that big.

Joe should get done with school on Tuesday, and then I’m sending him to work to help finish all the landscaping projects that have been piling up.

Harvest

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Can you spot the red?

Slowly, plants are producing bounty. My fourth-of-july tomatoes are in full production and I’ve picked a few romas. I have three cucumber plants that all are producing quite a bit. I planted a couple of striped armenian cucumbers and thought they both died and replanted with different varieties. I was pleasantly surprised to fine that one did survive. I have loved the variety too. They grow quite large,curl and are beautiful when sliced. My sister mentioned that one looked exactly like a question mark. I’ve picked quite a bunch off of it already, and have taken them to whoever I visit. Here’s a picture of a small one, not quite ready for picking:

The picture above are my cucumber plants. The one on the left is a regular armenian cucumber. It has a horrible case of powdery mildew. So does the watermelon. But the striped armenian seems a lot more resistant. (It’s on the right.) I’m surprised at how bad my powdery mildew is. It’s killing back the plants. Still haven’t come across a control measure I feel comfortable with, so I’m hoping it just won’t get worse.

My potatoes also appear to have a vascular wilt disease. There’s really nothing I can do there but be disappointed. Hopefully I’ll still get a few.  It stinks that I actually know quite a bit about plant diseases but can’t solve the problem. The funny thing about plant diseases is there’s usually not a lot you can do. Control measure are things like get rid of all your plants so at least is doesn’t spread,  rotate for three years, water properly, and plant resistant varieties. Not a lot you can do when the disease strikes the plant, as fungicides are often pretty ineffective to combat infections once in the plant.

Not a horrible year so far, but not quite as good as I was expecting thanks to a long wet spring.

Mini-Vacation to Logan

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We went up north for a weekend and it felt very much like like a very small vacation. Most of it was spent visiting with my twin Heather and her family. We came up Friday afternoon and went to the Willow Park Zoo which was hot and a little boring, but Peter enjoyed it. That night we set up a tent in my sister’s backyard. I love camping, even if it is fake camping. It’s fun being able to wake up outside and see the stars.

The next morning we went on a hike to White Pine Lake. It was full of wildflowers, much prettier than any of my pictures. We remembered bug spray too this time. I have a goal to hike 100 miles this year: I’m at 58.2 miles, so I’m over halfway. Hopefully we’ll go a lot on vacation at the end of the month and in the break between Joe’s finals and his next semester. But there’s still lots of landscaping project to get done to, so we’ll see.

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After the hike, we visited some more family members up north, including a birthday party for Joe’s grandma. Made it home before 9:00 with one tired toddler.

Quick Update

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I’m still around, just busy. Lots of landscaping, housework, sleeping, and a little toddler named Peter. Here’s some pictures. The hike was up at Lofty Lake Loop and it was an awesome hike except I forgot the bug repellent and we all came home covered in bites. We also took some family pictures up in Logan. One actually had all three of us smiling.

Oh, we are moving to Georgia in January to finish up Joe’s school.

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Summer Fun

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Summer is so much fun. We’ve done a lot of playing in water lately including a picnic up at Bridal Veil falls with a friend, swimming with Daddy at the public pool, and a trip to the splash pad in Highland with a bunch of my neighbors. On Wednesday night we took a trip up to Kennecott so Peter could see the dump trucks. His favorite thing there was the collection of toy construction vehicles and other models. He was pointing at everything and calling “Car” or “Du-truck”.

Peter’s speech is starting to really take off. He copies just about any word, and they are getting to be more like the actual word he means. So fun to see him get older.

Finally, I’ve nearly finished the dining room wall. For all those familiar with my Grandma’s house, you can ohh and ahh over the change. Two of my aunts, Grandma and I all contributed to it. I actually drew it out on the computer first. It really helps get everything centered and just where you want it before you put anything up.

Here’s the pictures:

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Garden Update

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I think I thought spring was busy only because I wasn’t in summer yet. There is never a dull moment.

In the garden: the only thing blooming is the yucca and roses. I don’t care much about either. In fact the yuccas are slated for removal. They just don’t look that great with quack grass thrown in.

I’ve picked peas, lots of lettuce, and chard. My first banana pepper was picked yesterday. The tomatoes have fruit: they just need to mature. My only disappointment so far is the zucchini. This supposedly indestructible plant has struggled a lot but now seems to be taking off. I planted a yellow and a green variety, but one died. The other was very wilted so I tried to perk it up with some water. A week later when it started to look a little better, I took a look at it and realized that the stem had rotted. This hearty plant still managed to root out above the stem root and is still alive. It’s just also very far from producing zucchinis. Now I know: check the plant and soil before just dumping on even more water.

My blue hubbard squash is taking over. It’s kinda expected. At one of my gardens, I did a traditional row layout and the squash didn’t end up with enough room. So now it’s overtaking the onions.

I have more than enough landscaping project and plenty of heat to do them in. My brother and I went and worked on one for a while the other day and quite after a little over an hour. Too muggy and hot, and we were tired. Summer was made for laziness, even if my to-do list is constantly growing.

Running

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I started running again. I read a book my mom had, Born to Run, and I realized that I don’t necessarily hate running as I always thought I did. I have very fond memories of running. So I started to do it with my husband in the mornings. I like it a lot. I’m in horrible shape and still walk a lot. But I do not care. I’ve always hated running because I try to push myself, rather than just accepting where I am and working from there.

I do not have a pair of running shoes that work either. The pair I picked this morning gave me a blister. And today Peter decided to wake up early and I realized I needed a jogging stroller too. Our regular stroller does not work at all. (And it’s kinda tilted anyways).

Except I just spent a lot of money on a camera for my birthday. I’m very excited for it. My old camera is old and takes horrible pictures. It’s held together with duct tape. The battery doesn’t last very long. I keep having problems connecting it to my computer. It was time for a new one. I went ahead and bought a nicer one that cost more, but found a good deal on a slightly used, older model. Should be here tomorrow…

Do you know slip and slides are still fun when you grow up? See…

It’s just plastic film bought for the garden, but it worked great as an extra wide and long slip and slide. But Peter didn’t think it looked like a good idea. Then yesterday Joe, Peter I wanted to go play with water in the back yard. Couldn’t find a kiddie pool at Wal-mart, so we ended up making one with black plastic and 4 x 4’s. Its a good 4′ x 8′. Much better than the sled from last year. Peter still had some reservations…but he would sit on the side and had fun there.

Battle Creek to Grove Creek

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I always  want to wake up early and go hiking. It just never happens as planned. The few times it has happened before usually involved camping. Then came a free Friday combined with an appointment I scheduled at 1:00. I was tired of going on short hikes, and had a few long ones I was eager to do. I could either wake up early and go on a long one, or do yet another short hike. I was all for waking up at 5:00 and going.

Peter agreed. At 4:30 in the morning he started to crying, “Ma-Ma.” I tried to get him back to sleep, but something was up and he wouldn’t. So we got up and made it to the trailhead (which happens to be awesomely less than a mile from my home) by 6:00. Our goal was to hike up Battle Creek canyon and down Grove Creek. I’ve done this hike at least twice. It’s a good one. Joe had yet to go past the first waterfall up Battle Creek.

Mountains are funny–I was hiking east, yet I was also delaying sunrise by doing so. It was nice a cool for the first couple of hours.  Actually a little too cold–I could tell Peter wasn’t enjoying it. His parents were a bit negligent in the jacket department. Peter walked a little, but mostly rode in the pack and even slept a little. We breezed by the falls and other sites, more intent on making decent time. (The falls are nothing new anyways.) It was a gorgeous morning with all the birds out.

We caught the sunrise at 8:00, right when we hit Dry Canyon trail. After a short snack break, we set off across the flat. We sung together a little (it helped Peter be happy), but mostly we were quiet enjoying the beautiful landscape around us. We dropped down into Grove Creek and right into fields full of mint and stinging nettle. I can’t tell the difference between those plants very well so just avoided both.

We reached the falls at Grove Creek. I hadn’t remembered them from my previous hike, but with all the spring snow melt they were gorgeous. By about 10:00 we were past anything all that pretty and just had a couple of more hours hiking. It was getting pretty hot too. The mile between Grove Creek and Battle Creek was hot, boring and tiring after already hiking 7 miles. I was done hiking by the time we got to the car at 12:00. But it was a beautiful hike, a great way to start a day.

Kudos to Joe for carrying Peter most of the way, and Peter for napping while on the trail. Here’s the pictures, some of which came from the hike last week.

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Bedroom

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The biggest task I did this week was to paint and finish my bedroom. I had decided to paint it green. While waiting at the store, the previously chosen shade of mellow green fell prey to a long wait and I instead choose a lovely bright green. The name of the paint is granny smith apple, which describes it pretty well.  I’ve lived in rentals for the past five years, so its nice to have a bedroom I can actually paint. I rearranged the furniture as well, and I like the end results. All I want now is a reading chair for the corner.

Life is pretty busy. Always seems to be. My husband went to school about 40 hours and worked 20, and I was still recruiting him for painting and picture hanging. He is such a great guy, never complains about any of it. My sister came down to visit this weekend, and we went to a parade and hiked Battle Creek Falls. She also let me shoot her bow. It was very awkward, and at first I just couldn’t get it. I’m very right eye dominant and had to shoot the bow with my left eye. I had to put a tie over my right eye, but after I did I shot the bow and hit the target. It’s pretty fun.