These pictures are probably a week old now but I'm very excited!!! All three tomato stalks are flowering and fruiting. :)
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You know what? I'm going to make a bold statement and say that gardening has matured me and made me a better human being. Why do I say that? Well, this hydrangea is my teacher and taught me some valuable lessons. This hydrangea is the first one we bought. I searched through my archives and realized we brought this baby home 2 years ago! Wow, how time flies. At the time, I was as newbie as a newbie can be to gardening. Though I definitely still consider myself a beginner today, I'm farther along than I was 2 years ago. Looking back in one of my first garden updates, I amaze myself at how full and gorgeous the bush was when we first bought it! But things quickly took a turn for ill shortly after that and the leaves of the plant seemed to be under some sort of mold attack. I also struggled with "Am I overwatering or underwatering?" and "Does it actually like sun or not?" The poor plant was getting dragged to the four corners of the garden as I proceeded with trial & error. I lamented in the start of my 2012 garden that even though it was growing leaves, it'll probably never flower. And I was right, the hydrangea never flowered in the 2012 season. (We know now that we shouldn't have cut the stems down to the ground even though it was fighting a disease. Live and learn.) I told David that we should just buy new ones and throw this one away and we did. We bought 2 more hydrangeas last year in June and planted them. The following shot is June 2012. You can see the pot of hydrangea has leaves but no flowers even though it's flowering season. Good thing David has a soft heart for plants and I am forgetful, because we just left the first hydrangea alone. I didn't even want to bother looking at it. So winter 2012 came and gone and the hydrangea basically dropped all its leaves and looked like a scraggily skeleton. I didn't even want to take a picture of it. I took the following picture literally minutes ago. The bush probably doubled in size compared to last year and It is just thriving. You can see the first white bloom. It is massive. And there are many more bud clusters forming and I'm so hopeful and delighted. I know it's silly and it's probably one of those things you appreciate if you go through it yourself, but from these two years I learned the importance of waiting and letting things play out. Yes, in that moment of adversity, it's bad. And depressing. And you want to just toss it out of your sight to move on. The garden has taught me that things are seasonal. There is truly a time for everything under the sun. If right now is a time to mourn, then later there will be a time for laughing. Wait. Be patient. And it will surely come. Remaining hopeful is so important. Now you know why I have enough still shots to make a time-lapse video of its first bloom this year. :) I've been waiting for this flower for a while. And it's definitely my time of laughter and joy. :) On the subject of joy, here are the flowers of the 2 hydrangeas planted last year. I am in love of this beautiful blue-purple hued flower. It's just gorgeous. This one was supposed to be a blushing pink color but perhaps the pink forgot to return. :) I don't know. But I'll take another white/green hydrangea. This one didn't recover from winter as well as the blue one above but I've learned my lesson -- there's always next year.
Yes, I'm squealing like a teenager right now. WE JUST BOUGHT 2 PEONIES!!! Here's a teaser. :) Okay, I need to calm down. Here's what happened. Last night when we got back from Sweet Tomatoes, we noticed that the left rear tire was flat! Nothing like a flat tire to deflate (har har) your day. So we set out change out the tire with a spare and then go somewhere to get it fixed. But for the life of us, we could not find the tool you need to loosen the tire bolts. Me in my infinite genius thought that all those bolts are created equal and quickly produced one from the other car only to realize that it just doesn't fit. Bummer. What to do now? We finally decided to drive it to Costco (we had bought the tires from there). We made the painfully slow 2.5 miles drive to Costco and let out a sigh of relief when we made it without incident. In situations like these, sometimes people imagine weird things happening like...tires flinging off the vehicle (totally unrealistic since we couldn't get the bolts off anyway) or fire erupting from the friction between the road & the tire rim. But thankfully, none of that happened. We got there and panicked for a moment because we thought the tire service place has closed already. No lights and there were chains in front of the "garage" spaces. Oh no! Thank God though, a man happened to walk out at that moment and said they were open after all. Good thing I have a strong heart. So long story long, the man saw the nail in the tire and said they'd patch it for free. Yippee! So we left the car in the lot and went into Costco. So yea, I don't remember leaving Costco without spending money. I think on average we spend $100 per visit or something. And as soon as we walked into the store we saw peonies. Oh no. It was like that time last summer when I saw gardenias when I walked in. And we all know what happened then. Yup, I have no self control. And here they are in our backyard. :) We put them in a shaded part for now to acclimate them to outdoors. We got two blushing pink beauties. There were 3 colors available at Costco: a darker pink, white and the blushing pink. I think the blushing pink ones must be super popular because we moved around several pots to find these. Here's one of them opening! This picture is terrible and does it no justice. The petals are pink, not white as it appears. I'll take a better picture of it someday. Promise. And since I feel like I was being a partial parent, I decided to take pictures of other flowers in the garden. Here's the 100th shot of the blooming hydrangea. I really think I have enough photos of this for one of those time-lapse videos. Lots of strawberry flowers now, too! And our pink nemesia is having a second flowering. So pretty. These would look so nice with the pink blushing peonies. :) I mean, it looks nice all by itself, too. Ahem. So that's my happy story about our peonies. You should read the post again in the voice of a squealing teenager. It's pretty entertaining. :) Update: A truer color of the blooming peony. :)
Seems like all the posts recently are garden-related, huh? :) I think I need to get back to some organizing and sewing projects after planting season is over. The plants are at a time when they require lots of attention. :) Not that I mind. I love our garden. Well, recently we've been seeing flowers! This is the first strawberry flower of the year. I never realized strawberries are so easy to grow. We literally leave them out all winter long, barely watering them but they come back in the spring and even flower! Our hydrangeas are just flowering and growing leaves like mad. Here are a few petals unfurling. :) It's so pretty. We saw a stink bug on it the other night and after doing some research, I read that stink bugs were accidentally introduced to the US. They are pests and not welcome in a garden so I'm glad we immediately got rid of it when we saw it. We noticed a spider living inside a freesia flower. Spiders don't bother me at all, I see them as beneficial insets. Freesias are so rewarding to grow. They are hardy, don't require watering much and they produce the most fragrant flowers. The following photo credit goes to David. :) And finally... my babies (aka sungold tomatoes) are blooming! :) There's a pride in my heart that cannot be explained.
Yesterday I decided to take pictures of the plants growing in the new raised garden bed. I was thinking it would be interesting to document them so I can see the difference a few months down the road. So here's the location of the bed. It's situated in the sunniest corner of our garden. And here's what it looks like. We planted herbs on the left side and the seeds on the right side. We relocated the lemon thyme from its pot to the bed and David remarked that the leaves seem to be so much bigger than before. Granted, it was in a pretty small pot before so that's probably why. Our parsley is also here and it's just been thriving here. I think we need to use some of the leaves so it won't get too leggy. And this is our cilantro. Same story as the parsley -- need to use so it won't get too leggy and unwieldy. We were growing our pot of basil next to a sunny window but we noticed that the stems and leaves were turning yellow no matter how much we watered. So we decided to move it out of the house and into the garden bed. We realized that there were actually 5 separate plants in that pot! After reading some gardening forums, I realized that it was turning yellow because it was lacking nutrients. So the relocation was perfect and we now see green leaves emerging from the plants. :) Hopefully all five plants will grow nice and bushy for us. Then we have the alliums. The farthest back is a red onion we planted. We also planted 3 garlic bulbs (I plan on planting more when we buy some Gilroy garlic from the farmer's market). So far they are growing well and we've read they are good pest deterrents so we're excited to have them in the bed. Here's the red onion up close. Then there is the seed part of the bed. I planted some mesclun lettuce seeds and seedlings have emerged already after just a few days! They look like butterflies on the soil, ready for lift-off. We grew them last year, too, and honestly we didn't really get a good harvest. I'm hoping this year would be better. :) This year I decided to plant mini lettuce heads. I was hoping to find mini romaine lettuce seeds but didn't see them for sale anywhere. So we bought the mini butter lettuce seeds and here are the cute seedlings. I foresee a lot of healthy salads this summer. :) I also planted some cosmos seeds. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll get flowers to cut this year. Here is a seedling. This isn't in the garden bed but I'd be amiss if I didn't mention our mint. We had a pot of mint last year and it was completely root bound. So we removed it from the pot, cut away a lot of the roots and repotted them in two separate pots. We didn't plant mint in the garden bed because it'll basically become a mafia boss and take over the whole thing, squishing out all the other plants. After all that planting and repotting our hands and tools were wonderfully worn. The rest of the post isn't about the garden bed but just some updates on our other plants. The hydrangea is putting forth flowers! And has grown super healthy and bushy! Our freesia has flowered! And it smells soooo good. I'm hoping these guys propagate and we can have more freesia bulbs going next year. :) And that's it. :) All in all, I think getting the bed really good soil made all the difference. I feel more confident than I ever felt before for having a great harvest this year. :)
This past Sunday felt like two days in one -- in a really good way. I actually woke up at around 8:30 am! Can't remember the last time this happened on a Sunday. :) We joined some friends for brunch at Stacks in Menlo Park at around 9:30 am. I ordered their famous banana macadamia nut & coconut pancakes. It was pretty good! I'm glad we ate a real breakfast because we needed the energy. I think you'll agree with me at the end of the post. :) After brunch we headed over to Half Moon Bay Nursery as we had planned. It's tomato planting season. Yay. :) I am a terrible gardener for most plants, but tomatoes have a special place in my heart so I obey their schedule. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The sun was out and the temperature was comfortable at mid-60s. We saw camelias as we walked into the nursery. Camelias are growing on me. I saw them at Summer Winds a few weeks ago and since then I've been considering planting three camelia bushes along the fence that borders our neighbors. It would make such a pretty hedge, don't you think? :) They are such prolific bloomers as the following picture will tell! Look at how many blossoms are on that small tree! Here are a few closeups of camelias. There were quite a few varieties in the nursery. I didn't capture them all but now I wish I did! We kept walking and were greeted by this beautiful, blooming magnolia tree. It was perfectly situated and stunning with the green hill as a backdrop. Beautiful! We ventured into the shaded area of the nursery and saw these hyacinths! They were just so cute and so perfect. Don't they almost look fake? I wish I can buy it but I know they would die in my hands. So I admired and moved along. And, of course, there is a whole section in the shaded area dedicated to hydrangeas. I remember my first exposure to hydrangeas were when I knew them as ajisai when I visited Japan in 2003. The Japanese loved this flower and would visit temples to view the beautiful "globe flowers" in the summer. It's finally gained popularity here in the United States these recent years and I'm glad! The nursery also has a succulents room. We bought 3 succulents last time we came here, but 2 of them have died (I think from lack of sunlight and overwatering). So we picked out 3 more this time and will be crossing our fingers that they will survive! I forgot to take a picture but the tomato selection was not as impressive as last year (perhaps it's still early in the season?). I was relieved that they did have Sungold and we picked out 3 pots of Sungold (actually we meant to pick out 2 pots of Sungold and 1 pot of Brandywine, oops!). We also picked up a pot of cilantro and left the nursery at around 12:30 pm! Amazing how long the day lasts when one wakes up early. :D We then dropped by Home Depot to get this raised garden bed. I've been researching raised garden beds for a while now and was so excited to come across this one! It's well-priced and well-reviewed. Then we dropped by a local hydroponics store to pick up a few bags of the Fox Farms Happy Frog potting soil. I've also been researching potting soils and the Fox Farms brand seem to be highly regarded so I thought I'd try it out. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon putting the garden bed together (took 15 minutes, it was so easy), filling it with soil and filling in the plants. We decided to move all our herbs (lemon thyme, basil, cilantro and parsley) there. We also moved the garlic and red onion over. I planted some seeds: mini butter lettuce, chives, cosmos, and mesclun mix. My hands were way too dirty to take any pictures and we felt so accomplished at the end of the day. :) I took the following picture today. Someone seems to think the new garden bed is his personal bed. *sigh. This afternoon after work we planted the tomatoes and moved all the pots to the guest room balcony. The room is full west and the tomatoes will love all the light! Can't wait for Sungolds this summer! Wow, that was a really long post. Kudos if you made it all the way through. :) I really enjoyed myself these two days and I feel so lucky to be able to garden. :) And I'm hopeful to have good harvest this year!
"All my hurts my garden spade can heal."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson This was a bad week. A very bad week. I took yesterday off and decided to just garden. I swept, pruned withering maidenhair fronds, gazed at mini-daffodil cups, marveled at leaves sprouting from all nodes of the hydrangea. And I felt better. I took a short trip to Summer Winds and bought myself a pot of pink Nemesia. And I decided to put all the furniture back (except I really needed to wash the cushion so I let those be for now). And then I let out a sigh. A sigh of productivity, of calm, of getting a hold of myself again. I'm far from being whole, but I'm on my way back. And that's something.
Hi Everyone. :) We have the day off from work today so we are taking it really easy. We had a great weekend attending the YASC in San Jose Church. The theme this time was on "Concern for the Church." At first I was sort of not that excited about it because I felt tired last week and also because I felt like I already do have concern for my church. But it seems like I always feel the same way after I go to a seminar: I'm glad I went! Over the weekend David pointed out the window one morning and I saw 3 wee little buttercups! What? When did they decide to bud and flower already? :) It's getting obvious who is the attentive gardener in the family, huh? :) If you remember, these mini daffodils are a gift from David for my last birthday. I simply love how it will continue to bloom annually around my birthday. :) Much better than cut flowers that die in two weeks, right? Although, I will not say no to peonies in June *hint hint*. :D Hope you all a great President's Day!
The weather was great today. It's been a really cold winter here in the Bay Area. I think we're averaging 6 degrees below normal for this time of the year. So it's been tough motivating myself to go out in the garden. The strange thing is, I think all the raining happened early this winter season so we actually haven't gotten that much rain in January. I've been peering out our living room window, though, and have been following the growth of our mini daffodils! Yes, the ones David got me for my birthday last year. We planted the bulbs under the honeysuckles. I was getting pretty curious about what they were like up close so I went out today to take pictures. :) And here they are! Don't they look really healthy and nice? I can't wait for the buttercups to show up. :) They are now about 6 inches tall? They're doing really well. We also planted our tulip bulbs in the same area and I was surprised to see a tulip leaf out of the ground already. Goodness, these must be early bloomers. While you may think it's already spring here, the hydrangeas reminded me that it was still winter. Last year I would've freaked out at the lifeless skeleton that it is now, but I now know that this is just what they look like in the winter while they store up energy for blooms in spring. So I sighed, watered it and just let it be. What was encouraging is seeing signs in the hydrangeas of tiny leaf buds forming. I guess they were sort of telling me, "Don't worry, we'll be back!" And I smiled. The lettuce pot have sort of gone wild. We just sort of let the plants be since last year. No harvest, no planting, and I'm not sure how much watering. But they seem to not care too much and stay a nice shade of green. I am sort of tempted to harvest those frilly leaves below. They look really green and tender. :) The lemon bush is always a joy to see up close. From my living room window I thought nothing was happening and it was just a bush with leaves. But up close, I see all these fruits shading underneath the foliage. It was one of those moments when you gasp at the pleasant surprise of finding 10+ beautiful, yellow lemons hidden in your bush. And finally the gardenia I got from Costco last year. I know it doesn't look impressive in any way but I'll tell you why this sight was comforting to me.
I felt like its ability to live and thrive basically nosedived as soon as I brought it home. At Costco it had like a dozen flower buds and a few open flowers and just seductively fragrant. After I brought it home, though, none of the buds actually blossomed and the whole plant just seemed to have given up living. Leaves turned yellow, no new leaves were forming and buds dropped. It was then pared down to a stubble at the end of the year. I thought about giving up on growing gardenias altogether (even though they are my love, but I guess sometimes you have to love without possessing). But seeing these leaves forming do give me hope although I do see there are still some pests challenging it. I hope they'll find a way to overcome somehow. We'll see what happens this year. So that's a little peek at our garden in the winter. Usually I'm not too keen on tending the plants during the winter so the first visit is always a mixed feeling. I can't wait until tomato season. :) So if you recalled, our first brandywine tomato was stolen by a squirrel. That was a very sad day since a whole month's worth of anticipation quickly dropped to the ground. Well the good news is, there was a baby tomato on the branch and it has been growing and this is what it looked like last week! Admittedly, it is not as beautiful as number one because it has lots of seams and cracks for some reason. But I still waited with guarded anticipation for it to ripen. This time, I tied a small plastic bag around it to throw the squirrels off. That seemed to have done the trick! Well, I felt the tomato's bottom this afternoon and it felt ripe to me! So I harvested it. :) Here it is all red and pretty. As I was about to slice into it, I suddenly felt kind of hesitant. What if it tasted really bland or something? And all this anticipation is for naught? But then I realized it's just a tomato and I will live. So I sliced it up into two bowls and David and I did a taste test together. And. It. was. Delicious! Very meaty and flavorful! I sprinkled some sea salt and some ground pepper and it was divine! Mmm! I wish there were another one on the vine but there isn't. Brandywine is infamous for not being able to keep many flower buds. Well, here's to hoping another one will appear soon! Oh happy, happy day!
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