Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Volunteers

Blogger is giving me fits this evening, so please bear with me while I attempt to complete this post!

In a former life, I was a fervent gardener, and would spend most days weeding, pruning, fertilizing, and simply enjoying the fruits of my labor. Fibers, dyes, and warnings about sun exposure from my Dermatologist have totally changed my life. That said, I must tell you that our realtor friend Michael and my blogger friend Elizabeth are rekindling
the old gardening flame! We walk past Michael's glorious Midtown Atlanta garden every chance I get, and it keeps me energized to see what he can do right there in the city! Then I see Elizabeth's beautiful flower pictures on her blog, and I'm further enchanted. She and I email frequently about her gardening techniques, and I vow to get out there and dig in the dirt! She wrote recently about using coffee grounds, egg shells and banana peels on her roses. Well, I took her quite literally and began to make a rose 'tea' by blending our morning banana peels, coffee grounds and the occasional egg shell. It works!!!! My roses are loving it, as evidenced by the new shoots on this rose!

C and I have been composting for as long as I can remember, and during the summer months, we eat so many fresh veggies and fruits that our compost pail is full almost every day with the corn cobs, silks, bean ends, etc. So, the rose tea is a good w
ay to slow down the ever increasing pail occupants and to love on my roses at the same time.

Our compost is always giving! This Spring, I moved a potted croton plant outdoors to the pool patio for some added sun and topped off the pot with a bit of compost. About a week later, I noticed several tomato plants sprouting around the sides of the pot. Now we are enjoying the juciest Roma tomatoes from those little volunteers:



And then there are the 'squash vines' that sprout annually from my compst bins! A few years back we had wonderful pumpkins just in time for Halloween....and I didn't have to pay a cent for them! This year I couldn't wait to see what developed from our 'squash' vines....and you can see that we have gourds!








How cool is that!!!
So, I won't have to buy ornamental gourds this Fall!







One of my favorite volunteers is this beautiful Sweet Autumn clematis, which has just started to bloom on the fence leading to my studio. When I purchased its great grandmother, Greta (the nursery owner) snickered and asked why I would want to purchase such an invasive plant....I guess you can see why! Oh, and Barker seems to like it too!





We were away for a day, but now that we're home and I'm back in business, I hope to have some fiber shots for you tomorrow or the next day! Thanks for coming by to visit!


PEACE TO YOU!!!

8 comments:

Jeff Hickmott said...

Judy, that is so cool. You probably don't know this about me but back in the day I was an avid gardener, and probably still would be were it not for the fact that I don't have a garden. In 1996 I took a 7-week course in Everett, WA through the county and WWU and became a "Master Recycler Composter" and received 4 credits in Waste Management from WWU. I had a great garden, a worm bin, and so many zucchini and raspberries one year I was giving the stuff away!

Carol said...

Judy, you never fail to amaze me. I knew you loved your garden but this post is great. I'm struggling with our compost bins, trying to get the mix just right. We never stop reading and talking about compost. I'm going to get another one started this week. Maybe I'm in the wrong blogging business - I should be talking about gardening and compost, not book binding.XXOO

Anonymous said...

Bingo! Gaby always uses coffee grounds and crushed eggshells in the garden on our balcony. It must be an old Indian custom, and boy, does it work! I'll tell her about the banana peels.
xx
SIL C

Eva Hagbjärn said...

What lovely volunteers and Barker is lovely too!

XO

Diana Parkes said...

Hi Judy: lovely to hear about your garden. I am a keen gardener too. I have just finished the winter tidy-up in my garden and this included lots of cutting back as some things had gotten too big. Am now starting to prepare vege gardens for eventual planting. It is early spring here! Cheers Diana

Morna Crites-Moore said...

Thanks for visiting my blog, Judy. Your comment is exactly how i feel about the embellisher ... I try to talk myself out of it, but then I see beautiful embellisher work and the longing starts anew! :)

Jeannie said...

The thrill and unexpected joys of gardening! I love my Sweet Autumn Clematis vine. It looks like stars in the evening and smells heavenly.

Elizabeth said...

Your rose is loving you for sure!!
my Belinda's Dream is puttin on it's fall show- got to love all of this garden beauty!!
hugs!
Elizabeth