Preparing for Fall and Dahlia Projects

As the end of the season comes to an end it’s time to get ready for winter preparation and digging up the dahlias very soon. This also comes with the task of making sure that everything is labeled before the freeze and also collecting seeds from the plants before that day comes.

Over the last couple weeks I have been collecting seed pods and have been able to harvest and store several already. In the process of doing this I am learning some things that I had questions about previously. 

Like where do the seeds form after they have been pollinated and my curiosity led me to do some dissecting and took some pictures to share with you. The fact that each seed inside the pod could be a different flower depending on what bee visited and which flowers are pollinated is amazing and it’s blowing my mind a little bit. 

Ive seen a ton of pictures online about tubers and also what they look like and how to recognize the eyes etc, what the seeds look like but I’ve never seen the inside of a pod. Now with my seed collecting project, the information is all coming together for me. I am able to see now what an immature seed and a mature seed looks like and to only collect the large viable ones. The seeds pods that are still slightly green, are left to dry until they turn a sort of papery brown color and I’ve been opening them and allowing them to air dry overnight and this has been sort of my nightly ritual of working on at least one or two seed heads per night until they are separated into their own bags labeled with the seed parent. Most of these first ones that I am currently working on are from dahlias that I grew last year from seeds in 2023 garden and in the fall I collected the tubers and replanted them. These will be labeled so I know who the seed parent is. 

I’m getting really excited about trying to create some new varieties of dahlias to expand on my collection. It’s still fairly small but I’m wanting to definitely create a larger one next summer. 

Now that I know that I can store the tubers with success in my climate and indoors, I am going to keep at it and grow them again next spring as well.

Hiking with Luna at Kings Canyon

This weekend was very productive. Saturday I drove and picked up Luna and took her to Kings Canyon for a small hike. It’s been several weeks since we have walked in this area. The early mornings have been cooler but I didn’t realize it was going to heat up so quickly. It got really hot by 10:30. We hiked farther than we had in the past in this part of the trail. I do have fears of the mountain lion in the area and have seen several signs that they are around, so I’m not as active out by myself as much as I use to be. I try my best to work through my fears though and keep doing the things that I love. It was a nice hike and we made a new friend while we were there too. She has 6 huskies and is very involved in mushing with her little team, she had lots of good information to share with me. I’ve thought about teaching Luna to pull and start training so this winter we can have fun in the snow together. I haven’t explored anything yet so meeting someone who is very experienced was got me excited about it  again. 

After our hike I spent some time in the garden getting things ready for fall. Dug up some weeds and tree suckers and made some flower arrangements and picked some veggies for a friend who stopped by to say hello. 

Today I got a late start, slept in later than usual, then went to the garden and worked on some garden clean up and picked more flowers for the house and more tomatoes. Luna helped ❤️ 

Leaf Cutter Bee in the Zinnias

This is such a cool thing that I discovered last summer in the zinnia flowers!

Based right at the intersection of the leaf and the stem I found this leafy papery shape, like a cocoon of some type. The first thing that popped into my mind was leafcutter bee. No idea where I might have heard that before but possibly when my son was little we read about them. So I looked it up and that’s what it is. So cool!!! I am so very interested in all the workings of the insects in the garden. They all have a purpose here and I’m so happy when I get to see these little miracles in action right in the backyard. 

Now it makes sense why I have been seeing holes cut out of some of the leaves around here. Fun to know! These bees are very beneficial to the garden and they are friendly. From what I’ve read, they don’t sting like other bees. I wish that they would have chosen a safer spot in the garden to make their nest because I needed to now make a mental note not to pick any of these flowers. In order to provide a safe place for them to nest, I decided that I am going to make some nesting boxes for them and that way I can watch them closely and also learn more about them. In my search for more information about these cool bees I ran into a video posted online by OwlTv

Leafcutter bee video by WildOwl Tv

Seeing this video makes me even more excited to build some boxes for them so that they are more protected!

Looking Back at My First Garden - 20 Years Ago

I was looking through some old photos today on my computer and found this picture of my very first garden where I am standing knee deep in the flowers. I look so serious here. I believe the picture was taken in 2003, when we first moved to Nevada. I love visiting old photographs like this. I was beyond excited to have a place that I could create a garden for my family. I was eager to learn everything that I could. It was a tiny garden but I made it amazing and packed as much as I could into the small space that I had to work with. It was at the back side of a hill with open space and no homes behind us and no fencing. I remember it being the perfect little place for me to let my creativity explore.

My favorite thing to grow at that time was tomatoes and made some great canned salsa that year. Sunflowers and zinnia were my favorite flowers. I also started becoming very interested in taking pictures of the flowers in my garden and also enjoyed the beneficial insects that visited. 

Macro photography was a lot of fun and this allowed me to also teach my children about them and share the excitement about the garden.

Here are a few pictures that I took during my first few years as a new gardener.

I had a box with lots of extra tiles, so I sprinkled them loosely on the ground to add a splash of color and add interest. There is one pink spider flower right in the middle of the zinnia to the left.

One of the first things that I grew were zinnias and I remember them being so amazing! If you are new to gardening and want an easy to grow flower, I suggest zinnias. They bloom for a very long time. They are still one of my favorites today and my garden is not complete without them. The ones that are pictured here are California Giants. Now several years forward, my favorites now include Oklahoma Salmon and also the Benary varieties like the Giant wine and also the Carmine Pink. Over the years I have noticed that I am more fond of pink flowers than I ever was before.

I grew these cute sunflowers and created a pretty bouquet standing out in the garden. These cuties are called Teddy Bear Sunflowers. I grew some here in the summer of 2022 but they were not near as stunning as you see pictured here. I think that I could try again next summer and hope they might do better.

Luna Love 💗

I never imagined that my love would develop so strongly for a dog after the things that I’ve experienced, but this beautiful girl is changing my whole world. I have had some trust issues when it comes to large dogs, due to bad past experiences. 

When I was 2 years old, I was on a camping trip in the mountains with my family and I put my arms around our friends dog to give it a hug and it bit my ear off, to where it was only hanging from a tiny piece of skin. My mom said that the doctors were unsure that they would be able to sew it back together because of how badly it was torn, but they did it. This was a very traumatic experience as a small child, but it didn’t surface as a serious issue until my adult life when I was bit a second time by a dog. After that, there was something that occurred inside my body and I was not able to sleep for almost 4 days. This was a difficult time in my life and very scary and I could not figure out what was happening to me and why I could not sleep. I soon discovered that it was a result of my trauma.

It’s changed everything for me in my life today. It’s been 18 years since the second bite and I still cannot sleep without herbal teas and medicines. The one thing that Ive learned through it all, is to be compassionate with myself. There are times when I get down about what I struggle with, but Ive learned to be gentle with myself and accept myself the way I am.

The most important thing is that I’ve learned is to learn to trust again because it is allowing me to heal in many ways. For several years I wouldn’t go near other dogs and was especially fearful of large ones. I avoided them and was upset with myself for having this fear.  I gradually got closer to dogs in 2016 and learned to trust a little more, but I still had an issue with it. 

Just 7 months ago Luna came into our lives. She is mainly meant for my friend, who is in a wheelchair and is in need of a support dog, but she has gradually been helping me to trust again and has been a great support to me as well.

The first week I met her, I was intimidated by her size and I would try and work through that fear by purposely sitting next to her on the couch and I could feel my body shaking and this bothered me a lot. My friend told me that she would never harm me and that she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body and to trust. Everyday it has gotten better and we have bonded now. I can get close to her and put my arms around her and I know she will not hurt me. I feel so connected to her now and she is my best friend. I take her on hikes and we explore trails together. She continues to help me work through my fears and I help her work through hers❤️she came from a tough background as well so I feel like together we are good for each other. 

These pictures were taken when her dad was in the hospital recently and I stayed with her for a week caring for her. I was with her in the garden in the early mornings before leaving for work and it was beautiful being with her and having my morning coffee while visiting all of the flowers and listening to the birds. These moments are precious to me and I’m so happy that I can also provide her with comfort and care when she needs it.

 

New Rose Garden Completion

A rose garden is not something that Ive even thought that I’d be creating, so it completely surprised me and I am so love with them now. 

I’ve always been a grower of all flowers, just not roses. It never occurred to me that I’d love them so much! When I told my mom that I wanted to grow roses during my birthday, she reminded me that my grandfather use to have a big rose garden and she told me that I was going to love them. Now every time I am in the garden I remember what she said and she is right!

This entire yard has seen a huge transformation, starting back in 2022 when I planted the first perennial garden in the front. During this time I also worked on the backyard as much as I could in my free time, but it was so overwhelming and heavily weeded and big, so I decided to only focus my energies on the front part of the yard and getting it established first. 

Then my plan was to next get the back garden boxes put together and work on that part of the garden the following spring of 2023. That is when I moved the dirt and got all the beds along the fence set up for growing. I did not have much interested in putting anything in the current rose garden area at all, but grew one zucchini plant there last year along with some cosmos and a sunflower but that part of the yard was of very little interest and had no plans. 

 It wasn’t until my birthday in the spring of 2024 that I had the idea of making a rose garden. It’s always been a thing for me, every birthday I love visiting the nursery and picking up new spring plants. Even though I grow almost everything from seed, I still love the feel of being in a nursery and it makes me happy! Sometimes I buy small things at to fill in the gaps or just when I feel like it. But this year, my kids asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I said Roses!! Not the ones that you put in a vase and throw away!! I wanted to build a rose garden so I could enjoy roses for a long time and many years to come. Also an added benefit was to make the yard more visually appealing around the aluminum wheelchair ramp that accesses the back yard. It might actually turn out to be perfect. So I went to work, shopping and I bought a few varieties at my local hardware store and also ordered one special rose that I loved from the greenhouse garden center to pick up around Mother’s Day, just in time to plant for spring. Here is one I picked up (pictured above) and is in the front seat of my car. Such an exciting day!!

I wanted some different types of roses too, so I also bought some bare root English roses online from David Austin,(pictured here) no idea what to expect. They looked scary and I was just hoping for the best and that I could keep them alive. I’ve never grown a rose bush before and not the slightest idea of how to take care of them, but I’m excited now to learn!  

I bought 6 at the hardware store and so far 3 of those turned out to be nothing like the label, but I love them anyways. Same is true for 2 of my 5 David Austin’s but they are still lovely and enjoying every minute of them!! They are all very wonderful and I cannot believe I’ve waited this long to experience the joy of having roses. The smell just takes me away to another world and the colors are stunning! 

Watch the video to see what this spot looked like in spring of 2023 before the tree was removed.  

Growing Celery - Summer 2023

 This was my first time growing celery and from what I’ve read, people have mentioned it’s a hard crop to grow. I felt slightly intimidated by this but I tried it anyways and surprisingly I didn’t find it too difficult, I just found that they took awhile to grow. They turned out beautiful. I may have planted too many, but I always do that, not knowing what will survive and what won’t I always plant more than I think I might need. Every single one survived so I had a ton of celery. I think that they were a little dry and lacking in water content but that was the biggest compliant. Other than that, they were wonderful. If planting them again I will only plant maybe 6 plants as I planted every seed that germinated so I had close to 12 plants which was too much! 

I don’t really use celery for cooking too much. I mainly grew them because I wanted to use them for juicing, but I don’t even own a juicer and didn't get around to buying one yet! 😊 

This is what I used my celery for. Some refreshing infused flavored water just like you find at the spa. 

I bought this beautiful large glass pitcher so that I can enjoy making this at home. 

You can use any combination of fresh ingredients that you like and fill with water and add ice as desired. Infuse for at least thirty minutes to let flavors emerge. I left mine overnight but you should not leave longer than that and should be enjoyed right away.  

As always most of the food that I grow here goes to my friend but there are many crops that I grow that he won’t eat so it balances out and we both get the things we love and share what we grow quite a bit.

I make sure to always grow his favorite things, so we can both have fresh food we enjoy. There are not many vegetables that I won’t eat. I pretty much will eat everything that I grow. I’m not too picky and love anything fresh from the garden! For some fresh cucumber, lemon and celery infused yummy water this is all you will need. 

 

A large glass pitcher and filtered water

2-3 slices cucumber, long and thin strips

A half stalk of celery, cut in half lengthwise

1 large slice of lemon

You can always adjust the amounts according to your taste 🍋🥒🥒

Bachelor Buttons

 I love Bachelor Buttons because they are so easy to grow. This year they all completely self seeded from last years flowers so it made things a little easier for me, I just left the ones that I wanted to grow in the ground and pulled the ones that I didn’t. There was something fun to this as it added a little sense of surprise because I wasn’t sure which color they’d be. I had about 5 different colors last year, with blue being my favorite! 

I love the natural meadow look that this flower provides and makes the rest of the garden flower pop. It is very attractive to Butterflies, and the bees just adore them. This is so important to have flowers that attract the pollinators. I believe the more variety flowers,the better! This is great for attracting more beneficial insects to the garden as well, which is important for natural pest control. I don’t believe in using chemicals in my garden so I heavily rely on nature to do this magical work for me! 

  

In order to keep this flower blooming and looking tidy, you will need to deadhead frequently, otherwise it will go to seed fairly quickly like you see in the photos above.

My First Potato Harvest and what I’ve Learned

Growing potatoes was such an exciting part of my gardening learning experience this summer! I knew very little about growing them so I was very intimidated by the thought of it, but I tried it anyways and so happy that I did! 

I have learned a few important things, so I’d like to share this with you and what I’ve learned. I knew nothing about growing them so I relied heavily on the resources online and through talking to a few family members who have grown them for some knowledge. 

Some of the first articles on growing potatoes mentioned that you should hill them. I had no reason to question this, so the first thing I did was bought several bags of soil so that I had a steady supply, then I realized that there was no way that I would be able to continue hilling up soil around the bases and I was running out of room in my flower bed so that is when I started to question it and looked around online for more information on the topic and why I needs to do it in the first place.

I also looked into other ways to cover the bases and some people said straw and wood chips and then I started to run into more Information about why you don’t want to add straw because it would kill your crops and it just seemed like it was getting too complicated, but I know that when you do anything you are going to always run into people who do things differently or have their own opinions.

That is when I found Luke from MiGardener on YouTube and he talked about some common misconceptions on growing potatoes, and he went over the hilling myth and I was so relieved that I could just stop doing this and relax. I did not know that potatoes actually grow deep so there is no way that they would start popping up out of the dirt, lol! It’s silly to think about now and how much stress this caused me to feel. 

Im so thankful for that information because it changed everything for me. I was able to finally enjoy the process of growing potatoes and for a change and it made sense.

Another issue that I ran into was that some of the leaves on part of the crop was starting to turn rusty and spotty and this did not seem like a good thing to me and found that it could possibly be potato blight or another disease. This made me sad because my entire crop could fail. I thought about how real potato farmers must feel and what they go through when this happens because it’s on such a large scale and is their livelihood and they depend on it for survival. I suddenly had so much compassion for people who do this as a way of life. 

I did as much  as I could to avoid top watering of the leaves and prevent the spread of whatever it was, and also started to remove some of the leaves and disposing of them. I read articles that said that you should burn the leaves and then I questioned if removing the leaves was bad and actually I found that removing them could be better for the formation of the tubers and sends the energy down underground. Another thing that I noticed was that after some of the first blossoms I saw some cut marks on them and they would drop off, but I didn’t worry too much about that since I read that removing the blossoms could potentially create a positive thing for the tuber development.

It’s just amazing at the information that is available out there and this has been such a huge help in my journey in gardening. I do a lot by feel and intuition but also it makes me happy that others are available to share what knowledge they have as well. Overall I am so happy with my crop of potatoes this year and how easy it was once I had better knowledge. I will definitely be growing again next year! I was able to weigh my harvest on a scale and it came to just under 25 pounds!

Here is a look at my harvest day and how it went

Dahlia Dinnerplate Bloom

Last night after work all I wanted to do was lay in the grass and relax in the garden and enjoy the sunset. I was so focused on how nice it felt to relax that I didn’t notice this flower at first but I was so excited when I saw this!! I’ve been waiting for so long for it to open and finally it’s here!!! I know I mentioned that this is only my second year of growing dahlias but this tuber was the only one that survived the dinnerplate series that I overwintered. I wasn’t even sure that it was going to produce a flower. From all that I’ve read and learned about Dahlias they continue to amaze me all the time! I remember reading that it doesn’t matter when it comes to the size of the tuber, and that even the tiniest tubers can produce the biggest flowers. This was hard to believe but I remained hopeful that this information was true. Also the tuber that I planted wasn’t the prettiest and I’ve also read that you can’t always judge the looks of the tuber. This is an absolutely stunning flower and my hope is that when I dig up the tubers this fall, they will have multiplied and be blessed with many more 💕

Harvesting Green Beans

This time of year gets a little crazy when it comes to being able to keep up with the harvesting of green beans. I like them when they are smaller and it seems like there is a window of picking opportunity to get the best ones. When they are left for too long they get a little tough and then the stage right after that they are not at all edible. I currently have a constant supply of beans for dinner and lunches and I feel like I am never tired of them. Last year I grew cantaloupe in half of the box and I decided to change it up a little bit and it’s entirely all beans this year.

The variety of bean that is growing here is called Blue Lake Pole Beans from Botanical Interests

I created a small arbor that goes from one box to the other and I posted a little about it last 

summer. You can see more at this link 

 

Magical Garden

I frequently get so busy with life and the constant going and going, that moments like the one tonight is just magical to me.

After walking the dog after work, mowing the new patch of grass and tending to the rose garden, I did some late night watering and looked around me and the feeling that had made me me feel so blessed. I am truly thankful to have this space to create in.

This picture is pretty dark but I tried to capture this moment before the sun went down. My favorite thing to do in the evenings is to sit in the back in between the garden boxes and the fence so I’m under the flowers and I get the feeling I’m in another world with the sunflowers towering above my head making almost a tunnel shape. It’s so peaceful and quiet. Every once in awhile I will be lucky to spot a hummingbird as it zips by going from flower to flower and the birds singing and feeding off of the sunflowers. It’s just the sweetest feeling in the world. 

 

Making my first tinctures

In my last post I mentioned that I wanted to explore the world of tinctures and make my first California Poppy Blend along with some other flowers that I am growing in the garden. I decided to try making a few jars with what I already had harvested for making teas since they were mostly dry. I researched a few different websites and followed some advice that I read about the process. Some people mentioned that it is better to use the dried flowers as it makes the tincture more potent. I decided to try a little of both fresh and dried in hopes to get more of a rounded overall tincture. I also used Vodka for this process. I started off with enough to make 3 jars of the poppy and I also had some lavender that I started drying in bundles inside in the springtime, so I decided to try 2 jars of that as well. Currently they are still soaking and have about 3 weeks left to go. I found some instructions online so that really gave me the confidence to try it out. I will update on how it turned out very soon.

Harvesting California Poppies

I have a new favorite tea that I’ve been drinking before bed and it’s called soothing caramel tea which is made by the Yogi tea company. I love so many of their teas but this one has become my favorite. One of the ingredients in the tea is California poppies.  I think that this blend helps me to get better nights sleep than the Valarian root tea that I was drinking previously. I still enjoy Valarian tea on occasion but I do prefer the taste of the poppy tea best. Since I enjoy making my own teas from the medicinal plants I grow, I first did some research on this flower to see if it was safe to grow and what parts of the plants are harvested. I grew a few varieties but this bright orange one was the best producing flower with beautiful bright blooms. They were a little slow to get started but now are doing every well. Here I am harvesting some of the poppies that I currently have growing. First they will need to be dried and later will decide what I will put in the tea blend. I might add some chamomile flowers to the mix which is another one of my favorites. 

I also have an interest in making tinctures from some of the plants I have growing and have begun to research a little on the topic, I will be sure to post what Ive learned if I ever choose to explore that path.

To the left is a picture of some of the poppies I have harvested in the basket and below is a picture of the dried poppies after cutting them up. 

New Lawn for Luna

In July I started a new project growing a new lawn from seed. Having grass would be nice for a few reasons. One great benefit is that it will cut down on the dust. There is so much dirt here and when the wind blows it’s very uncomfortable. Plus my friend had mentioned that he would like to have a lawn, so I wanted to make that come true for him. And the dog is going to love it!! I thought that if it didn’t work out, I would just consider it an experiment. I think that this made it easier for me to go into this project without the pressure of needing to be perfect and was prepared for whatever the result would be.

I’ve heard of people growing a clover mixture lawn and some have even grown an entire lawn with it, so I did a little research on the topic and reviewed opinions and also some of the advantages and the disadvantages but there was very little that discouraged me from going forward with it and trying it. I started off small. If I was successful with a small patch of grass, I would continue the process and extend it to the front perennial gardens and up to the driveway.

First I stared by raking the area to flatten it as much as possible and removed the weeds and large rocks and sticks. Then I sprinkled some compost on the surface using a bucket, watered well so that the seeds would stick to the soil surface better. Then I sprinkled some grass seed using a slotted spoon and a bucket. I did not have a professional seed spreader, and topped with a fine layer of peat moss and compost mix. I made a fenced off area with some bamboo stakes and some twine  to keep the dog out and continued to keep it well watered several times a day.  Day 4 is when the growth really started to show and on around day 25 it was ready for mowing.  I bought a push mower and it’s really amazing! I am very happy with it! It’s so cute to watch Luna and seeing her excitement when the string fence was removed and she was finally allowed to step inside.

The process of seeding started with some white clover and then I realized that what I really wanted was microclover because it’s suppose to hold up to heavy traffic better and is way more dense. For now I only have the white clover growing and so far I really love it, it’s so soft! I have read that it is not as affected by dog urine as much as grass is, but it’s too soon to know right now. The first grass seed that I started was Kentucky blue Grass since that was one my friend suggested and that he has used on all his properties in the past.  Then I tried a mixture called landscapers mix and another one that was for a high traffic. lol I am experimenting at this point and see what happens. I’ve been using a little of everything. 

The video shows the process from start to finish but I didn’t record the seeding part. I found that the most rewarding part of this whole project is that the entire process took under a month to complete and Ive made one happy dog in the process. It has been a great place to gather around the back garden and be cool and away from the summer heat. I also find that laying in the grass with the dog in the late afternoons is extremely relaxing. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed grass until now. I am most grateful for the small things that are really great big things in my life!