Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
It’s berry season and three different types of berries, blue, black, and wine, are ready to pick. Charlotte likes the blueberries the most while Olivia finds the blackberries her favorite. They both like wineberries, often confused with raspberries, but don’t like the prickles along the stems. Regardless, they both are good pickers helping me and […]
Today we need to pull garlic from the garden. I enlist the girls to help me with this chore after letting them pick (and consume) ripe blueberries from the bushes. Sated, they are happy to assist. Garlic is one of the easiest crops to grow as you just plant the cloves in the fall, drop […]
Blueberry season is overlapping with strawberry this year. It sneaked up on me so fast that I wound up putting up the blueberry netting at the start of the current heat wave. I found out the hard way in past years that without netting, there would be no blueberries for us to eat. For some […]
With a cool and wet Spring, I can only hope for warmer days ahead. But the damp and cold did not stop Charlotte and Olivia from harvesting strawberries on the first day of their summer with us. After a trip to the library, they were ready to attack the two strawberry patches and grab as […]
Olivia and my newly budding amaryllis are two of my most lovely flowers in bloom. We have nearly 20 bulbs in the basement that we start to bring up prior to Christmas, continuing through the early spring. Once the flowers are gone and the weather warms, they are placed outside to refresh themselves for the […]
Given the severity of this Winter, I don’t think I will be starting vegetable seedlings for a while. But that hasn’t stopped me from planting trays of micro- and baby greens. I made the mistake by not first using a grow light as I thought a south-east facing window would provide enough rays. Wrong! After […]
Rather than let the birds and bugs attack my sunflowers with abandon this year, I decide to harvest and dry them early on. Olivia loves this as she gets to dispatch the disk florets with abandon. These tiny yellow flowers are arranged in clockwise and counterclockwise patterns spinning their way around the large flower head. […]
It has been a great year for hydrangeas. The blooms have been numerous and large. As we start to cut them down for the season, Olivia wants to make her own bouquet to bring home to her mother. I think she has done a wonderful job.
Today, the girls spent the morning working and pulling fruits and vegetables from the garden. The blueberries have perhaps one more harvest left but the blackberries have come in strong with many more on the way. Their tiny fingers are much more adept at picking berries than are mine. Charlotte is more partial to blueberries […]
With a few hot and rainy days behind us, the blueberry bushes are bursting with ripe fruit. Charlotte and Olivia are keen to help me (and themselves) and Juana harvest this new bounty. It’s early in the morning and there is still a little shade on the bushes. We want to get the picking done […]