Blog Archives
Friday PhotoEssay & Link Around
It isn’t often that I’ve gone outside the boundaries of our Demonstration Garden for pictures or post topics, but since our garden is pretty barren right now (see the previous post), I wanted to keep providing some garden eye candy for as long as possible. This week, I went out and visited the rose garden!
Our hybrid rose garden is still looking amazing, even after a few freezes. Aren’t these roses gorgeous?
This if the flower from the ‘Mister Lincoln’ hybrid tea rose. It is an older hybrid tea (introduced in the 1960s), and has big, beautiful flowers. A lot of catalogs show it as being a redder rose, but ours is definitely a paler, fuchsia color.
I also found a number of different articles and recipes to share this week, covering quite a range of topics. Read the rest of this entry
Video Wednesday: Taking Cuttings
This video is maybe a little late, since we’ve already had a couple cold nights, but if you still have some plants you’d like to save cuttings from for next year, this is a great how-to video.
Friday PhotoEssay
I’ve got a few more pictures to share from the destruction this week. Maybe then we can move on to happier topics.
Here’s our version of those really expensive tricolor pepper packages you see in the store. These peppers were hidden lower on the plants, and so didn’t get picked when they were smaller. I know I have a hard time leaving them on the plants long enough to get this big.
Poor habaneros – the plants were covered in blooms this week, but no peppers. Maybe we’ll try them again next year.
I know the glare on the plastic bag is bad, but I was too lazy to dump out all these little guys. We had a full gallon bag of these Mini Belle Peppers. I wish they had been about twice the size.
Another look at our overflowing compost bin. I was really sad to pull out those citrus marigolds. I think everyone else was too, because they were almost the last thing removed, and I ended up doing the deed.
We did have a few casualties during garden demolition this week…I didn’t see this one occur, until the aftermath. Poor screwdriver. I also know there’s a missing hammer head somewhere in the garden. I’m actually surprised that we didn’t break at least one shovel in the process, since we were using them as crowbars.
Have a great weekend!
Video Wednesday
We’re definitely winding down this week! I’ll have some fun pictures to share tomorrow and Friday. If you have some flowers, here’s a short video about saving seeds.
Friday PhotoEssay
I hadn’t really realized how much I miss all the fall gardening that we usually do until I was going through some pictures from the last 2 years. It makes our garden this fall seem pretty sad.
I’m sure the tomatoes are the main culprit for the sadness. These two plants toppled over in the wind a couple days ago. They just got too top heavy with all the growth and fruit at the top, and then the wind knocked them over. Luckily, it seems like no harm was done. I stood them up and stuck a couple posts in the cages to help hold them up.
Some of the Master Gardeners worked on planting a new shade trial garden this week. We have several different types of ornamentals and grasses that we are testing for K-State to see how well they do in a situation where they are competing with tree roots in a non-improved soil.
The Mini Belle Peppers are fairly prolific, although the fruit are still about 1/2 to 1/3 the size I think they should be. They probably need more fertilizer, but they aren’t going to get it. Isn’t that orange color beautiful, though?
Last year, the citrus marigolds just keeled over in the heat of summer. This year, the plant didn’t look very good for most of the summer, but it is finally holding its own. I love the lacy foliage with the tiny blooms. I did try eating one (yes, they’re edible), and it wasn’t bad. But not quite good enough for me to dig out that citrus marigold sauce recipe.
I haven’t shared as many cooking adventures this year, but here’s a picture of one interesting experiment. This is a Peanut-Pork Satay with lots of peppers, and instead of noodles or rice, we made Cucumber Noodles. Yes, that’s right – that slightly green pile of noodles is 100% cucumber. (Well…probably 98%, by the time you account for butter and seasoning.) We sliced the cucumbers into noodles with a mandolin slicer, blanched them in boiling water, drained them, then sauteed them in butter. They were pretty good!
Here are 4 of the 5 melons we picked this week. They are pretty small, and unfortunately, not very tasty. The small ones tasted over-ripe and mealy. The larger ones were better, but still not as sweet as we might have wished.
Have a great weekend! Next week – Garden Demolition!
