Red Bud

This is the second year that our Red Bud tree has not flowered.  {Frowny Face}  The recent cold snap two weeks ago must have caused the buds to freeze.  This photo shows a very sparse few branches with flowers.

This was the spring 2012.  Our backyard was glorious with red bud and forsythia blossoms everywhere.

Nature is sometimes cruel in the mind of gardeners.  Will keep my fingers crossed for next year.

Happy Easter

I had a little garden love fest this Afternoon.  As I stepped out into the entry way garden,  the birds were tweeting up a storm and it smelled springy.  Super happy with how the plantings of bulbs last November have materialized into a lovely garden palette of lavenders, yellows and blue.  Thank you, Margot for your donation of hyacinth bulbs.  They have poked up through the tulips.

Besides the tulips, there are also yellow and deep purple pansies in pots.  In the middle you can see more of the same tulips poking out and not yet ready to bloom.

Did you notice the Foxglove in the black container?  Seems a little out place right?  Foxgloves don't naturally appear in the cool temps of April.  Like the strawberries from yesterday, my eyes wandered to that giant rack of blooming perennials at the big box store.  It's so easy to go there.  The container also has Rebecca Violas nestled in the bottom.  Hands down, delicate violas are one of my most favorite and a long-lasting flower of spring.  They smell pretty, too.

Actually, it's not really a container garden, but more a container arrangement.  Some folks like the flowers in vases, but I like mine in the dirt.  

Best wishes for a beautiful Easter and happy spring Sunday.

Strawberries = Spring

Yesterday, I purchased my first container of strawberries since last fall.  I have been trying to abstain from buying berries that are trucked in from California or Latin America.  But my will broke when I was lured over to that big display of berries bursting from their plastic clam shells.  These don't taste as good as the REAL ones from our gardens, but this time they will do.What would Barbara say? 

Whipped up some homemade Strawberry Ice Cream.  Four ingredients. Super Easy. Starting with this recipe, I made some modifications like an entire quart of berries instead of 1/2 cup of puree. BIG strawberry flavor is what I was after, so I used both puree and sliced berries. When it went into the maker, the ice cream custard was creamy yellow and not pink.   A little disappointing. But when the churning stopped, the mixture had magically changed to delicious strawberry pink.

If any of you struggle with food allergies, it's not always easy to convert recipes.  But I think this one does a pretty good job substituting coconut milk for dairy cream.  Yes, you can taste the coconut, but it's seems to work with the berry flavors.

What are the foods of spring that you crave?

oh birdie-bird

photo from Cornell Lab/Maria Corcacas/PFW

Yesterday started out on a really sad note.  One of the house finches who has taken to our trees was  mortally injured when he ran into our big glass window.  I will spare you the details, but I know that's what occurred.  He was such a beauty with a very deep-rose colored breast.  I'm sure all the girl birds were swooning over his color and hoping he'd pick them to mate.

Early last summer we had a  pair of house finches  who built their nest in one of the arborvitaes.  I understand that these birds can come back every year to nest in the same spot.  I am hopeful that he is not "the one" who has lived here before.   Very sad.

New container garden

Featuring: basket of gold, candy tuft, Patriot hosta, Christmas tree hosta and emerald green arborvitae.

The temps outside are warming.  There are some plants out there that can tolerate the early spring temperatures.  Why not plant a spring garden?

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

This is my dog-eared copy of Barbara Kingsolver's book.  After at least one plane ride with this book and countless nights of reading before bed, I finished it this weekend.  I am a slow reader, but happy to savor every page.

At this point,  I would consider it a classic.  It was originally published in 2007, but I  came late to the dance and picked up a copy a little while ago.  Now that I've finished it, I know that I will come back to it time and again.

I have such a fondness for it because it reminds me of childhood and the gardens that my mother loved and kept.  And fire flies.  And running through the strawberries in flip flops. And summer dinners on  family farms.

It also makes me think of being a pre-teenager {brat}and grudgingly helping my mom snap 1,000s of green beans in preparation for the freezer boxes.  At the time, she worked full-time and somehow managed to put up an amazing assortment of canned and frozen fruits and vegetables.  She grew up on a farm and the harvest time just seemed natural to her.  I think this is remarkable what she accomplished on her 1/2 acre garden.

I digressed.  Anyway, if you have any inkling of growing your own food and like the idea of making your garden a primary source for summer produce, then you will find this read inspiring.  It's more than what I just said.

Kingsolver Family, photo from Garden Rant

From the book cover:  "This is a story ... how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water and breathed the air."  In a nutshell the majority of the food that the Kingsolver family ate came from either local sources or was grown on their own farm.  Think about this for a minute.  No oranges. No strawberries in March.  No tropical fruits.  No salad greens that come from bags.  And think about the months of January, February and March and the produce that is grown during those months.  ZERO.

Barbara's writing is delicious and curious and cantankerous.  Sometimes I got annoyed with her very strong opinions, but I kept turning the pages curious to learn more.

You can see her family's garden here.

just outside the window

A dear friend emailed me this quote today:

We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves. - Leonora Carrington 

This is my idea of an immediate gratification spring container garden.  Spring in Colorado is a hard time to create containers.  Too cold for most plants to survive.  There are tulips in containers that I planted last fall, but their tips are just peaking out of the soil right now.  On a recent grocery store excursion, I discovered tulip bulbs already in the pots and I snapped them up.  Once home, they went into the windowsill where they continued to grow for two weeks.  Yesterday I planted them up.  

First thing this morning, I looked out the window... Voila!