MarthaJeanne's Garden 2023

Luckily I watched the weather forecast. A few days ago I not only filled the bird feeders, but also the bucket of bird balls in the house. I will not try to refill the feeders today, but if I need to in the next day or two, I don't need to get into the shed.

Both yesterday and today when I took hot water out for the bird bath, there was no ice disk or skin, just lots of slush.

I also took pity on the olive tree, and knocked the heavy snow off the branches before they could break.

Jerry had to get a Covid test this morning, and he seems to have gotten his car dug out. We discussed whether a taxi might be a better option.

Todays ice disk had a handle of ice sticking up out of it. Wierd.

We didn't take the pavillion roof down this winter, and it has developed a long tear. I hope we can find a time of low wind when both of us are in good enough shape to climb ladders to tape it.

Yes, we fixed it last week.

Today the garden year really began. The birds are busy at the feeders, so we needed more suet balls. The garden centre also had lettuce sets, and lots of small pots of flowers. I bought a mixed pot of mini daffodils, pansies, etc for the table, and otherwise limited myself to those that cost under €3. These are for the driveway pockets. There are a total of 48, so the 7 I bought are just the beginning.

I weeded the containers before we went, and added some water. When I went to plant the lettuce the soil showed no signs of moisture. OK, I watered them and left the planting for later. The next time I checked, the soil was just about moist, so I set the lettuce and poured more water over the top. I'll need to keep a good eye out for them if I want any harvest. Thing is, besides it having been a really dry winter, March is awfully early to turn the outside water back on. And watering from the kitchen tap is really a pain. Everything needs water, so maybe we'll turn it on, but be prepared to turn it off again.

ETA Just added more water, and watered the new flowers.

I bought pea seed at the supermarket the other day, and decided to experiment with using forsythia as pea brush. It certainly could use cutting back, however I have read that the best pea brush has lots of side branches, and this is mostly just straight. Oh, well, I have what I have. The package indicates that I should plant end of April - May, which is later than I thought, but I'm out here now. They've gone in. Probably should have watered, too, but my fingers are freezing off. With any luck, the sky will do it for me tonight or tomorrow.

There are several advantages to pea brush. First, it is free. Second, after the peas are done, the brush and pea plants go into the compost together. No trying to get them separated without damaging the supports. And, of course, no storage problems.

I decided to make a wild garlic and mushroom lasagna (https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/wild-garlic-mushroom-lasagne) while the wild garlic is there under the apple tree. It won't be much longer, as it's beginning to blossom. Only problem is that I was not able to get fresh lasagna sheets, so I'm using tagliatelle instead, making the layering a bit more complicated. I think I'll combine the noodles with the white sauce rather than have them as separate layers.

Before I could harvest the wild garlic I had to cut back some of the scrubs that have sprung up in there. It really needed doing! Actually, to be honest, a lot more needs doing.

BTW the garlic flowers are really pretty, so I'm glad I went in there.

Of course package sizes are different here from in the UK. I was supposed to use 450g mushrooms and 150g mozzarella. But packages were 200g and 125g. Anyway, it's all put together, and I can bake it in an hour or so.

I don't think I'll make this again, but it certainly tastes of wild garlic.

We went to Schönbrunn to get our 'imperial' flowers. Not as much selection as sometimes, but I bought enough to keep me busy for a day or two.

It was dry when we set out. Jerry had already mowed the lawn. This upset the neighbour who has been enjoying our flowering meadow, but as they are only weekend residents, it doesn't really matter. By Friday there should be some flowers again, and it was already quite a job for the lawnmower.

But of course it started to rain on the way there

The other thing we "found" in the process in getting my raised beds ready for new crops was two great big leeks. I cooked them up tonight with chicken, half an eggplant, a few peppers, a big tomato, and the half a package of sour cream the neighbour left on our doorstep. Half of it went into the freezer. I made a beet vinaigrette salad as well with the beets I found a few days ago. The last pak choi is in blossom, so I won't be using it.

We were at GartenLust today. It was a new venue for them, and it was much smaller than we are used to. The venue they have used the last few years will be in late September. Well, in late September I'm not really in the mood to buy garden things.

The women at Tara recognized me, and admired my home woven tunic. I have really enough of their tunics and quilts. Really lovely, handprinted in India. This year they also had cotton cloths the right size for bedspreads, light summer covers... I found one to buy.

I also bought wooden print blocks. I'm not sure why I keep buying, because I don't actually use them. And I bought a bunch of mohnzelten - pastries full of poppyseed filling. These were white poppyseed, which tastes very nutty. Love it. I have quartered them and put them in the freezer, except for the one we ate there.

Oh, I also bought a few plants. At a stand with dry plant roots, I bought two each of phlox and day lilies. He had me take a third day liy. I think I'm going to put the phlox by the terrace behind my current day lilies. The new day lilies will go between the iris by the front fence. Then I also bought two geraniums that are quite pretty, and affordable.

Many of the plant stands were quite expensive without the plants impressing me. Of course that is just what I could see from the main path. My walker did not fit between the displays inside the stand, so maybe I just didn't see the things I could have bought. Oh, and there were also stands that were just succulents. I think if the Spring show is here again, I won't bother.

I got the phlox planted.

I got the day lilies planted. Since I was able to make holes in three of the four spots I tried, I guess I'm ahead of the game. Anyway, got them in the ground before the next round of buying plants. I also cut down the baby trees and bushes that are trying to take over the 'butterfly meadow'.

Jerry was trying to talk himself into mowing the lawn, but I said that if he waited a few days, I would be planting tomatoes and could use the grass as mulch. He thought that was a great idea. Tomorrow we go to Seewinkel. We buy tomato plants, etc. We go to the Greek fish restaurant, and we pretend to look for birds. However, this is where we go for water birds, and the water just isn't there, so chances are slim.

Ugh! I picked up a tick yesterday. Now we wait and see what, if anything, it was carrying. Lyme disease is only one possibility. The ones around here can also carry encephalitis.

Bought 10 tomato plants, not to mention 2 zucchini, 1 mild chilli and 2 sweet peppers.

We drove past the only small pond that still has water, and saw a few wading birds as well as a few geese. Nearby was also a stork striding through a field.

The food was as good as expected. (And that means very, very good.)

Planted the peppers. Elefantenohr (Elephant Ear), Peperone Lombardo, Stavros.

I had to water the container generously first. Very dry after the winter. I need to keep at it the next few days until I know that the earth is really soaked.

I just noted what tomatoes I actually bought:

Thunder mountain red
Julia Child
Ivory Drop
Berkely Tie Dye
Green Zebra
Honkin Big Black Cherry
Elfenbein Ei
Ochsenherz aus Kasachstan
Ewige Liebe
Busch tomate aus Lettland

I've got them pretty much put in locations, but when I started to actually plant them, by the time I was doing the third one, my back started screaming.

So far, Julia Child, Green Zebra and Ochsenherz aus Kasachstan are planted at the back end of the tomato bed.

The three cocktail tomatoes, Ivory Drop, Honkin Big Black Cherry, and Ewige Liebe will be at the front end. Ivory Egg on the near side, and Berkely Tie Dye on the far side. That leaves Thunder mountain red and Busch tomate aus Lettland along with the zucchini for the next bed.

Tomato bed all planted.

Planted the rest. I thought we bought a pot each of a striped zucchini and of Black Beauty. Well, the pot with one plant is the striped variety. The pot with two plants is Tonda Chiara, which is a round variety. Not really pleased. I almost didn't buy any, as right now I can't eat zucchini. I just tastes very bitter. Hope that clears up, as I normally quite like zucchini.

>5 MarthaJeanne: My peas are coming up. The forsythia branches seem to have all rooted, so that is not a good solution. The non-forsythia branches all fell over, but I have pushed them back in.

I have taken the largest plants out of the greenhouse. However, we won't be taking it down today. Drat! but it's raining.

We went to Ochsenherz, so I have a lot of veggie plants to deal with.

>18 MarthaJeanne: Rain is good. Keep saying it.

We have since been to the big garden centre, which is not really a good idea the first Saturday in May, with the sun pretending to want to come out. No parking places, no free carts. I managed to grab a cart while Jerry circled.

Too many customers in both the vegetable section and the summer flower section. I grabbed a few things, and went for planting soil. Found what I wanted and started to struggle with the first one. A lovely young couple saw me (and my walking stick) and insisted that they would do it. I had meant to buy two, but in these circumstances I took three.

Jerry was coming in looking for me, and had already seen that they had all the cash registers manned, so no waiting lines. On our way out to the car it took both of us to keep the cart under control. A mother and son begged us, "If we come with you and load your car for you, can we then have the cart?" We were generous enough to agree.

The real challenge was unloading and carrying the earth where I need it. But with both of us working together, we managed it.

I planted a fourth pepper with the others, and then the 4 eggplants in the next container. That was real work, as it was really dry. The flowers from the garden centre and the four nasturtiums from Ochsenherz went into the driveway bags, so those are mostly full now. That was only a little work. (Watering again.) That was the easy stuff as I knew where they went, and did not have to weed first.

My back says enough is enough. I'll try to get more done tomorrow.

My goodness! I heard Jerry bragging to the neighbour about last night's supper. Apparently the neighbour had asked about my citrus plants. 'Oh, yes, we eat them. Last night she harvested two of the Meyer lemons. She mixed the grated rind and juice with mascarpone, and cooked whole spelt noodles, peas and shrimp, with that for the sauce.'

Frankly, I'm not really fond of the Meyer lemons. In my opinion lemons should be really sour, and these aren't. But they are pretty on the 'tree'. This meal was both very easy, and very good.

We were at the other garden centre yesterday, and I've planted a lot of vegetable sets, plus seeds of green beans and Chard. I haven't seen bean sets this year, and the chard was all Bright Lights, which is pretty, but I think the all white varieties taste better.

I bought a plant they called 'Birnemelone' ie pear melon. Apparently our usual garden centre calls it 'Melonenbirne' and it's related to potato and eggplant. Also called 'pepino dulce' Having looked it up, I think I'll buy a second one. Should fruit better.

I had lost track of the lemon cucumbers, but I found them today. Not sure where I will put them. Same goes for the Malabar spinach. The pot has 4 plants in it. I've pretty much filled the beds. Much better than last year. I need to rebuy zucchinni. I've left their spot open.

Now just to remember to harvest and use the veggies as they come along.

There is still a lot of weeding waiting to be done, but things are beginning to look good. Some of the iris is open, and the poppies are in bud.

>22 MarthaJeanne: I agree about Meyer lemons. Possibly they make good lemonade? I can't tell, because it isn't a beverage I make often, but for cooking and cocktails, Meyer lemons are insipid. However, I don't turn them down when offered a basketful. :)

The Mascarpone sauce flavoured with them was very good. I'll do that again, even without the shrimp.

Well, the slugs not only got the zucchinis, they also got the Hokkaidos. They were investigating the carrots just now after the rain, so I eliminated several of them.

I almost bought more zucchini plants this noon, but they weren't my main interest at the garden centre. I had chosen a few, but was trying to get help finding another melonenbirne. I waited and waited, but when anyone showed up at the info stand they were too busy to even notice that I was there. It got too long, so I abandoned my cart and went back out to the car. They other things I wanted will just have to wait. I had to wait there, too, as Jerry didn't hear his phone. But in the car I was sitting.

Except for the squashes, everything in my raised beds and containers looks happy. We really needed rain, but slowly but surely some sun and May temperatures would be welcome.

The sun came out this morning, and so did my white clematis. I hope the red one also comes back. https://www.librarything.com/topic/338593#7824597 *

Besides trying to convince the clematis to only use one frame to climb on, we also tied the roses into the arch, and trimmed back the blackthorn. This was a distraction from eating breakfast. But I did feed the birds.

I really need to do something about the sage. I have several, all well established, and trying to take over the whole bed. I picked one batch for tea, but even with a chronic sore throat ince my spine operation about 20 years ago, I can't drink that much sage tea. Back when the boys were small (last century) my sage plants never made it through the winter. The boys knew to make themselves sage tea.

* Yes, the red one is also alive and healthy, and budding. I pulled a bunch of weeds, and now maybe the sun will hit it.

I also filled a hanging basket with earth, and planted seeds of Nasturtium 'Orchid Flame'.

'We did various 'errands' this afternoon. First was our first visit of the year to Schloß Insel. Wow! They have had some flooding from the recent rain, so for the first time in years there was actually water around the island. Amazing the difference it made. There were insects in the air. There were all sorts of birds singing. As we watched the snakes, a frog jumped out of the way just in time. We also more heard than saw lots more frogs, that just haven't been there for years. We also watched a pair of attached dragonflies as they dropped down at several places for her to lay her eggs. Then as we left the island I pointed a blackbird out to Jerry.It was sitting in a tree near the bridge, and sang us a song. Look, I know this is just temporary, but it felt like the 'good old days'.

We then stopped at a farm shop that had asparagus, but not strawberries. Then we drove to Ochsenherz for zucchini and hokkaido plants. Apparently I'm not the only one the slugs have attacked. I got two hokkaido, and two GoldRush zucchini, that being what they still have. I have planted them, and sprinkled the beds with Iron III phosphate. I try not to poison things, but I am willing to make as exception for slugs.

We stopped at one more farm shop, where Jerry got the last basket of strawberries.

Oh yes, I picked up a lovely T-shirt of a White-tailed eagle at the Schloß Insel shop. I have more than compensated for that weakness. I found 3 t-shirts to add to our Carla pile. (My aim is at least two. I do not need more clothes.)

Slug hunt: Killed 12 slugs including two that had already found one of the hokkaidos.

There are also mosquitoes out there. Not sure I got any of those, but I don't think they got me either.

Note: Don't eat me, don't eat my plants. If you do, whatever I do in response is self defense.

>29 MarthaJeanne: That’s a fast slug to have found the hokkaido so soon. Yes, eliminate that genetic line.

Lots of more positive life in the garden. The pepper tree is blossoming. Tiny blossoms, nothing to really see, but the whole tree just hums. Insects! Jerry just saw a little lizard. Glad we still have (at least) one around. The birds are singing and eating the suet balls.

I really need to trim the various sages back. However it will have to wait, as the tricky things have sent up mounds of buds. The poppies are also getting ready to blossom. So is the one leek left from last year.

>27 MarthaJeanne: Jerry got a really cute snake picture yesterday. I'm having trouble getting into his website, but if you can get there, it's sweet.

Here’s his page for 2023:

https://www.jerrybarton.eu/date/2023-01-01/2023-12-31/

Love the snake!

>33 2wonderY: >34 tardis: Thank you. He likes to hear that people like his pictures.

The first poppy is open with many more to follow. I planted my two lemon cukes and watered the containers and young plants. I'm about at the limit of what I can do without a hose. Need to get that out.

I only got three slugs last night, but they don't seem to have done much harm last night.

I've lost the Ivory Drop tomato.

We went to the Mistplatz, and they had compost! I got three containers full. One is already spread around potted plants that needed a top up. The next one is going onto things like tomatoes under the new mulch.

I've got both red and white poppies now, and both red and white clematis.

>25 MarthaJeanne: Back at the garden centre. I did get help this time. No wonder I didn't find them. They were on the top level far above my eye level. They also had marigolds, which have been few and far between this year. I wanted another frame for the veggies, but they only had 80cm ones, and that is not high enough for the things I grow. Actually, things are beginning to look somewhat sold out.

BTW, Their website does keep updating. A few hours ago they had 20 Melonenbirnen available. Now only 17. (I only bought 1.)

I just took my proper birdbath out. Then I got the hose out and watered with the hose instead of watering cans. It's a lot easier on my back now that there is a good deal growing. I also pulled a basketful of weeds from around the clematis.

I bought an Agapanthus summer love blue at the supermarket this morning. Very pretty.

I pulled my daily basket of weeds. Today around the clematis. Then I planted the 4 Tagetes that were waiting for a home. They'll be good there by the driveway. I had a yellow, an orange, and two of the ones with orange centres and red-brown around the outside. They won't compete with the clematis and the sage, but cover the soil. O did a good watering this morning with the hose, but did a bit more with the watering cans now.

Now I can feel virtuous. Oh, yes, I also fed the birds again. There just aren't enough insects.

I've been lying outside in the pavillion with my binoculars handy. This is fun, as the birds forget all about me. I can watch as up to 5 birds at a time eat from the vertical feeder. Mostly tits and sparrows. The bush had grown up around the feeder, but I've opened it up again. If I fill it with balls, I get to watch.

Normally we only get the smaller birds, but it is fun watching the starlings. They are really not suited to these feeders, but some of them have learned to balance on top of the ring to get at balls if the ring is full. They do not look very stable.

There are so few insects around this year. Yes, we still have the wild bees, but where are the flies and beetles? I can remember a few decades ago you would have to clean your windscreen after an hour of autobahn driving. Now we almost never get an insect hit. Bird droppings, yes, but not insect collisions.

The birds are eating a lot more at the feeders than in previous years. I'm happy that I can afford to keep buying the balls. Of course maybe there are also fewer people filling feeders this year. The inflation is hurting.

Two woodpeckers argued about who gets to feed on the ring. (NB we used to have three who would all come together. There is plenty of space for two.) The winner spent a good deal of time showing that it belonged to him. No sooner had he flown off than three sparrows took his place.

>46 MarthaJeanne: Sigh! So pretty. So old fashioned.

More old fashioned.



But you need to imagine the humming of the wild bees. They love the sage.

Also, this has been going up and down the street:



Again your ears need to imagine the clopping of hooves and the metallic clang of the cart, combined with little girl voices.

Edited to switch pictures.

Oh! Oh! The nasturiums in the hanging basket have sprouted!

A few of the bush beans are also showing their leaves, but so far there is no sign of the chard. Rather thinking of making a small seedbed in a container to try again. I'm picky, and much prefer white chard to the rainbow stuff they sell in the garden centers. It may not be as pretty, but it tastes better, and the stems are much more tender.

My bread plans changed dramatically in the process, as I hadn't figured on the hospital letting Jerry out before at least tomorrow. With both of us here I added extra flour, and turned half of it into a plain loaf. The other half got halved again, one half has sage added, the other daisies from the lawn. Those are rising together in the same basket. Still not a big bake, but it should give us bread for a few days.

Elisabeth Lust-Sauberer in Kochen wie die Bäuerin suggests the use of daisies in bread. She suggests making grissini, but I decided I preferred a loaf.

Normally I use oil, either olive or rapeseed in my bread, but today I used clarified butter.

Anyway, the daisies and sage are both there for the picking, so I might as well. The new Greek oregano plants might be something else to try. I had gotten used to using 'rigani' instead of Italian oregano for Greek dishes when my source dried up. Found a new source, but it doesn't carry it any more, so when I saw these plants I bought them. I plan to harvest a few bunches and dry them to refill my jar.

I would be ashamed of any money 'earned' by spamming.

ETA, Thank you, Ruth.

>51 MarthaJeanne: The daisy bread is fine, but doesn't really taste of anything special. I'm not sure I expected anything else, but it was worth a try.

I had so much lettuce I didn't really know what to do with it. We can only eat so much salad. I offered some to the neighbour, which she gladly took. But I still had great amounts. Now if Jerry had gone to church, the African ladies would have been glad of it, but he didn't.

Can I cook with this stuff? I finally settled on combining two recipes that called for fish, peas, chopped lettuce, sour cream, onion. One added bacon. We'll do that. Ok, stove, not microwave. It wasn't bad. I put in enormous amounts of lettuce, but it seemed like there were more peas. It really shrinks - even more than spinach, I think. Or maybe I'm just used to it with spinach. It certainly shrinks more than chard.

One website claimed that cooked lettuce is 'better than spinach.' Well ... if you don't really like spinach, and prefer bland. Next time I'll add sorrel or borage, or other herbs to give it some flavour. Certainly the advice to cook up the rest of a bag of mixed greens rather than throwing the rest away is a good one.

I will certainly have enough to try again in a few days.

I had an aunt who used excess lettuce in her soups.

Time to quit. One of Jerry's Facebook friends has started to gush about what wonderful soil I have to grow all these lovely flowers.

Humph. The lovely flowers are mostly in raised beds and containers because I have rather hopeless clay that can only be used after digging in huge quantities of compost.

I picked up a pot of basil yesterday. I have now removed last year's parsley and replaced it with the basil. It really wasn't very good any more, and the new batch is growing well, so that was useful.

These pots look so nice, but they are made up of dozens of plants. If you separate them out, they do nicely, but people have often cried to me that their pot died very quickly. Well, yes. They are really overcrowded, and can't survive without more space. Of course, then there was the friend who wasn't getting any carrots even though he had poured a whole package of seed into an A3 patch of ground. There must have been 10-12 carrot plants trying to grow in every cm squ. of dirt. Does not work.

I bought another clematis this morning. White and light purple. Very pretty, and I had a good spot for it.

We had peas last night. However, I fell over into the carrots. Not sure how well they will survive that.

New clematis with clary sage.

Love the color. Your yard looks more lush than last year.

We just had a lot of rain. Things are quite lush. Yes, I could not leave that clematis at the supermarket.

Of course, the clary sage helps the looks of things right there, too.

Interesting. Suddenly there are insects around. Not lots, but at least some. Also, the birds are only eating half as much at the feeders as they were just last week. I.e. They like the suet balls, but they like fresh insects better.

The first day lily is blossoming. Peas are beginning to be harvestable. The nasturtiums in a hanging pot get visibly bigger every day. I did not get and chard plants from my planting in the raised bed, so I replanted - this time in a small container. They are still tiny, but can eventually go to a bed. The year progresses.

I found a few pieces of rough paper sort of stuff in the garden. At first I was a bit upset, thinking that it had blown in from one of the neighbours. But then I realized that, no, it was from our garden, and was the result of wind and weather on piles of rose petals.

The rose arch has been just magnificent this year. We have tied more stems into the arch, and others to the branches of the szechuan pepper tree.

I have also figured out why I have no pictures of the pepper tree in blossom. It also did a great job of blossoming this year, but the blossoms are tiny, and hard to see. But you could hear them, or at least all the wild bees enjoying them. The tree hummed all day.

Currently one or more large black carpenter bees are enjoying the clary sage, and also the regular sage. But there it is one big one making all the noise instead of a whole cloud of tiny ones.

I had also sowed more chard, and it was doing fine, until I overwatered it. Slowly I think maybe the seedlings are recovering. It will be a while before I have chard unless I break down and buy plants of the rainbow stuff.

Made https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/spicy-fennel-linguine-sardines-capers for supper with the addition of a good handful of sugar peas. Parsley also came from the garden. It's so nice to be harvesting.

The olive tree is in full blossom now. And it is singing, full of all kinds of wild bees buzzing from blossom to blossom.

It's cooling down fast, now that it's getting dark. It's cooler outside than in, now. I picked a bowl of peas to blanch and freeze. The mosquitos also wanted to harvest out there.

Was that thunder? Is that rain starting? I guess I did my gardenthing just in time.

I only got one slug tonight. But after the rain they'll be out en masse. But I won't.

Too hot to pick peas right now.

I remember after the first time I planted sugar peas, Jerry telling me how wonderful it would be to have regular peas, too. He waxed poetical about how romantic it is to sit on the porch and open the pods ... So I pointed out that if he really wanted them, he could open up another section of the yard into a bed for them, plant them, water them harvest them .... I would be happy to cook them if he brought the peas into the kitchen ready for cooking. I prefer the pods, I can buy quite good frozen peas if I want the little balls. And the vegetable garden was already as large as I could deal with.

Funny, I never heard more about wanting regular peas from the garden.

We had our first zucchini from the garden this year. One of the plants had so many finger sized fruits that weren't growing that I picked two of them. I sautéd them with a little onion and added them to a tomato and basil salad. It worked well. (The basil was mine, but not the tomato yet.)

I promised myself that I would tidy up the sage plants once their blossom was over. Today was a good start. First I had to try to at least reduce the weeds in one area that was only weeds. I piled them up all together, and dumped a bin of compost in. good. This is a raised bed, and that area is now full again.

I dumped the pile of weeds into the bin, and moved on to the sage. I soon realized that the spreading sage was forcing a few hyssop plants to droop over the edge of the bed. Cutting back the sage would allow the hyssop to stand up again.

There were also lots of weeds - the varieties that send out runners both above and below ground. OK, pull as much of those as I can, both in the bed and in the lawn under the hyssop plants where Jerry can't mow because of all the sage and hyssop branches.

Where the **** is the root of this variable leaved sage? Way over there! This branch had better go then. Get the old blossom heads that are right here. More of those **** weeds.

My bin is full, and the edge of the bed looks almost tame. Good job. That took me all of 15 minutes. Maybe I'll try again later. Once I've cut the sage all back, I've got two more bins of compost I could spread.

14:06 This time I could fill my quota in about 10 minutes. One, maybe two more times and the area is done. It can also have a bunch of compost as the soil level is 3-4 cm. down.

Jerry says I can finish clearing out the clary sage, too, as the carpenter bee has abandoned it.

Clary Sage is gone. I also raked up a bunch of baby apples. I've started getting rid of the peas.

The marsh mallow is blossoming.

Earlier this year I was going through enormous amounts of suet balls. They disappeared within a day of my putting them out. I found three possible reasons for this:

1) Very few insects around.

2) Very many starlings around which had figured out how to use the feeders.

3) With higher prices, possibly fewer feeders in the area.

Well, we now have insects again. Not lots and lots, but they are around.

The starlings have moved on.

And today I only put three balls out. The birds aren't eating them now that they have insects again.

Something else has been getting at the balls, though - not in the feeders, in the shed. On Monday the loose cover was off the pail I use, and the top balls had big bits missing. So I covered the pail better and set up a mouse trap next to it. Yesterday the mousetrap was missing. I use black plastic traps with really strong springs, so they can move quite a ways when set off, but I could not find it at all. Jerry finally found it just outside the shed door - with a dead mouse in it. He let me dispose of the mouse. Today the trap has not been set off.

Years ago I got our oldest son to deal with the mouse traps for me. He was about 10, and the mice were in the attic above his room, so he wanted them gone. I was pregnant and explained that while I was happy to get him some mouse traps, they had to be checked, dead mice dealt with, and reset every day. And I could not do that. I was not going to climb the attic ladder, and it would not be safe for me to handle dead critters. He was not happy, but he did it. And later he even changed wet diapers now and again. But not dirty ones.

Poor Jerry. He has been upset by some of the weeds in our hedge. I had gotten some of them, but he was quite indignant about two of them that were growing up out of the top of the hedge. So he came in this morning and announced that he had gotten them.

"But they have prickers on them."

"Yup, I know."

"And they come off on my hands and arms."

"Yup. Been there, too."

I am bothered more by the vines that come out half way up, so he then went out to the street to find them so I could get them at ground level.

We also raked up baby apples - not that many, but I dislike stepping on them. I also took out a few more peas. We had lettuce last night, but several plants are either bitter or obviously getting ready to bolt. Don't think we'll get more from them. On the other had, the salad also included a zucchini, sorrel and basil. The peppers and tomatoes are coming. The regular eggplants are still blossoming, but there are some of the togo eggplants getting towards their harvesting size.

Today is fairly cool, and cloudy.

I was baking bread this afternoon. As always, I was planning to make part of the dough into a fruit loaf. I had a very ripe banana to mush in. As I was going in to work on it after doing the watering, I saw that my bitter orange tree had too many fruits on one branch, so I broke one off. I stuck it in a mug with some water and microwaved it a few times. I expected it to take quite a while to soften, but that went quite quickly. I cut it open, removed the seeds, and pureed it, and that went into the bread dough. I used the water to soften the dried berries and raisins I used. All that flavour went into the bread, too. It's wonderful! My bitter orange tree does not bear enough to do this every time. And I kind of like having oranges on it, but now and again I will repeat this. I might also try this with the Meyer lemons, which are useless for real lemon recipes.

Now that it is evening things are cooling off. We got the last air conditioner working last night, so it stayed comfortable in here. I watered in the morning. Now I went to feed the birds. First stop: mousetrap. We seem to be catching nearly one a day. I wasn't that worried about them until they got a taste for suet balls. I know, speciest, but I buy them for birds, not for mice. If I bought another trap, I might catch twice as many. Then fill the feeders.

Tomorrow is biobin day, and there wasn't that much in there, so I pulled the rest of the peas, and weeded that area. I moved my chard seedlings in there and watered them in. If I go to the garden centre and see some, I'll buy more. These are not doing that well. We'll see how they manage in their final position. It's just that I wanted the white ones. But a lot of those go to the Africans at church, and if they are picky about the variety, they don't tell me. (A previous pastor tried to talk me into growing turnips. She said I was welcome to all the turnips if I would just give her some greens now and then. Sorry. Not going to happen.)

One of my pretties is blossoming, so I switched it with a scented geranium that looks a bit leggy. Might as well have the prettiest potted plants on display.

I'm happy to have gotten a little gardening done, but at 27°, not 37°.

While watering this morning I found two yellow zucchini noticeably larger than any I had picked so far. We had already decided on soup and sandwich for supper because we were going shopping at the mall with the good sandwich store. So I got the idea of making gazpacho instead of buying soup.

After reading lots of recipes on line I have used the bigger zucchini, a yellow pepper, the smallest tomato we had, basil, garlic, green onion (had to be bought) olive oil, sour cream, lemon juice, salt and pepper. It has all been blended with my immersion blender. There is a slice of bread softening in it, and it looks like I should add a bit of vinegar and maybe cumin when I blend the bread in. For now it is cooling in the refrigerator. So far it tastes quite good. Of course, I've never had gazpacho, so I'm not sure what it should taste like, but it is using the zucchini and tastes good, and did not heat the kitchen.

>77 MarthaJeanne: At least three stars! And it sounds fairly simple- another star

A lot of the recipes called for blending in ice cubes or water to thin the soup. Just the one (Spanish) recipe said to thicken it with bread. I like the idea of having it thicker. I'm not really a soup person. Unless it's thick and has lots of stuff in it.

It rained in the night, and is now cool outside. Instead of watering I did a few of the outstanding other chores. The climbing rose is not happy. I gave it a dose of compost, cut back the srouts coming up from below the graft, and cut off a few dead branches. I've also been watering it, at least sometoes, when I think of it.. It was so beautiful this spring!

The hokaido squash really wants to grow over the neighbour's fence, which is solid wood on the South, so I quite understand, but I have to discourage it. The zucchini also needed to be 'reminded' not to spread their leaves over neighbouring plants.

And a bit of deadheading here and there. I cut the flowers off the sorrel, pulled up the rest of the lettuce, all these thins I know need doing, but can't handle in heat.

The birds do not need feeding. The mouse trap is missing again. It would be good to find it and throw the mouse away. Tomorrow is garbage pick up, and there are already two dead mice and a bit of fish skin in there. Get rid of all the smelly stuff at once. (And yes, after almost a week of heat, it does smell.)

Jerry can't find the mouse trap either. He searched until he had found two others. One had a very old dried up mouse in it, and I have set it. The other was encrusted with lots of old stuff, and would not stay open. I threw it away.

At 20:30 it's still close to 30° out there. I bought several plants today. I have planted about half of them now, but I can't work very long at these temperatures. I'm not sure what I want to do with the big pot of dwarf sunflowers. My recollection is that if there are slugs anywhere about they will come and feast. And I can't find a plant saucer for them.

I bought a few plants yesterday. one has lovely purple blossoms, and is a turmeric plant!

On Thursday someone came to fix our garden door. It's like one of our windows, only openable from inside. You can also choose to tip it. Except it's been getting harder and harder to use, until only Jerry could really close it, and neither of dared try the tipping. Well, he took parts of the door apart, lifted it off its hinges just like that, and was able to just lift it back onto the hinges after replacing one of them. The thing is, we are having trouble getting used to not having to wrestle with it. You move the handle easily to the desired position and the door easily opens, tips, closes, whatever you want, with no effort at all.

With Jerry going off to London for a week, it's good to be able to use the door. I've loaded upon groceries, and should have a bunch of veggies to harvest.

Yes, I harvested another lemon cucumber this morning, a tomato, and a few carrots. Also two zucchini that I gave to the neighbours. There is a limit to how much (zucchini) one person can eat.

A few years ago I read some place that for Greek food you should really use Greek oregano, as it is somewhat different from the Italian oregano. Yes, well, tell my supermarket, or even my herb and spice store. However, not long afterwards I discovered a tiny Greek food store near Stefansdom. I purchased a few items, including 'rigani'. Yes, it is different, and I quite liked it. However that shop was in a row that became a building site. Drat.

Schottenstift, a monastery, school, museum ... also downtown, has a lovely shop where they sell museum tickets, produce of their own farms, products of other monasteries, books, incense, ... carries various things from Mount Athos, and other Greek things, and I was delighted to find Greek oregano there. But they no longer carry it.

So this spring when one of my normal plant suppliers had Greek oregano, I was delighted to buy a few plants. One bunch has been drying in the living room for some time, so I pulled the leaves off today. It smells really good. Maybe with tomato and egglant for supper tonight? I should probably hang a new bunch up tomorrow morning. It's well over 30° outside now, better to harvest esrlier in the day.

>84 MarthaJeanne: I have never tried Greek oregano to my knowledge, here we have Mexican oregano, which is also very different from Italian. That is what I grow, so I don't even remember what Italian oregano tastes like.

I made a batch of zucchini bread https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/zucchini-bread/ with a bit of the big zuccha I picked a few days ago. If it's any good I'll make more. My 6 mini-loaf pan could really dowith 1 1/2 recipes. I left out the white suga. The texture is good, and it is still very sweet. Oh, the other big change was using melted butter instead of oil.

Putting the biobin out to be collected is NOT MY JOB. However, if there is nobody else around to do it... But with the temps still too high for me, I was happy with the idea of putting it out less than half full.

Which I would have done, except I happened to glance between the forsythia and the roses - I think there should be a path between them. They disagree. Well, this time it was not just a few little branches across my space. A big branch had split off the forsythia. So I grabbed my big cutter and cut it free, and cut it up enough to stuff into the bin. Yuck! I did not need that.

I could list several other jobs that should have been done and put in there. I guess it's just as well I didn't manage to do them, or there would not have been space for this big branch. If I had raked up more apples, it would have been to heavy for me to handle.

Oh yes. I had a slice of the zucchini bread with my cherry sauce. Since that is unsweetened, and half sour cherries, it went really well.

Just harvested much more than I can eat. A neighbour took pity and two zucchini.

Harvesting today yielded a medium large zucchini I missed yesterday. The other neighbour got it. I also found four orange fruits on one of the hokaido plants. The three normal sized ones I left to season, but the one almost as big as a small egg I harvested, and halved and seeded, it went into the oven with the burek I had for supper. Very good, but quite enough for me.

The bush tomato will have more to harvest tomorrow or Sunday, but the others are still fill of green.

They don't expect rain until Sunday. Better water tomorrow.

I was beginning to think that we had either caught all the mice in the shed or that the mousetrap wasn't working. But today there was another dead mouse. However, we found it about an hour after our weekly garbage pick up. Dead mice stink. Dead mice in a garbage bin for a week with temperatures in the 30s really stink. So instead of sticking it in a plastic bag and throwing it into the bin, I laid it out under the apple tree. Apparently one of the cats wanted it. Good. Problem solved.

You could also bury it? Good fertilizer.

Guess what! I found a fruit on one of my melon pears! They have been flowering all along, but I hadn't seen any signs of fruit until now. The fruit is yellow-green and almost the size of a small fist. I don't think it's ripe yet, and since I just read that the unripe fruits are poisonous, maybe I'll wait to harvest it.

>92 MarthaJeanne: I have never heard of that. I looked it up and see that it is in the. In the nightshade family, like the tomato, but tastes somewhat like a honeydew melon and a cucumber. Interesting.

It was new to me this year, too. Three different garden centres here were selling it under three different names. I bought one each from two of them.

The forsythia bush and I have differing opinions on where it should put its branches. This morning I had to chop off a branch that had moved across the newly reopened path. And there was a major stem that wanted the area above my tomato bed where I had removed quite a bit. Off that came, too. I don't want forsythia there. Both the sun and I need to get to the tomatoes. Luckily the apple trimmings had wilted enough that the bin had space.

We're into another heat wave this week, si I watered this morning.

Oh yes, last night I heard one of my dehumidifiers start to squeak. Makes it hard to fall asleep. So I got up to kick it back into relative quiet. But as I got closer it seemed less certain what was going on. I turned it off, but the squeaks continued. So I turned it back on and decided to enjoy the crickets. First time I've heard them all summer.

It's so nice having a superfluity of fresh vegetables now. A fair amount of tomatoes and basil went to church on Sunday, and the neighbour got tomatoes and a lemon cuke yesterday. But I still had a lot of veggies to saute up with ham to make a sauce for baked gnocchi tonight. OK, the onions and eggplant were purchased, but lots of tomato and peppers as well, then a good helping of garlic, herbes d'Provence, and a bit of cream, and a touch of vermouth. It tastes really good. Is it suppertime yet?

>96 MarthaJeanne: Mouth watering here!!

You can’t hear the crickets here because the tree frogs are so loud. But I do remember that soothing sound from childhood; especially when we were allowed to camp out on the porch.

I needed to go to the garden centre before Jerry leaves for the States in two weeks, so we did it today.

I really needed two more boxes of suet balls for the birds.

I also wanted to see if more mouse traps would result in more dead mice. I've been down to about one a week lately. We'll see if three traps work better.

With the weather cooling down I decided to buy some lettuce starts. Quite honestly, they don't look very good, but lettuce does not like the heat, so I'm not surprised. I got a box of a dozen Lolla, half bianca, half rosa. Also a box of Vogerlsalat - at least one name in English is rapunzel.

Then I got caught in a display of bulbs. I ended up with two large bags of tulips. One is called Rembrant mixture, and is striped tulips in different colours. The other is called Persian carpet, and is shades of purple. I also got two smaller bags of Alliums, different heights, but no really tall ones. I wasn't really happy with the one up over my head this year. Actually the nicest one was the leek left over from last year's plants in the vegetable garden. We both like alliums.

Two purple plants to freshen up the driveway bags. A clay pot and saucer for my turmeric plant, as in the plastic pot it keeps blowing over.

Well, the last things were fairly easy. I guessed right on pot size, and just filled in a bit of compost around the sides. Good timing as it was on the brink of being potbound.

The balls are in the shed. I emptied the last box this morning, so there was space. I also set the traps, to protect the balls.

The bulbs all say to plant between September and December, so they are hanging up in a bag in the shed. It's not September yet. (I'll try to do it while he's gone.)

I had to carry a lot of water to plant the lettuce, as those containers don't get rain, and I don't water if there are no plants in them. But they are in. At that point my back complained, so the other box of greens will have to wait. Still, not a bad bit of work.

It's Monday and our garden waste bin had a fair number of apples in it and some lawn clippings. The weather is nice so I did some weeding and clipped the lavender. Now it is about half full, and I've had enough.

We did get some tomatoes again today after buying a few on Friday. Totally horrendous this time of year, but they stopped ripening in the last heat wave.

I'm making a fish stew for supper with a mixture of bought and garden veggies. So far there is bacon in there with assorted alliums - bought. Then I added peppers, carrots, and togo eggplants - garden. Also 2 bay leaves - garden and a big tomato - bought, but in the meantime mine are producing again. That's all roasting in the oven. I have picked malabar spinach and sorrel to add later with salmon and plaice. It smells really good.

>100 MarthaJeanne: Arg! I can nearly smell that!!

Not only was it very good, but I put a portion in an ice cream container in the freezer. That's another meal that isn't much work while Jerry's away.

I am assuring him and anyone else concerned that I WILL NOT STARVE. Actually I want to try out several recipes from the cheese and sardine cookbooks that are a bit off our normal routines.

I cut back the roses this morning. They were really out of control, with the red blossoms wat over my head. I also cleared out the oregano and other weeds from the parh side. I need to get the terrace side, too. But enough was enough. I'll probably find more branches to shorten over there, too.

A few days ago I gave up on the zucchinis and pulled them up. It's getting to be fall in the garden, even if the temperatures are still high.

There are plenty of areas in the garden where I cannot work with the sun so bright. So I tackled the area around the olive tree. Here it was not so much oregano as lemon balm that had self-seeded and grown into a bushy chaos. I cleared that, chopped off a few new trunks the olive tree was trying to grow, and pulled up a lot of self-spreading 'ground cover'.

It still needs a bunch of careful digging to be able to plant anything. (After all, my big poppies are in that area, just died down after the blossom in early summer.) But as I surveyed the fairly large expanse I had cleared, it occurred to me, that it must be just about a square metre. I mean, in area, because it is not at all square. And that is the area my purple bulb mix is supposed to cover. Perfect. I had thought of putting them in the lawn between the apple and pear trees, but know that I can't convince Jerry not to mow the dying tops down. Here I might get at least two years of purple carpet in the spring.

I can also include a few alliums, to give some interest later in the season.

The compost bin is filling nicely. Now I just need to keep track of the days to be sure to rake apples on Monday, and put the bin AND the recycling bags out in the evening. I nearly missed the regular garbage on Friday by losing track of the days with Jerry away.

I sort of wish we had gone back to get compost on Tuesday, but we really didn't have time. My quandary now is, given the limited amount I have, do I give it to the bulbs (and poppies and olive tree) or do I use it where I grow squash and zucchinis? There is not enough to do both. Experience says that there will be little or none available in April and May, when we really need it. But I might be able to get some in October, if I'm really lucky.

Well, I've scraped over the area I want to plant the bulbs in. I've not done any digging yet, as the soil is quite hard. I have given it a very good watering, and will check it out again tomorrow.

I then took the compost bin and the two recycling bags out to the street. Since noticed more of both in the kitchen and on the table. Later.

After two days the soil is soft enough to dig. I have loosened up the top 1-2 cm. and removed a lot of roots. It seems to me that there was a fair amount of green there this morning that hadn't been there two days ago. Maybe I need to repeat the exercise.

There was a dead mouse in one of my traps again.

I got the purple bulbs and most of the alliums planted. I think the larger bulbs are tulips. There were also smaller bulbs and some very small dark things. The smaller bulbs could be either hyacinth or crocus, but I'm not sure what the other things are. I guess we'll find out in the spring. They are sort of clumps of roots at most 1 cm. across.

I still have half a dozen of the shorter alliums and a package of 'Rembrandt' tulips to plant. I suspect that a few more alliums will go under the olive tree, and the rest under the pepper tree. (Speaking of which, the (Szechuan) pepper is nearly ripe. Good. I'm getting way down.) Not sure about the tulips. They are white with dirrerent colour stripes. Should be very pretty. But where?

I love Rembrandt tulips!

I planted a few more alliums by the olive tree. That left me with 5. I cleared the weeds in front of the pepper tree, and planted them there along with 7 of the Rembrandt tulips. There seem to be about a dozen more in the bag. The last little bit of compost mixed with planting soil went on top of those, and I watered them in. It looks funny to have two sections of bare earth in the flower beds, because I have not managed to weed them at all this year To quote >61 2wonderY:, it has all looked very "lush", at least until you noticed it was mostly ground ivy.

>109 MarthaJeanne: With all that bulb planting, I would love to see your yard when they bloom.

Alright, all the bulbs are in. The compost bin is out at the street. It was heavy!

I cut back the clary sage - did I tell you that it blossomed again after I cut it back before. Jerry's carpenter bee was back too, but now the second blossoming is past. And I smell of clary sage. Don't get me wrong, there are much worse things to smell of than clary sage, but it is rather intense.

I also cut the tarragon way back. The area in between had lots of weeds except where there was a partial bag of potting soil. I pulled as many weeds as I could, then emptied the bag and planted the remaining 12 Rembrandt tulips. It's a good spot for them, as it is very visible from the driveway, so the neighbours whose driveway it is, and the neighbours across the driveway will also be able to enjoy them. I wonder if I should buy some crocus to plant rhere, too.

Does Jerry realize that trips to the mistplatz (for compost) and to the garden centre are going to be on next week's to do list?

We went out to the other garden centre in hopes that they would have oak leaf lettuce. Nope. I got the other two things I was looking for though: spinach seed and crocus bulbs.

And then I saw some really neat yarn - cotton, linen, nettle. I bought quite a bit, but no idea as to what I could do with. If I want to weave, I need to finally finish weaving the warp on my smaller loom. But this is a finer yarn. I think it would need a 40/10 cm heddle. Part of me wonders how it would work as the weft with my standard white wool as the warp.

Or I could set up a card weaving band.

It's all Jerry's fault. If he hadn't gone off to the toilets I wouldn't have stopped right there. I need to remember that in case I decide I need more of it.

You realize, of course, that I already have lots of yarn, and also unspun wool at home. I didn't really need more.

The crocus are with the Rembtandt tulips and in one of my terrace containers. I also planted a small bed of spinach.

The recycling centre had compost today, and I had lots of containers with me. I've spread about half, and could use another load when I'm done with this one. It is hard to get any in April and May. I think the city gardeners take a lot, and what gets through to the recycling centres doesn't last long. Therefore I really want to top off my containers now, and give a generous top dressing to my raised beds now. I also spread some where I planted the bulbs.

We ran into an ex-colleague of Jerry's who was saying how much he likes the process of composting here. You throw the compostables into the correct container, the city picks it up, and whenever you get around to it you pick up nice finished compost. Yes. Agreed, except for it not always being available.

Update: I spread the rest of the compost and suggested that we do it again tomorrow morning.

Another load of compost. Half of it spread, and the other half stored against future needs. This feels good. I then watered everything fairly well. The weather report says, 'No rain in sight.'

I bought leeks yesterday, and am planning on a ham and leek sauce over gnocchi for supper, but in the course of watering I saw that I can add chard and peppers to it. It adds flavour, vitamins and some colour. Triple win.

>115 MarthaJeanne: What a great idea for a community to do, especially in an area with smaller yards. Saves space in the yard for planting. Your dinner sounds delicious.

>116 MrsLee: Besides, composting more together is better, it heats up more. Also they use machines to turn it, etc. so we don't have to use shovels. Just don't try to get any during planting season. That's why I'm storing hhalf of this second load.

I had a package of puff pastry in the refrigerator, and sliced ham that needed to be used up, so I harvested malabar spinach and sorrel and a few of my mild peppers. I fried up the peppers with onions, and then added the greens along with salt, pepper and greek oregano. It's rather surprising how much the greens cooked down. But that's as much as I was ready to harvest today.

Cooled down, I have added feta and two eggs. Now I just have to unroll the dough, cover it with ham, then the filling, and roll it up. Into the oven and it should be a good variation on spanakopita. Good to have a garden meal that also uses up stuff that needs using up.

It did rain yesterday and last night. Not an immense amount, but very welcome.

It's sunny with temps in the 20s so I thought I ought to see what could be cleared in the garden. I took out two more tomato plants. Almost a shame as they love these temperatures and are busily blossoming and setting fruit. Sorry, they can't possibly ripen.

Also the lemon cucumber that had given up the ghost.

The szechuan pepper is almost ripe. Good. My old supply is nearly gone. I had some with my breakfast - my sourdough bread and the goat gervais I try to keep in the house. Just a sprinkle of the pepper and of salt. Yum. I probably should have added fresh tomato while I still can.

(BTW, Yes, the fresh sourdough I picked up at a bakery last week actually does something. I seem to have killed off the old one.)

The area where I sowed spinach is turning green. We currently have lettuce, vogerlsalat (Rapunzel, I think), sorrel, malabar spinach, and a few plants of chard, so we should be able to harvest some greens all winter. There are still tiny carrots and some beets. Some of those went in the chicken and squash soup I made last night. There is still half of the roasted hokaido in the refrigerator. Maybe I should bake pumpkin cookies.

I used the other half of the Hokkaido in a pumpkin and shrimp risotto.
https://www.jamesbeard.org/recipes/squash-and-shrimp-risotto#

It was good. Only big difference is that my package of shrimp was 250g. We agreed that it did not need three times as much shrimp. But I suppose if you are paying high prices in a gourmet restaurant you expect LOTS of shrimp.

We got the tent up with less hassle than expected. Of course we still have to move the plants and the various electrical things in, buy that canall be done a little at a time unless frost threatens. Right now it is warm and sunny.

The driveway lights are up. I got the electrical connections done, and all the smaller plants moved in. i just watered them all, and even got the lavender moved in and watered. Now it's just the two big citrus, and I want Jerry's help for those. They are heavier than I can deal with alone.

I've harvested as much Szechuan pepper as I intend to, and now comes the processing. I'm at the stage of stripping the berries from the stems (bunches like elder) while it dries. Then will come separating out the black seeds from the flavourful husks. Right now the living room smells of Szechuan pepper. I have almost used up the last harvest, as I use a lot of it at the table.

>123 MarthaJeanne: Amazing! I didn't know it was something one can grow! It can be difficult to find good sources of Szechuan pepper. I must look into this. Love it.

Austria has no restriction on growing citrus relatives. The US does, so make sure you are allowed to grow it. I think it has gotten easier, but do check your local laws.

It is a lovely tree, and grows quickly, starting to produce at about 2 meters. It has thorns, so ours has its branches cut back until safely above head level. Ours is probably 4-5 meters now, and still growing. It is winter hardy here, apparently can handle -20C. The flowers are tiny, mostly noticeable when the tree starts humming - the bees love it. But once the berries start ripening, the red bunches are very pretty.

I only harvest a very small amount of what our tree produces. I don't use it much in the kitchen, but have a grinder on the table next to the black pepper, and choose it at least half the time. It is an acquired taste, but once acquired you don't want to be without it. Not so sure I need the constant scent of it, but I'll put up with it for a few days.

In 2015 I wrote "Mine grew fast from a plant only about 30 - 40cm when I bought it. I bought the book in April 2013, so I must have bought the plant that May. I had a small harvest already last year." (That was James Wong's Homegrown Revolution.)

>125 MarthaJeanne: thank you, I will look it up. I live in California, a citrus growing state, so will see. I love it in stir-fry, but my favorite is a Szechuan chili oil I make to add pow to dishes without affecting my husband who is not fond of pow.

>125 MarthaJeanne: Looks like the restrictions were lifted in 2007. However, it also looks like the plant would take more care than I have to offer at the moment. Good to know it's possible though.

Mine doesn't get much care besides getting chopped back when it starts to grab us.

I swept the terrace this morjng. With all the cold and rain and snow, the szechuan paepper dropped its remaining fruit. What a mess! The leaves were long gone, so it was a heavy lot of stuff to sweep. Smelled nice, though. The lawn around there needs taking, but that will have to wait until the snow is gone.

I need to post a bit more if I want nexr year's topic to be a continuation.

Fed the birds. Swept up more szechuan pepper where there had still been snow yesterday. The lawn is not open ehough for raking yet, but if it really gets up to 10° today. Pick up is tomorrow, and we're in the winter 2week cycle, so I would like to get more in.

You could post pictures to beef up your thread count.🤪

Do you know how grey and dreaty it all looks now?

Temps went up to maybe 4°. I got 4 baskets of leaves from the sections that cleared.

They don’t need to be current photos.

What are your favorite things to plant and/or harvest? Is there anything you refuse to plant?

I grow things I like to eat, so We don't have sweet potatoes or asparagus. Jerry is free to grow them if he wants to take over a bed. At one point he wanted regular peas - the ones that you take out of their pods. Same deal. He decided that my peas are fine. Neither of us are keen on the cabbage family, so aside from Pak choy starts when the garden center has nothing else, and I want to cover some space, I don't grow that family. I also don't grow potatoes or onions, as space is very limited, and we can buy them, often directly from the growers. (We do grow Alliums for their blossoms.) I did have a request once that I grow turnips from someone who was even happy to leave me all the turnips if she could just have turnip greens once in a while. Nice try!

Basically I grow several kinds of tomatoes, a few peppers, hokkaido squash, zuccinni, greens (not turnip) and whatever else I can buy seedlings of that take my fancy. I grow sugar peas, and chard from seed. Well try, anyway. This year I fed the slugs several batches of the white chard I like before finally settling for the rainbow stuff from the garden centre.

It varies depending on what is available. We have several good farm shops nearby so I actually could get away without growing many veggies at all. I hate this time of year. We just ate the last ochxenherz tomato from Blun, and I couldn't bring myself to buy any red plastic things at the supermarket this morning. I will break down by next year, I know.

Right now I still have lettuce and other greens, lots of herbs (thyme and sage for our colds!), The carrots never got big, but they are there under the snow. Beets, too. I roasted our big hokaido this afternoon. We'll have some with ham and leeks in a cream sauce for supper. Over cheese biscuits if I get energetic. (The bay leaf came from the greenhouse tent.)

The sun is out, so I suppose I ought to try to do some garden work. It's even relatively warm. But the wind is wicked. It's a lot nicer inside.

Why do I insist on wanting carrots and beets when there is a layer of snow on the bed? The result is that I got my beets, but they are very different sizes. At least I did it when it is still sort of daylight.

I'll make a white sauce with ham and other veggies, probably horseradish. Should I serve it over pasta or biscuits? The biscuits I made a while back were very good.

Speaking of the garden. There is a combination of wet snow and slush out there. I knocked some of the snow off the olive tree, and exchanged the slush in the bird bath for hot water.

It is currently raining lightly at 1°C. At least the wind has died down.

>138 MarthaJeanne: Daughter texted me earlier, excited that she had made the most excellent biscuits. I’m hoping she can repeat the exercise when I’m there.

I did buttermilk biscuits last night. I should make them more often, as they are quick and very easy, and taste so good.

More biscuits tonight.

We just watched this year's Fledermaus from the Staatsoper. Very good casr.

Now that the television is off, it's awfully noisy around here.

Wishing you and Jerry a very good 2024… and a good night’s sleep!

You, too.

The second part is a good while away yet. The bangs will get worse around midnight, then continue at a lower lever at least until 1:00.

Bah humbug!

Not to mention that most of the ones we are hearing are illegal to shoot off inside the city limits.

Prosit Neu Jahr!

>147 MarthaJeanne: My son's Great Dane is a puddle under the baby bassinet at the moment. Son is lying down with him. He is definitely not a fan.

My neighborhood had the annual shelling and the new pup was not the least concerned!

Thank goodness it started to rain!