North Garden, Poly Tunnels and Phenological Events

Good morning Dear Reader. Got your boots on again? I was thinking I would take you on a tour of North Garden. But instead of doing it all in one day I would stretch it out all during the week.

North Garden is not the most northern spot on the Farm, north and south speaking it lies rather in the middle, and very much on the east line, save for the driveway. But it is the most northern of the permanent garden beds and so has been dubbed North Garden.


This is what the exposed garden soil looked like this morning. It has been clear and warm during the day and clear at night. Because of the clear nights the nightly lows have dipped down past thirty-two and so we have been waking to a good frost these last few mornings.


However, I have a low poly tunnel on one of the beds here in North Garden as a season extender.

In past posts I showed how I construct these: short rebar sunk in on the each edge of the raised beds about five feet apart or more; ten foot pvc pipe arched over the bed and slipped down on the exposed foot and half to two feet of rebar; six mil poly placed over the hoops; extra at the ends to cover and lap over; two x twos stapled to the bottom edges of the poly to hold it in place (this works way better than the clip system I use to use).

This is a shot of the soil under the poly tunnel, taken at the same time of day as the soil picture above. I didn't take the thermometer with me to get an actual reading but the soil is soft and not the least bit effected by the frost outside of the tunnel.

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If the temps got much lower or if I had frost tender things under here (right now I just have some spinach and beets started) I would put floating row cover directly on the bed to add five to ten more degrees to the soil temperature. In fact the floating row cover is under there it is just scootched over to one side. I wanted to see how the poly tunnel would do all by itself now that it is getting way more sun during the day with the trees gone.

The late winter and early spring beauties that normally take winter on the chin so well are really doing nicely with the sorta winter we are experiencing here in the PNW.

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The buds on the fruit trees are still very tight where they need a bit more time and protection which makes sense because even in a normal year the apple trees bud nearly two months after daffodil season with the cherries blooming just before the apples.

The only buds I see swelling are the ones that can take it in stride. I'm no expert and there is always room in my life for flukes (understatement of the year eh? beings that I'm nearly a fluke depend-er) but I really think that we have more chances of having a bad bud-damaging freeze on the fruit trees in a more "normal" winter than this one.

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Funny how we have a tendency to run around in late summer and look at the fuzz or the size of caterpillars or the coloring on the birds or when they leave and arrive as signs of how deep our winter will be. But when it comes to spring we listen to a ground hog on a particular day at a particular time and whether or not he sees his shadow. Then we wring our hands with worry, completely doubting the trustworthy phenological events, like the blooming of the Indian Plum or the emergence of naturalized daffodils.

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Lots of things come into play with the phenological events, length of daylight, consistent soil temperatures, chemical reactions (and biochemical reactions) because of those soil temperatures. It doesn't all hinge on ambient air temperatures. It has to all come together.

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I'm still a young pup, I don't have eighty years of experience watching the weather in the PNW, but from the view of the few years I do have, I'd say that the phenological signs are to be trusted. We are several weeks ahead of normal and we'll be okay, despite what the doom and gloom-ers on the weather segment late at night have to say.

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But then again farming and gardening is always gamble and not for the faint of heart.

Getting Around to Stuff, Some, Twenty Years in the Making

Check it out, I finally changed up my banner picture, made it a little more seasonal. I usually get that changed more regularly but I haven't been doing much "regularly", I still have tulips on my lap top screen.


I like change, I feed on change, but this last year was so chalk a block full of change that I am thoroughly drenched in change and so my lap top and blog suffer. There you have it excuse five-forty-four from Procrastination Alley. - Oh wait, not changing it seasonally is change. There, that's better, I like rational better than excuses. Which one gets your forgiveness juices flowing Dear Reader? Or better yet, bag mere forgiveness, I'd like to know what trips your sympathy trigger, a good cry in the beer excuse or a straight forward justification that shows really deep down that a person is eternally a mess?

Sorry for that little pause in my writing but I started chuckling to myself and then ended up guffawing. My blatant search for sympathy reminded me of what my father used to say when, as an older child, I or someone else appeared to be looking to pull the sympathy card. He would tell us that we could find sympathy in the dictionary, located between two distinct words, not very nice words and we would get the definite idea that he was not pleased with whiners.

So never mind, don't give me any sympathy, I don't want it, not looking for it, because I'm afraid someone might direct me to the dictionary.

Well I'm still workin' at keeping to the whole moon and star signs thingy and I think today is a root day. Why? What makes it a root day? Days that follow the full moon and up to the new moon, the waning or decreasing of the moon, are days more root oriented. Why? I have no idea, it is just what the almanac says. Today is a definite root oriented day because of the zodiac sign. Did you freak out 'cause I said zodiac?

Zodiac - Astronomy A band of the celestial sphere extending about 8° to either side of the ecliptic that represents the path of the principal planets, the moon, and the sun.

Genesis 1:4 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,

"We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." The magi at Jesus' birth.

So any who, I was thinking that I head out to the beach to dig clams because the tide is low, but I know the tide will be low according to the phase of the moon and a bunch of other factors I am sure because the tide isn't always the same lowness (word?). So the whole planetary, star, moon thing, while I would never go by a horoscope to figure out who I was going to marry or how I should dress (there are other signs in the sky for that) I do get that maybe just maybe the whole moon and stuff has an effect on my beet seeds.

But if you think I've gone whack a doo and need a visit from the church authorities, you got their number, ring 'em up. but what I know so far is that it has actually kept me on a schedule of sorts since Christmas, when I received the evil almanac.

That was morning and now it is night

So I know I started writing this this morning and then decided I really needed to get the heck outa bed, and now I am getting ready to go back to same said bed, might as well stare at that dark ceiling awhile, and so I can tell you what I did today. Oh, rats, I have pics but they're in the cam still and if I load them, edit them and put them here not only will it mess with my paragraphing but it will keep me from at least appearing like I am trying to get a good night sleep. So maybe I'll do the picture thing later.

Any ways, I decided that it must be a good transplant day because it is a similar sign and all that, from the day they say it is, and I can't really plant root stuff 'cause it doesn't transplant well and I needed to be outside.

Sooooo...... I dug up the two lavendar plants that I had mounded soil around to cause them to root on the branches making a bunch of little lavendars. One, I needed them out of the bed they were in because I want to throw a poly hoop over it and get some spinach going but I didn't want to freak the lavendar out. Two, I needed something to do besides weed, I did end up doing some weeding today, merely incidental and not intentional so I don't think it counts.

We, Bet and I, ended up with a lot of new lavendar plants, that is if they survive the indignancy of being dug up, cut up, trimmed and slammed back down in the dirt. Most of them had put on a good clump of roots and that is what I have pic of. So I will stop talking about that now and wait until I have pics for you to see.

So these are the things I am in the market for Dear Reader, besides a little spiritual cpr:

1. a souwester hat, preferably a good color to go with my new Carhart raingear, so I'm thinking green 'cause my Carhart raingear is... you guessed it baby doo tan. 'Cause today was clear but I am hearing the rain dripping off the roof right now, and hoods are confining, like a straight jacket, which I should be in, but that is beside the point.

2. bulb crates, plastic totes approx 23"x15"x10" or there abouts, ventilated on all sides and bottom with built in slots for handles. No color preferred but basic black is so functional. Can't find a distributor, only a couple of manufacturers and I don't really need five hundred at the moment, not sure I ever would, I only desire about fifty.

3. a digital sportsman 1502 incubator with chicken, duck and quail racks. Within driving distance, 'cause shipping on these pups is right near a hundred. So if you live in the state and Crazy Uncle Mac bought one to populate the earth with quail so he could spend a weekend and shoot all of them, but Naggy Aunt Nancy shut him down after the first egg exploded in her living room and the incubator is sitting in your basement 'cause Crazy Uncle Mac begged you to take it, give me a call, I'll buy it off of Crazy Uncle Mac so Naggy Aunt Nancy can buy a new rug.

4. help for Dirt with his idea to take down a couple of trees that have shaded my north garden for years (not intended for being a shade garden) that would free up a spot for a green house and market shed not to mention dirt making station...

5. number four reminded me that I need some of those big huge concrete blocks, they're called ecology blocks and I want... opps, need some to form my soil, manure, shavings bins. Oh then I'll need...

6. a front loader for a tractor so I can toss my compost, scoop my dirt and shavings.

7. more help for Dirt, 7a. for him to catch and hold on to a vision of a solar green house, yes Dear Reader, most all greenhouses are solar but a solar green house does not need artificial heat. Well for the most part it doesn't, it can be primarily a passive system, hence less monetary input on a regular basis. (Which should make the vision getting and holding a sure bet for the Dirt-penny-pinch-man, but he keeps wandering back to those money sucking conventional types.) 7b. more help for Dirt to construct said green house.


Oh and I'd like to get this list cleared up by oh say... yesterday. But tomorrow will do. Okay, March.

All that talk of work and remembering the work I did and I think I could possibly be tired enough to sleep. Which would be a good thing 'cause the girls are dragging me into town tomorrow. But they still haven't found the missing cell phone, oh dear, driving around ala pre ninties, what will I do if I break down? Oh wait, we have feet, I forgot. Shhh don't tell the girls, the "find the phone first" gig has kept me from town all week! And we do have an emergency back up but they seem to have forgotten that. Keep weeden, just keep weeden. (sung to the tune of Dora singing "keep swimming, just keep swimming.")

How the Heck!?! or Quick, Before a Week Goes By!

Warning: Pictures on this blog often have nothing to do with what I am talking about and sometimes they illustrate my words nicely, today they do both.

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One of my favorite posts of recent, (A Flag On the Ceiling and a Promise Kept ) I found had been turned from a post (it actually had two comments) into a draft. How the heck did that happen?

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Bucha know, I think that I will say that that will be my last promise kept. No, I mean that I won't be taking in any more awards or tags for quizzes into my dark secret life.

Mr. Howell would like some of that Otter Pop please.

I don't really deserve any awards and I have no dark secret life. What you see is what you get. But mostly because they, awards and such, take me a century to attend to and I go to bed with that same "you have a paper due in a couple of days" gut ache I used to have when I was a student. Sometimes assignments are not helpful.

Aksel says, "No one goes in unless they come out with an Otter Pop,

and not a banana flavored one either."

But iffen' you really want to know something, ask, I'll tell, eventually. But it will be with a huge long verbose explaination. That I am good at. I can't get through anything without a lot of words. Must be why I'm not all that into Facebook. I don't have bumperstickers on my car and I don't do Faceboook very well at all.

Steph and the boys enjoying Otter Pops

in the Bedouin style tenting I have up around the house to keep it cool.

I will say, that in a day or two I will have a Facebook prompted scathing review of nonsensical and poor use of words. And folks, its not just a word choice nit pick. You say something to kids, young men and women (known by some people as teenagers) and nine times outta ten the crap sticks and it fosters a mess. We need to be mindful of what we set up in young people. Luke 17:1-2, (oh and the warning is also in Matthew and Mark just in case you think it is a fluke)

Mind you I am not talking about being bold with the fledgling adults and saying harsh stuff to them, they often need, especially in this current its-all-about-the-kids culture, to hear that the universe does not revolve around them and they are not Queen or King Bee or a little Prince or Princess. I am talking about words that.... Oh what the heck I said a future post. This one is about catching up (again with the ketchup), the heat wave and garden stuff and other loose ends not starting another one.

King Brug standing guard at Dirt's Arbor Entrance to the Croquet Lawns.

Several of you asked what a brug was. Brug is shorthand for Brugmansia. You know, like Mum for Chrysanthemum. In actuality it is a water guzzling, fertilizer slurping monster as bad if not worse than tomatoes in small pots.

A Brug is a big fat baby when it comes to winter so not only am I its food and beverage slave all summer, but then I have to give it indoor lodging half the year. Sheesh! And since I love to have a crowd around me at all times, tossing roasted somethings here and pouring a porter there, I don't just have one of these I have five.

King Brug's courtier, Peach, actually beginning to bloom

(where's your bloom KB?)

Their leaves are quite holey this year because the uninvited Leaf Hopper Gangs have moved in in record numbers, bikes, leathers and all, but at least this year they will actually bloom outside. Last year I brought them in but didn't tuck them in bed for a couple of months because they had just budded in late September.

Next year's goal, get these lazy party boys to bloom in June or at least July!

If you have been a good "Dear Reader" and read my side board, you will know that I do a lot of "next year..." this time of year. For me August is "evaluation month" and September is actual "sit down and map out next year month" making September the real "New Year," resolutions and all, in my book. (Yes, if it were not for the ridiculousness of current academia Lanny would still be a student. I could address this issue right after I crack the whip on silly numbheaded "we wanna be cool" parents.)

Fragrant Cloud Hybrid Tea Rose in the Lawn Border Garden

Ahhh what better time that one's birthday month to go around and beat the tar out of one's self for the stupid stunts they tried to get away with. Or let others talk them into.
But not all "next year..." s are because of failures, sometimes they are because a "hey, I can do this, I might even get away with doing more" sweeps over you, while attempting to stay honest and humble.

North Garden sweet peas. Taken Tuesday of Extreme Heat Week

The pictures of Stephanie and the boys were taken at the height of our heat wave. It had been building for quite sometime and then peaked mid-week last week. Well this is also a picture taken last week. My sweet peas appreciated the knock down blast and the "now stay off" spritz of Neem oil and Epsom salts I gave the aphids a while back and now they are continuing to bloom with the promise of going all the way into fall.

In my two gallon sprayer I put in a splash of hippy dish soap, two and a half-ish tablespoons of Neem oil and a couple of tsp. of Epsom salts. I had blasted the the aphids hard with this (turn the tip of your sprayer to stream like your kitchen spray bottle in a water fight) and then went back over the whole plant with a lovely stay-on-the-leaves-you-great-little-solution misting spritz.

Princess Elizabeth Sweet Pea perfuming the North Garden
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I only did this because the sweet peas were heading south (no offense you southerners) before they really wanted to. And it was all the aphids' fault. My brugs may be holey and not blooming but the not blooming thing is from them not getting sun early enough in the year and not being fed steak and eggs for breakfast, two double deluxe cheese burgers and fries for lunch and a baron of beef for dinner every day.

And the holey thing isn't all that crucial. I'm not raising them for exhibition. So I would rather let the leaf hoppers think that they are safe and hopefully the lady bugs and lace wings will come in, knock their pompous rears off their bikes, and arrest the lot of them, while leaving a few to snack on later.

I do give them a spritz of Epsom salts. It helps their cell walls and bad bugs don't like crisp vegetation. Another reason to suspect them as evil greasers. Remember the bad guy in Ever After (1998)? The guy who hauled off Danielle (Drew Barrymore), when Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (Anjelica Huston) couldn't pay her bills anymore?

Pierre le Pieu?
Yeah that guy. He is who I think of when I think of nasty plant chomping bugs. Or slugs. Or...

Last Friday's harvest from the North Garden

So the sweet peas keep a coming and I am reminded that even in a summer like this one (slightly unusual for us, doncha think) they are not all that hard to keep blooming. They are one of my favorite flowers and I was glad to hear that a fellow at the flower market in Portland told my sister (a non-professional wedding flower doer) that more brides should carry sweet peas. I could not agree with him more.

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So my flower garden will always have sweet peas just in case there is a lovely bride who may need the perfect bouquet and not have the bucks to hire a zillion dollar florist. One of my secret dreams (that really isn't a secret) is to have Vicktory Farm and Gardens be used as a wedding place by people who understand what a wedding is. One of the other not-so-secret dreams is to own a tavern with a farm near by.

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Back to the sweet peas, I have always attempted to grow them but often succumb to some foil or another. Usually it is defeatism at the hands of moles, yeah I know they are suppose to be omnivorous but funny how I lose my just planted pea seeds to fresh mole tunnels.

If they, moles, aren't eating the seeds and it is really herbevorous voles coming down the mole tunnels then all I've got to say is Grahame missed by not having a vole in his story and Lobel should have done Mole and Vole instead of Frog and Toad, 'cause my two fellas must be a knock out communicaten' team!

Hmmm

Did you see what Janie saw in the harvest shot?

Speaking of moles?

I'm beginning to think that Dirt now has pet moles or has formed a coalition with the enemy. I never see them in the lawn anymore. Only in my gardens. And I really have a hard time with the Ratters going after them in my gardens. They may go after them on the edge or in the lawn, I don't mind, but the Ratters are about as mindful of my plants as Dirt is. And trust me, that ain't much!

" You know, you could have called on me. I've gotten them before you know. You didn't need to waste your time setting this trap. I could have gotten it and shook the living daylights outta it!"

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I think Dirt is sending them to my gardens so that I will let him keep his lawn and desist in edging farther and farther into his domain. Mmmm.

Well Dirt, you are stuck with me, my fat... and my flowers. Your mole coalition will not deter me. I heard you say that you like my flowers, yes, I had to eaves drop to hear the compliment, but it was there all the same. I know how you really feel. Not unlike sleeping under flowery, billowy white sheets and comforters, you like what I bring to the party.

"I think I will sink into depression"

I waited too long to harvest my garlic, (some of it is in the basket here), we got over thirty pounds but only one batch of softnecks were worth braiding, the others went into net sleeves like the hard necks.

Thirty pounds outta get Dirt at least to Christmas before I have to buy it from Cash n' Carry in large food service sized boxes. In the middle of winter there is a certain constant odor in my bedroom. (He smells like a hippy-girl-massage-therapist, minus the patuouli oil of course.) I'm glad I don't have an over zealous fear of burning a candle while I sleep. The off beat snoring is hard enough to sleep by, then you add nut job radio playing all night long and the smell of garlic drenched pores and I am driven to the couch, which really only last about a half-hour or so before I realize I can't sleep there either.

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I am not married to my best friend. I like my best friends, every single one of them. But I would not take all that from them, trust me.

Unmarked Lily in the Lawn Border Garden

And no best friend of mine would be able to step on my twenty blossom Casa Blanca lily as it begins to emerge from its winter slumber and live to tell about it let alone continue to be my "best" friend. Dirt and I friendly and pals, no doubt. But best friends don't marry, men and women marry, and the bond is far far beyond that of best friendness.

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If my best friend and I "break up" I am free to have another, quite frankly in my world I have scads of "best" friends, I am not monobestfriendous. But I do not have such a loose connection to my spouse. We are now one. We were the moment, the very split second we said, "I do." Neither one of us can sever that bond, no court of law can, no amount of miles can. It was a done deal twenty-eight years and ten months ago.

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Saved and replanted "Easter Lilies"

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It doesn't matter what he sounds like or smells like; it matters little what he says or doesn't say; it doesn't matter if he has grown too much in a direction I chose not to or too little in an area I did; it doesn't matter if he changed and is no longer the man I married; it doesn't matter if he still is the man I married and not the man I thought he would become; it doesn't matter if he makes a hundred little mistakes or one giant one that even the Pope might say was too much; it doesn't even matter if he made forty-sixty zillion kabillion of those giant mistakes.

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We are one.

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We will always be one. Until one of us departs and goes to heaven. And then when we are both there we won't care that the other is there because all we will "care" for is the face to face presence of Christ our Lord.

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Oh wait, this post is about the heat wave and gardening.

Jackie O's Lipstick Abutilon

Container planting takes lots o' water. And when something takes lots o' water it takes lots o' feeding. Fortunately not everything in containers at Vicktory Farm and Gardens is a out of control thirsty hunger tyrant like the brugs. Jackie is very pleasant and very thankful for her daily portion of water and weekly feeding.

Petunias in flower pockets growing slowly for the end of September at the fair.

This flower pouch thing though, I'm not so stinking sure about. The verdict is out on this one for now. Jackie gets to stick around 'cause she is easy going, King Brug and his buddies are still on because they are eventually handsome and exotic. But these flower pouch things are a lot of nusince. I will do them again next year with some modifications in water and fert. delivery but if they are not performing better, read that, easier, then replaced they will be!

What is this?

I really enjoy participating in Fishing_Guy's weekly "What's It?" game. Well, that is when I remember to get over there pronto on Tuesday's. And while I am no master at macro lens (my camera matches my ability - limited and small) I thought I could toss this one out there and perhaps stump a few of you.

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Hints? Come on, do you really need one Dear Reader? Okay after that rambling yappy post I suppose you are a little tired.

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Remember this was taken durring the hottest days we have seen in the PNW in a lifetime (Jim Foremanesque hyperbole there). My dad loved watching Marcus Welby M.D. and he, Dr. Welby, was always seen eating a type of this at the end of each show. And now with all those hints and the full picture I really must insist that you hit it square on the nose, flavor and all.

Dear Reader, I pray that you can unmistakeably see the working of God, His mercy, His grace and His miracles in your life and through your life this week. I have seen great things these last few days. I've become free-er in Him every moment. And more a bonded servant to Him each second of my journey on the race. I feel I can race no faster than I am right now. Yet I feel I can not not race faster than I am at this moment. My joy could not be greater than it is today. Until I tell you tomorrow.

My Head is Spinning, I Can Not Type

Nearly ninety today and lotsa moisture. Up at five and out in the sun from nine to three thirty. Wished I had got going out of the house a little earlier, I can't even remember what I dilli-dallied over. Feeling sorta queasy this evening. But I got lots done and big day tomorrow taking cuttings, good week for it but I've got to get to them early. No dilli-dallying tomorrow!

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I'm taking my first rose cuttings, ever. I hope they do well because I have a rose that J&P doesn't sell anymore and it is my absolute favorite. Then it will be a slew of mock orange and lots of other snippets all over the Farm.

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Started the day with harvesting sweet peas for the vase. Oh they smell so good. And then I had to give the vines a little spritz with Neem oil and Epsom Salt for the naughty little aphids and the mildew they bring with them.

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Then out to the Highway Garden to cut weeds, water and read. I'm digging my new resolution to never pull another weed again ever, unless it is a buttercup. We'll just have to see how it works out. More on that later, with pics and rationalizations galore.

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I'm thinking, thinking mind you, not promising, Friday for more test recipes for Moon-Pies. Sorry there were no pics taken yesterday at the party, oops. Bet did say, "Great party, a little history and junk food!"

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Oh and Bowser has found a home! It is exactly the home I prayed would find him. An eleven year old boy who needs a puppy. He needs a buddy help him burn off energy out-of-doors and then be settled down inside. Bowser is a perfect fit! He will help show the boy how to play hard and then relax inside. Bowser is good at relaxing. They came and paid for him tonight and are picking him up at six a.m. tomorrow!

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Right now it is beddie-by time. Looking forward to sweet dreams of life in heaven.

Spring Has Nearly Ended

The end of spring is upon us and today Summer Camp at Vicktory Farm and Gardens begins with Flag Day.

But Today's_Flower selection is the Blue Flag's cousin, Iris Germanica, Bearded Iris.

Iris Germanica is one of my all time favorite flowers. And particularly the incredibly fragrant common purple ones.

I cannot imagine living in a place where irises don't grow. Like the seasonal treat of asparagus, the year would not be complete without iris. Every spring I crave its fascinating appearance and it's memory propelling fragrance and when it's season comes to a close and the last one is just a funny mooky browned mass on the stem, my heart sinks a bit, lifted only because I know he and I will meet back here again next year.

Driveway view of the North Garden and the two beds of iris.

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From this view of the North Garden I am reminded that I've been here quite a while and my oldest daughter has been married quite a while. For all these lovely mustard colored (or diaper colored if you want to know my true feelings) are from the house she lived in when she was first married, I believe she inherited them from Rebecca who in turn got them from Grandma Grace.

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The have certainly multiplied and much quicker than my preferred old purple ones or purchased white ones, which are not by the way who they were purported to be. And while the color of this "gold" one is not exactly one of my favorites it most certainly has a perfume that I have come to look forward to, vanilla honey with a hint of citrus.

A place for old friends to set a spell within sniffing range.

Fortunately a couple of friends have stopped by to pull my head out of the weeds and soil and caused me to rest a moment as we talked of our favorite irises and other fragrant delights in the garden. Prior to them stopping by I was just enjoying the fragrance as I unhooked and went through the pasture gate to the pumpkin patch or while I was here weeding the North Garden.

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One friend came by when I was at the other end of my gardens and by the time I got down to where she was she was stepping into her vehicle with her arms loaded with my gold irises, waving to me and telling me she just came for my flowers that day. I am glad she knows she can come and get whatever she needs that I have, because it is not really mine anyway but His.

Gold standards and falls, with yellow beards and bronze veins,

it has a strong fragrance that perfumes the air with vanilla honey and citrus.

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When a friend comes back a few days after sitting in your iris garden while talking over childhood memories, heartbreaks, endearing times and prayers for the day and the future, and takes an arm load of your least favorite colored iris, it makes you stop and take a second look.

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Perhaps I do have a good thing here. Perhaps I should change my perspective on the good gifts God sees fit to give me even though I have a disgruntled attitude. Perhaps it is time to have a new attitude.

"Stephie and Kai's Gold" is what I've dubbed this one.

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They came to me through her, appropriate then, it should be named for her, and because, she can always see the upside and the "gold" lining to any cloud life hands her. I've added her son, Kai, to the name because of the fragrance of honey, he is becoming a beekeeper like his grandfather Rick, Pop.

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I've been lucky that all my additions to my iris garden have been fragrant. Not perhaps as strong as the common purple one that causes me to see my mother's kitchen with the light pressing into through the bamboo shades on the outside and the closed venetian blinds inside, still managing to give a summer glow to the wall and the counter where the pitcher of Kool-Aid, darkly purple, sits dripping with condensation and smelling like the iris I love, no, not as strong as that, but strong enough. And like Stephie and Kai's Gold, each new addition has brought it's own twist to the sweet flavor of late spring, and the fanfare of summer's commencement.

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White with yellow beard and shoulders gives off a lovely sweet fragrance,

like cookies out of the oven.

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My purchased irises have not grown out to be what they were labeled to be. This white one is supposed to be "Immortality" but a proper "Immortality" does not have yellow shoulders and isn't purported to be fragrant. Hmmm, perhaps the bin at the local garden store is not a reliable place to pick up named varieties.

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I've looked and looked for what this white one is supposed to be along with the blue one below and the pink one I failed to get a picture of this year (it must have been deleted). I even spent time looking for Stephie's gold one. Just when I think I have one pegged, on closer evaluation and comparison of the official description and the flower I have, I am left without a name. So I'll just name them myself.

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This white one..... "Farmhouse Bride". In honor of my second oldest Michelle, a bearded iris lover like myself, who was the first girl to be married right here at the farm. She looked as lovely as this blossom. She and the fragrances of her wedding that swirled around all of us for weeks is brought to mind by the sweet fragrance of this flower.

Supposedly "Best Bet" but not, so now it is "Better Bet".

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This blue one was supposed to be a "Best Bet". I picked it up for it's name, Bet, for that is what we call Elisabet, my third daughter. I know that the privilege of naming a variety usually rest with the person who hybridizes or discovers them. But since I cannot find what their rightful name is I figure I need to name these poor little orphans that have come to live here with me at Vicktory Farm and Gardens.

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Oh, I know most flowers and bushes don't need fancy proper names, their beauty in the yard is just as grand and compelling without a name as it is with a proper name. But lately I have been picking up this or that flower and paying attention to its proper name and Bet and I have been having fun discussing them as if they were a real person. So my plants need names now.

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And how much fun to rename my irises after my girls and their families, even if it is terribly improper! So the last one, the one I don't have a picture of, I've pegged for my youngest, how appropriate that I don't have a picture of it! Next year I'll show her to you. Her name on the bin when I took her home was "Pink Parasol", I cannot for the life of me find a Pink Parasol iris, lots of other flowers have a Pink Parasol variety but not the bearded iris as far as I can tell.

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This girl begins as a purple bud, changes to a muddy mauve when it first unfolds and then becomes a delightful rich dusty corallish pink, with a nearly day-glow orange beard. Mmmm perhaps a nice long name like "What Will You Wear Today Anna".

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Have a great day and take a spin around the world and see some other flowers for the day by clicking on Today's Flowers up at the top of this, another Lengthy Lanny Post!

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And Dear Reader, if you're an American, have a great flag day!

A Request Finally Attended

I certainly didn't mean to have my slug rain up for so long and it certainly is not a good portrayal of our recent weather. But same said weather has made me rather ambitious but not nearly as ambitious as the weeds it may have seemed.

But as I came home late enough from town to not have a reasonable amount of time to put my work clothes back on and make it worth the change I thought I would take care of the first of two requests.

A Dear Reader actually rang me up on the telephone and politely but earnestly requested that I put up a new post so that she would no longer have to see the dangling slug, it was giving her nightmares. I did say that I would attend to it, but quite frankly, I have been terribly tardy in that regard.

So I apologize for any nightmares I have caused you Dear Reader, hopefully this post will remove any dreaded memory of the reality of living in the land of slugs. But I must say, at least they are not really lethal, I do believe I will keep my soggy living arrangement if all I must suffer is slugs and voracious deer.

May I present my Syringa vulgaris 'Krasavitsa Moskvy' for your viewing pleasure today? This is the bloom from one of two Beauty of Moscow Lilacs that I picked up as barely bigger than twigs three years ago from Lawyer's Nursery Stock Sale.

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The fragrance is not as strong as my common lilacs but it is strong enough, and the blooms are exquisite.

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As I just dozed off and typed about forty "k's" at the end of that last sentence, therefore I will wrap up here with a promise to get to a thank you for the Upsy Downsy tomato planter from Tipper at Blind Pig & The Acorn and a couple of pictures just to show you how it is going so far.

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And Dear Reader I have another promise hanging here, I have promised to retell a rocket-ship tale about me and God and his infinitude, so hang in there, I will do my best to be back tomorrow.

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Good night, sweet dreams, if you sing a hymn tonight as you fall asleep, you most likely will wake singing it in the morning.

Malus Fusca

Evil (malus) and dark (fusca) seems to be a rather glum moniker for this lovely Pacific Northwest native. Commonly known as Pacific Crabapple. Even crabapple seems a poor autograph for such an ambrosial and faithful vernal season intermediary.

Always to be counted on to burst into bloom and perfume the air once spring is well under way but not yet fully mimicking midsummer days.

It has proved to be a sure phenological event to gage when to plant our squash and pumpkin seeds in the pasture. Though we still chose to put down floating row cover because we were getting some terrential downpours keeping the water level rather high in the pumpkin patch this year rendering the soils a little chillier than in other places in the higher gardens.

According to a visitor to the Farm shortly after Dirt and I arrived (twenty-four years ago), Malus fusca was used by many of the old farmers in the area as root stock on which they grafted their favorite apple trees.

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The frequent afternoon visitor grew up coming to this very homestead with his mother to meet up with Sam Sorenson and ride with him into the tradingpost at the Roy-Y. His advice and story telling was quickly taken as fact by Dirt and I, as he informed us he was Fred Guske who resided "on Guske Road of course."

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Malus is the Latin name for the apple family and therefore Malus fusca can serve as a suitable root stock and this particular malus even more so, because it actually prefers the wet soggy soils we often have in this area.

Upon a first glance and quick sniff, Malus fusca can be confused with another Pacific Northwest native, Philadephus lewisii. Yet a proper gaze and a deep, closed eye, nasal breath, quickly separates the two.

Philadephus lewisii, commonly known as Mock Orange is not fake anything. It is stunningly white, with a deep and quenching fragrance. It blooms just days behind Malus fusca during a warm spring, its buds are pristine white and when the buds unfurl they have only four petals rather than five.

The fragrance of Malus in the damp lands is bright and lively, an interesting contrast to some of our other truly dark scents found there. But very different from the fragrance of our native dry ground loving Philadelphus which can be entirely heady on a good hot late spring day as it rises up to the second story window, intoxicating the breather and sure to cause daydreams and long flights of fancy, cured only by the reality of the day having passed and a motorsickle, with a weary teacher driving it, coming home.

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Besides the dream inducing fragrance and the four petals, our Philadephus friend differs from out Malus friend in trunk and branch.

Our Malus friend's bark is rough and deeply fissured, separating into an intense weave and slub pattern.

And the branches hold what an uniformed mind (like mine) sees as thorns but are really spurs from which come the flowers and then fruit. But unlike the fruiting buds on my friendlier more domesticated malus (Malus domestica in fact) in the orchard, these are hard and sharp so my confusion is understandable.

So I leave you this afternoon Dear Reader to go plant some corn, because my Malus fusca assures me, better than any weatherman, that my corn seed will not rot and so I need to get out and get it in the ground. But I leave you with one more image of Malus fusca, one I messed with (more than the usual light enhancing) on Photoshop. Can you guess what I did to it?

Have a terrific day and I'll be seeing you bright and early tomorrow morning.

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Oops, I nearly forgot, go see all sorts of other beautiful flowers all around the world that God designed at Today's_Flowers.

I Love Green, Honest!

I had my second lesson with Tia on Photoshop Elements 6. I don't have the patience to read technical manuals so I love that I can support Tia in her budding business and have someone I know well and relate to teach me what I want to know.
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This weeks lesson: The stuff I forgot that I remember her telling me. That sentence was clear as mud eh?
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Well part of what I wanted to remember how to do was to remove color from some parts and keep it in others. I know, this is probably elementary to most folks but not for me.
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So here is my viburnum, it smells even better with out all that distracting green. I recognize the fact that I am lucky to live in a place that has an abundance of water and is therefore nearly a perpetual solid wall of green year round. But sometimes it can be distracting to my brain. Perhaps a little too much of its calming effect.
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I love green, really I do, but sometimes I just need a break. I don't want to see all black and white; I still want to see the brilliant non-green colors. It may be just in my head but I think the tulips color really pops without all the green.

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This was done by the same method at the top picture but different from the second and the last two pictures. Those are done by selecting an area, creating layers based on the cut and then removing the saturation of color from the background. Because this picture has many little spots of bright color and the entire surroundings were basically green, yellow, cyan and blue, I removed the saturation of those individual colors.

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Bet and I were discussing how you can see a little color still in the foliage in this picture and I said that is how I picture oh say, the forties when color began to come into the world.
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Once again, in my opinion this tulip really stands out and all I did was remove the color from the background. My favorite of the flower pictures I did up is my lead out photo, my viburnum. The highlighted pink is so sweet and tender. I might have to print it out and hang it.
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Dirt grilling some burgers, talk about flame broiled! In the original picture the flame was there and yes, it was noticeable. But when I removed the color from all but the flame it becomes the focal point, not something the picture take-er hopes you notice as much as those in attendance to the actual bacon grilling part of the event did with mouths a gape.

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I always knew my Dirt was hot.

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So I resisted the temptation to mess with all my photos in this manner and show you a gazillion more. And in fact I did quite a bit more that I haven't put up here. Can you tell what I did today? But I learned my lesson about not learning my lesson. Do whatever it was that Tia told me while she is still here and then practice the heck out of it right after she leaves.

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But all that means that I have a day’s worth of weeds, slugs, seeding and gravel moving to add to the weeding, slug killing, seeding and gravel moving I was already going to have to do tomorrow. In fact I hear some of my primroses knocking on the window right now, begging me to come out and save their lives from the slugs and buddacup (that is mafia talk for buttercup, because, quite frankly, they are a mafia).

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Tomorrow I will take some more photos for the whole purpose of messing with color. I promise not to inundate you with all of them but I may have to force a few more on you. Yes, like a kid in a candy store or a guy with a new tool, I can't help myself.

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Thank you for your patience Dear Reader, it is much appreciated. I've been workin' like a crazy person. Not to mention the tragedies and near tragedies keep piling up. On a good note though I can't wait to show you all we are doing and tell you about some of the ideas I have. Not to mention I have lots of writy stuff rattling in the ol' noggin that really needs to get out.

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But that would mean that I need to spend a large chunk of time in front of the keyboard with something other than pictures. Lots of stuff, lots of stuff about life and the Giver of Life, that is stuck in between where my roses should go and if the replacement peony should go next to them.

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I hope you are having a super delicious day, evening, night and that you are walking and talkin' with God right there with you. He is the only thing that will get you through the good times and the not so good times; He is the glue.