February 4, 2010

Last years garden


Planted in November my Hood River Garlic is right on schedule. This time I planted the garlic in a bed of its own, as last year I planted them in my tomato garden and very nearly didn't have tomatoes because the harvesting of the garlic overlapped the planting of the tomatoes. The result was way to much garlic and very late and few tomatoes.

History of our Redwood

Kids and Redwood growing up together




Left to right
Nathan 2+ yrs. Mema and Ian 1+ yrs. Posing in front of the newly planted Redwood.

Sequiadendron giganteum

Planted on 4/15/1982, three days before Ian's first birthday.

February 3, 2010

This Cymbidium stays in the greenhouse because of its size. When it blooms I cut the stocks and Mema puts them in a vase. As cut flowers they last about a month in bloom.

Twenty+ years ago when my grandfather passed away my grandmother asked if I wouldn't mind taking responsibility of his geraniums, of course I said yes. Every year my grandfather would start cuttings of this one particular pink geranium that was his favorite then in the spring he would plant them in the front garden at their church and by summer they would have the most beautiful display of geranium flowers planted at the base of the churches sign. I helped him with the whole process for the last two years before his death. So every year after I would dig them in the fall make cuttings in the spring and then plant them in my own garden, fill large pots, give some to any relatives that wanted a memento of grandpa. Over the years I have always run into a few hard winters that worried the survival of the stored geraniums but always came through with plenty of plants to make spring cuttings. This year has been the hardest, the cold snap hit fast and caught me off guard. As you can see in the photo all I have is one lone cutting and the rest are dead stocks. I moved all the pots of dead into the greenhouse hoping that there will be some growth come out of the base of some of the plants.

Mema's "Ladies" supervising my garden chores
Left to right are Hazel (Americana), Tammy (Silver Laced Wyandotte), Tillie (Black Australorp)and GiGi (Mottled Houdan)
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