Boxing Day Walkabout

This has been a more-or less green Christmas, with the exception of a few fleeting snowflurries....all that could change according to the recent weather forecast.>Stormy Monday could be upon us again. The dogs and I had a good walk around the garden today. In spite of winter there were many interesting things to see and actually admire. The combinations of green and brown seem quite pleasing this time of year. Our appreciation can change as the seasons do. The winter coloration of PJM is lovely next to the evergreen of the "regular" big leaf rhododendrons. There are always buds to admire.....both rhodie and azalea. December 2010

No More Excuses

I have been putting off "blogging" until we got high speed internet. That momentous event happened yesterday, so I guess I now need to play catch up. The fall is pretty much behond us, Christmas is looming, winter hasn't been too obnoxious yet, so I guess all could be said to be "well" I did a cusory rearrange of the Blog design, but I think it may need some serious tweaking. We have a new dog in our house since Halloween. "Grace" may be with us for awhile, but she is technically a friend's dog. She and Jodi seems to get along fine, but they make more noise as a duo. Christmas preparations are going along without much fanfare. The tree is up, but no presents have been wrapped. I usually do minor decorating, so that isn't much of an issue. We are going to The Christmas Potluck at my former workplace at StFX this evening, so I made a cake.

A lovely Browned Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake.

Ode to "Helda"

Late August means our favourite bean is ready to be eaten. "Helda" is a romano type pole bean that has the sweetest, "beaniest" flavour of all the types we have grown.Bill has an interesting , rustic  set of poles for them to climb. (click for full size image)

They soon do a good job of completely covering all the poles from bottom to top (and beyond).

Here is the skeleton in late June.

The beans are touted as growing 6-8 Ft. tall, but I think they would go as tall as the poles would allow.

It is a joy to browse the patch and pick the lovely dangling beans.Usually there is a set of 2 or 4 ready at any given time. 

Their are several seed sources for these, but we have purchased them from Lindenberg Seed in Manitoba for the last few years.

It doesn't take a huge number to make lots for a meal or two.

Each can get to be quite a generous size while still retaining their flavour and tenderness. 

The littlest seem to get eaten raw!

It is very easy to miss them while picking, and inevitably a few get missed....these are the ones that can sometimes get a little large.

Even the "average" sized ones are 8 or 9 inches in length. It helps with the picking when they get too high to reach....they dangle down quite well.

Our little basil forest -

We have had quite a successful growth of basil this summer, probably due in part to lots of sunny weather. We have grown most of our basil in planters for the last several years, and seem to have better success doing so. These planters are located on our faithful potting table and get a reasonable amount of daily sun.

We also have one pot on the back step which is handy for a quick nip of basil anytime.

 

Click to see the post on CG Forum

Our little basil forest - Garden Gallery - Canadian Gardening Forums

In general it is nice to grow herbs in pots. A collage of some from our back step 

(click for larger image)

Sharon's Wonderful Flowerpicking Spree

Early this Friday the thirteenth, the dog, two cats and I set out to pick a great assortment of floral material. It had been a very cool night so everything was very fresh and well hydrated. My neighbor had asked for some flowers to help her prepare several large arrangements for an outdoor wedding on Saturday. She didn't have to adhere to any great colour theme, so she will have a good time putting all this material together with some from her own garden. Sometimes I think we don't have a very good "cutting" garden, but am always quite pleased with what we find. I took the wheelbarrow out to the back garden areas. One's arms soon get a bit too full. (Click the images for a full size)

She was quite anxious to have a few lilies, so one bucket contained part of those. Hopefully the pollen doesn't stain the white ones too badly. The white is one called Simplon. The pinks are StarGazers and Berlin. Another bucket has a stalk of Tom Pouce. 

I had four buckets ready for the "volunteers". Here they are all filled. 

Here is a little collage of several groups. All in all it was a very nice way to start the day.

As an addendum, here are a couple of the finished products...Norma did an awesome job. These were emailed to me this morning.