Africian Violet Blooming Again

I really enjoy this violet plant. It blooms about every 3 - 4 months, the blooms last for about a month, it likes Mircle Grow for a treat once in awhile, and it is 7 years old! Wonder how old that is in plant years?

This is one side of the plant,

This is the other side, although it looks like a separate plant, its not.  The  blooms start out dark purple and them they get this verigated look.

Now I do have it in a special Africian Violet pot.  It is a pot within a pot, with the inner pot having a porous bottom, this way the plant always get watered from the bottom.  NEVER water them at the top of the plant.  I really think this is the secret to it's success.

Apple Harvest

Some how, maybe because we don't use chemicals on our gardens, our apple crop was severly eated by bugs, worms, yucky things!  Yuck is not even the choisest word I would use, but it is what it is, so I had to decide what I needed to to with what I could salvage from our apple crop this year.  The problem is, our apple tree is of the variety called Honey Crisp.  These are extremely crisp apples, but not the sweetest this year.  So my first thought was to get enough slices for a pie, as the not so sweet varieties make wonderful pies.  But my husband and I are overweight, so that option wasn't going to happen (I'm not a pie fan anyway).  So, I figured I would make some applesauce.  I've made and canned applesauce for the last three years, but just as the instructions of most receipies tell you, it is best to use an assortment of varieties of apples, and not those that are tart. But with little choice, I went ahead and sliced them up to be made into applesauce, and prepared to have to add a lot of sugar.

Fortunately, there were more apples that looked and sliced up better than this one in the picture (actually this one made it's way to the chickens.....they were in heaven)

So here is my success of anout 15 apples. The cinnamon that I added helped in the tartness, and I only added a small amount of sugar. Cooking it made the house smell wonderful, and my yeild was a little over 2 pints. I have more apples on the tree, so I will be making more next week!

August Farmer's Wife Blocks - Civil War

Today was quite busy for me. I baked 5 loaves of banana/bluberry bread, slow cooked 5 quarts of tomatoes (freshed picked from the garden this morning) into a yummy sauce with dried herbs (also from the garden), picked some other herbs from the garden and put them in the dehydrator, and managed to finish August's Farmer's Wife blocks in the civil war reproduction colorway!

I did all of this because I have an extra day off at the end of the month, and I can get more of my "monthly" to do's done. My work schedule is not only flexible, but kinda complicated as, I work three days a week the second and third week of the month, and two days a week the first and the last week of the month. This schedule is a because of the paperwork cycle the comes in and gets processed each month for my department.

It is the best of both worlds of working and staying home! I am very fortunate to have a job like this and a husband who is also supportive of this arrangement!

So without further ado, here are my blocks for August.....

PS...I have a theory on why some of the blocks are not quite going together as well as others, but I will have to do some research and pay more attention to next month's blocks to write about what is going on. Stay tuned!

Hydrangea's are a Bloomin'

I love this time of year in Oregon. From now on there will be something blooming. Right now its the hydrangeas. All of mine are blue. I wnt to get a pink one, since pink is my favorite color. But until I get one, i will continue to enjoy my blue ones.

Grandma's Clematis

This clemitas, is a very special clematis. You see this was my grandma's. She got it about 30 years ago while living in Denver. The Rockies region must have not been the best place to grow one, because she nutured, and spent a lot of time keeping it alive. Then she moved to live in New Mexico and brought it with her. Again this reagion was not easy to grow one either, but she planted it and continued to nuture it and it flourished. After she passed, my Mom took it and transplanted to there different place of living when thy downsized for retirement. Then finally about three years ago my Mom brought it all the way from New Mexico to our place in Oregon. Let me tell you, clematis love the Pacific Northwest! Every year it just gets bigger, better, and more brilliant. This means a lot to me.....

Iris Time

We were out weeding the flower beds today and all of the iris are blooming, so I cut a few and brought them into the house. During the spring and into the fall, I try to have fresh cut flowers on the dining room table, the patio table, and in my cube at work. Can you tell I like cut flowers?

2012 Food Storage Begins

I love to garden, and with that, I do lots of food storage. I do canning, drying, and freezing of what we grow every year, and this year is starting out as no exception.

Below is the first batch of three batches of canning New Mexican green chili. If you have ever had New Mexican style cuisine, you know that much of it has green chili. People there claim to be addicted to the flavors and put it on everything, eggs, pizza, hamburgers (you can actually order it on your hamburger at McDonalds!), etc. My family and I are "addicts", so while I was in Albuquerque for my Father, I bought 25 pounds. It came already chopped and frozen. I put it in a suitcase and checked it in with my baggage and flew home. The next day, my husband and I canned 23 half pints and 13 pints. We're already thinking I didn't bring enough!

This is parsley that I dried yesterday from what I harvested from the garden already! I planted a small start befor I left to go to Albuquerque, and after about 5 weeks I filled a small jar of dried heads. The pungent aroma of fresh herbs is so much better than the processed products you can buy.

Spring Time

I think spring is finally peeking out in my rain drenched part of the country. We had two beautiful sunny, rain free days and this caused the plants to start blooming. We worked hard and long around our place. Got some more garden planted, lawns mowed, sidewalks powerwashed, and some plants in holding beds out into flower beds.

Garden Fever

This past weekend we planted our early crops. Carrots, peas, lettuce, spinach, beets, and radishes.

The pictures below are some of our harvests last year. I am amazed how stuff just grows and grows and grows here in Oregon. The only con here is when the good stuff grows so well, so do the weeds. I do have to say though, having the raised beds has cut weed production to almost nothing. The last picture shows the raised beds we built two years ago, and we've had nothing but bumper crops since!