It's June 1, which means summer is right around the corner. I spent all afternoon out in the yard, enjoying a rare Saturday off and raking two years' worth of leaves off the hillside. My back is a beautiful red despite working in what I thought was deep shade under three mature maple trees, but the rest of me is still a farmer's-tanned patchwork of mostly white skin. Gonna make it a goal this year to have a garden-glove tan line.
This evening I also stumbled across a new blog to follow: Outlaw Garden (link leads to "10 Rules for Growing Vegetables in the Front Yard", which everybody should read regardless of where you're gardening!)
Speaking of reading, I'm working on being mindful of how I spend my time - which is a challenge, because a lot of it is eaten up by garden-related activity lately. I've been spending every Monday morning at the Ballfield Farm with a handful of other women, composting and watering and caring for our new seedlings, which seem to multiply every time I turn my back. Harvesting greens is in full swing, and salads and pesto seem to be the recipes of the day for everything from pea greens to arugula. Work is crazy since I'm in the garden center cashier booth full time now and the weather has finally broken. And my own front-yard garden is pulling together nicely.
The radishes are growing, although the lettuce mixes I planted failed miserably again this year. I think I need a better watering can; mine drips and splashes and knocks those tiny lightweight seeds around horribly. My tomatoes got planted last week (or was it two weeks ago now?) and they've doubled in size already, except the runt that I 'rescued' to put in my topsy-turvy tomato planter. That one's a bit behind. I'm hoping it will make good on the planter's promise of bushels overflowing with tomatoes, though. The runt is a mystery variety from a mixed seed packet and I can't wait to see what kind of fruit I get!
The hubbard squash, Charentais melon and cucumber went in alongside the tomatoes. This week I planted two kinds of pole beans. Carrots were seeded two or three weeks ago but only just now came up... I kinda forgot about them and the watercress, and they didn't get adequate watering during our last dry/cold spell. The cress didn't make it. Oops. Guess I'll try again in the fall!
This week I'm also giving away the last of my extra seedlings. I grew way too many tomatoes and I never have the heart to cull a plant that I've worked so hard to grow, so the last leggy tomatoes and beetle-nibbled broccoli seedlings avoided the compost pile. It added a bit of stress trying to coordinate pick-ups and divvy up crops but the upside was meeting some more of the neighbors and getting to share the bounty with people in the area - there's nothing like handing somebody a beautiful little tomato seedling (ok, so some of mine were nibbled by flea beetles, but still!) to make you feel like an accomplished gardener.
I feel like the garden is finally moving toward a recognizable goalpost this year. It's more calming and less brick-like (the clay is almost workable in the side beds now!) and I've gotten some things done (like edging the beds with reclaimed brick) that I've been meaning to do for a long time. What goals are you achieving with your garden this year?
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Learning about Lilies
Today I learned about lilies!
It's a gorgeous day. The breeze says 'spring', but the thermometer in the sun says 'summer'. The birds are singing, the grass is growing faster than we can mow, and I'm sitting inside researching plants.
My new job is going well, but there's so much to learn! This morning I spent some time with a woman who was looking for new perennials for a flowerbed. She didn't know the difference between the asiatic lilies that we carried and the "daylilies" she used to have (what they were for sure, I couldn't say). I didn't know either so I figured I'd look.
Turns out daylilies (hemerocallis) aren't lilies (lilium) at all. They're a different family of plants entirely, albeit with similar blooms to the traditional lily. Daylilies are the ones with thin, spear-like leaves that grow from the plant's crown. They spread through a root mat rather than bulbs, and they bear flowers on long leafless stems called scapes.
Lilies come in a lot of different varieties, but the most commonly sold outside specialty stores are oriental and asiatic. Both have root bulbs (as do all true lilies) and spread by forming new bulbs. Asiatic lilies bloom earlier and spread faster, and they're more winter hardy. They are also brighter but with many have only one color in the blossom (although our big-box garden center has one variety with multicolored blooms). Asiatic lilies have smaller leaves and do not have a fragrance.
Oriental lilies like the popular Stargazer pictured above are more likely to have multi-colored blossoms in pastel colors, spread more slowly and bloom later in the season. They have wider leaves and are the lilies that smell - apparently whether you enjoy the scent or not is genetic! Many oriental lilies have blossoms aimed downward while asiatics' blossoms face the sky.
And then there's Easter Lilies, but they're a whole other story.
I'm going to learn a LOT this summer. :)
It's a gorgeous day. The breeze says 'spring', but the thermometer in the sun says 'summer'. The birds are singing, the grass is growing faster than we can mow, and I'm sitting inside researching plants.
My new job is going well, but there's so much to learn! This morning I spent some time with a woman who was looking for new perennials for a flowerbed. She didn't know the difference between the asiatic lilies that we carried and the "daylilies" she used to have (what they were for sure, I couldn't say). I didn't know either so I figured I'd look.
Turns out daylilies (hemerocallis) aren't lilies (lilium) at all. They're a different family of plants entirely, albeit with similar blooms to the traditional lily. Daylilies are the ones with thin, spear-like leaves that grow from the plant's crown. They spread through a root mat rather than bulbs, and they bear flowers on long leafless stems called scapes.
Lilies come in a lot of different varieties, but the most commonly sold outside specialty stores are oriental and asiatic. Both have root bulbs (as do all true lilies) and spread by forming new bulbs. Asiatic lilies bloom earlier and spread faster, and they're more winter hardy. They are also brighter but with many have only one color in the blossom (although our big-box garden center has one variety with multicolored blooms). Asiatic lilies have smaller leaves and do not have a fragrance.
Oriental lilies like the popular Stargazer pictured above are more likely to have multi-colored blossoms in pastel colors, spread more slowly and bloom later in the season. They have wider leaves and are the lilies that smell - apparently whether you enjoy the scent or not is genetic! Many oriental lilies have blossoms aimed downward while asiatics' blossoms face the sky.
And then there's Easter Lilies, but they're a whole other story.
I'm going to learn a LOT this summer. :)
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Day #9: Spring Fever
I actually planned on blogging all 10 days that I worked, just to shake things up a bit. Silly me! That's ok though, because aside from telling silly stories about customers and management, I didn't have much to say. When I work long stretches without breaks, my life becomes work, and 'not-work', which in my case means a lot of flopping on the couch and pretending like I just had the most exhausting day in the world and that I haven't got the energy to do anything else. The dishes have been sadly neglected as proof of my supposed overworkedness. So much for this blog motivating me :( You guys need to like, drop by my house and sing girl scout songs with me. My husband won't, but I swear I've been -trained- to sing while I work. Thanks, scout camp!
The worst part about my neglect of house duties is that I haven't really been working that hard by an outsider's standards, and it's embarrassing to say 'yeah, I stood around all day at work and now I don't have the energy left to wash the dishes'.
But you know how exhausting it is to wait for an appointment in a crowded office, or an overdue flight, or an ER doctor when you're in triage and you're not spurting blood from your neck so they overlook you and take everyone else first, which means you spend literally hours waiting? That's what I experience at work every day between customers. Don't get me wrong - sometimes, it feels good to do nothing... but not when it's 8 hours of standing and doing nothing punctuated by 4 customers and a lunch break. When I get home, I'm sick and tired of standing and all my motivation to be productive is gone!
Spring is coming, though, and my hours are decreasing (eek!) and I'm on the hunt for new opportunities, so maybe more house stuff will be done in the interim? :D
...we can only hope! I'm off on Friday, so I'll try to remember to post a forward-thinking friday list with some new things to work on. It's almost gardening season and I can't wait!
Also, since I forgot to mention this earlier in the week: Rick did up a massive batch (ten servings!) of stir fried chicken and veggies with rice earlier in the week, and split it all into serving-size containers in the fridge. It's been SUCH a life-saver! I've had 'microwave dinners' all week, cheaper and healthier than store-bought and with a little extra love thrown in. ;) This bulk cooking has saved us at least $30 in the last week and a half, since if I didn't have instant meals to pack I'd have bought lunch at the food court. I love my man!
The worst part about my neglect of house duties is that I haven't really been working that hard by an outsider's standards, and it's embarrassing to say 'yeah, I stood around all day at work and now I don't have the energy left to wash the dishes'.
But you know how exhausting it is to wait for an appointment in a crowded office, or an overdue flight, or an ER doctor when you're in triage and you're not spurting blood from your neck so they overlook you and take everyone else first, which means you spend literally hours waiting? That's what I experience at work every day between customers. Don't get me wrong - sometimes, it feels good to do nothing... but not when it's 8 hours of standing and doing nothing punctuated by 4 customers and a lunch break. When I get home, I'm sick and tired of standing and all my motivation to be productive is gone!
Spring is coming, though, and my hours are decreasing (eek!) and I'm on the hunt for new opportunities, so maybe more house stuff will be done in the interim? :D
...we can only hope! I'm off on Friday, so I'll try to remember to post a forward-thinking friday list with some new things to work on. It's almost gardening season and I can't wait!
Also, since I forgot to mention this earlier in the week: Rick did up a massive batch (ten servings!) of stir fried chicken and veggies with rice earlier in the week, and split it all into serving-size containers in the fridge. It's been SUCH a life-saver! I've had 'microwave dinners' all week, cheaper and healthier than store-bought and with a little extra love thrown in. ;) This bulk cooking has saved us at least $30 in the last week and a half, since if I didn't have instant meals to pack I'd have bought lunch at the food court. I love my man!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Ten-day Stretch
Happy Valentine's Day. I hope it was good for everyone! For me, it was just another terrible Tuesday! Or at least, it felt like it. I stayed up too late making a loaf of whole wheat herb and garlic bread and nearly 2 dozen small rolls (with my own home-grown dried oregano from last summer's garden, no less!), and the cat decided that 8am was breakfast time, an hour and a half before my alarm went off for my first day on a ten-day stretch at work. Needless to say, I'm exhausted right now and there's still laundry and dishes to finish. Ugh.
Work was sloooooow today (I would much rather have stayed home and finished the laundry!), but I managed to read an entire book at lunch ("The Kid Who Ran for President", an old kids' book my husband found when we were reworking the library on Saturday). It's the first day of the library's Read-a-Thon, and they're aiming for 20,012 pages read (in honor of the year). I'm well on my way, and tomorrow am going to start Catcher in the Rye. I figure that should get me through most of my loooooooooong work week, right?
One of the girls at work, J, said that she had a really weird experience today in the mall. Some lady ("The most normal looking person ever", J said) walked up to her while she was playing with her phone, and said cheerily: "Jesus loves you! Have a nice day!" I guess she felt like J needed a valentine from Jesus. I suppose it's better than having some creepy-looking guy come up and sniff you and go "You smell good..." (this has happened to someone here)!
Tomorrow is day 2 of 10. Here's hoping it's busy... even if it's just valentine gift returns! Next Friday, I am going to sit on my butt and play games and try at all costs to do nothing of importance... except maybe blog. I haven't done a Forward-Thinking Friday in a while, have I?
Work was sloooooow today (I would much rather have stayed home and finished the laundry!), but I managed to read an entire book at lunch ("The Kid Who Ran for President", an old kids' book my husband found when we were reworking the library on Saturday). It's the first day of the library's Read-a-Thon, and they're aiming for 20,012 pages read (in honor of the year). I'm well on my way, and tomorrow am going to start Catcher in the Rye. I figure that should get me through most of my loooooooooong work week, right?
One of the girls at work, J, said that she had a really weird experience today in the mall. Some lady ("The most normal looking person ever", J said) walked up to her while she was playing with her phone, and said cheerily: "Jesus loves you! Have a nice day!" I guess she felt like J needed a valentine from Jesus. I suppose it's better than having some creepy-looking guy come up and sniff you and go "You smell good..." (this has happened to someone here)!
Tomorrow is day 2 of 10. Here's hoping it's busy... even if it's just valentine gift returns! Next Friday, I am going to sit on my butt and play games and try at all costs to do nothing of importance... except maybe blog. I haven't done a Forward-Thinking Friday in a while, have I?
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