Happy New Year: January Garden

13 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by ninagarden in morning, vegetables

Tags

broccoli pests, garden design, vegetables

Happy 2014! Here are a few items to kick off the New Year in the garden.

1) Now is the time to harvest your lettuce. Last week, I needed healthy groceries and I was planning to go shopping at lunch to buy produce for a salad. I went outside to throw something in the compost pile, and I saw lettuce and apples right there in my backyard! Duh. Just what I was planning to shop for. Don’t forget to harvest what you sowed! Delicious.

2) Broccoli. Why is broccoli so hard to get right? It attracts pests and the best way I have found to eliminate them is — water! Shoot a stream of water at the aphids or yuckies on there every morning, and your broccoli should be fine. There is a floret in this photo, if you can see it right there in the middle of the plant.

3) New beginnings. My plumbing disaster is over. Now I am left with this in my front yard. I have to plan out what I will plant. It is a chance to revise. When starting a new garden, think about colors you wish to incorporate. My garden is blue and gray so I will stick to that, but if you are starting totally fresh, you can think of the palette you find most soothing or interesting. I love coral and orange mixed with blue, too. That is my backyard.

Another thing to consider–is your style formal or traditional, cottage or contemporary? You may wish to match your house style to keep the look consistent and provide you with guidelines. It takes the guess-work out if you match your house. My style is cottage (low water is also a priority.) You can have a low water garden without turning to cactus or without staying purely contemporary. Cottage can work for drought tolerant gardening too. And boy, we better get going on that. What a drought we are in! 76 degrees today, too.

More thoughts on planting later as I get going. I know for one thing, instead of lambs ear, which always gets funky, I am going to use artichokes to provide the soft grey contrast colors my garden plan contains.

4) What has Cleo eaten lately? Well, she behaved over the holidays. There was always commotion and entertainment for her. Aside from carrying a few socks around, she did not destroy much.

But after being gone for a week from our house (in the kennel and on the road with the family), she came home and decided she’d forgotten her chicken manners. Of course, this drama coincided with the kids going back to school…

The first day the kids went back to school, I was sorting through boxes of Christmas decor that I needed to put away, when I got a phone call from my neighbor.

“Something is eating your chickens,” she said.

I ran out there and sure enough, even though the gate was shut, Cleo had dug her way in and pinned one of our hens to the ground. I started screaming, wailing, really. I couldn’t imagine this happening, and I kept thinking of my friend, who told me her greyhound had sliced her chicken’s chest open. I chased Cleo off and poor Doodle just sat there in a well she had dug into the ground, her wings outspread as if she were dead. Her head was still up and alert, but she had a limp, flat body.

I couldn’t face her, so instead, I scooped up Henny who was climbing the fence for the same neighbor who had called about the commotion. Henny was calmer than I thought and seemed to like me holding her. I shut her in the cage.

Then I went back to poor Doodle. I was afraid to touch her. I softly prodded her, investigating her feathers for blood. There wasn’t any, so I scooped under her and examined her chest. No cuts. She had simply played dead.

I now think that despite how bad it looked, Cleo could have done much worse. I think she was playing, smelling, burying her nose in Doodle’s feathers. I’m sure she chased Henny and Doodle, and caught Doodle who, poor thing, found a best defense in pretend death.

We were so lucky. Cleo had lost her chicken manners over vacation. Now we are rebuilding them back–doggy boot camp.

Anyway, she is still our baby even if she is in time out:

Dark Morning

02 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by ninagarden in dog, moon, morning, ranch, summer, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

garden, Moon, Morning, outdoors, ranch, Summer

I wake up and I’m outside a lot earlier these days because of the puppy. While I wish I could sleep in, the morning sunrise and the stillness is something I love. I remember the mornings on the ranch when my mother would wake me in the dark, and my father would already be awake drinking his second cup of coffee and listening to the weather radio. The weather was what set his mood—rain was a happy morning and a brisk walk to the barn. When it was bad news, we’d drive the truck, late from listening more to make sure the radio hadn’t changed the forecast in those last few minutes.

The barn was dark and still with only one light on in the tack room, and in the dark corrals, the horses stamped and shuffled, waiting for us to saddle them.

The sunrise would build behind the western hills and the sky would turn from dusky lavender to yellow then orange. The sun was seemed like it didn’t come up for hours (even though it was probably only one hour) as we rode out to find the cattle. When the sun did come, it was blinding and its rays seemed to ignite the sharp yucca leaves and grasses.

The sound of dark morning was always peaceful and silent even with birds chirping and the jingle of spurs, the slushing of horse legs and saddles. Maybe a whistle or low whisper of Spanish about the weather of the work to come.

Unfortunately I get about ten minutes of silence nowadays—from the time I sat down to write this until here on the page.

Now dogs are barking in my house. The senior grandma dog just woke up and she is wheezing and puffing. Chairs are rattling. The kids are humming and buzzing and building fairy houses and singing a song about the puppy to Ode to Joy (boy, that is a big theme in my house). The chickens are cackling to be let out of the pen. Feet are scuffling across our hardwood floors. And my husband is calling my name with a question mark at the end trying to find me to cook breakfast or bring him a dustpan.

Fortunately, I was already outside at 6:30 a.m. and caught this picture of silence (below). See the pretty morning moon. And here are some pictures (2nd and 3rd down) of the ranch so you can get an idea of what it was like. You can look at them and imagine the silence.