Productive days and bad ideas
Oct. 20th, 2009 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
norsegirlBig ol' photodump today.
Lemon flowers at night
The store that sold this had it labeled as a lemon tree. We picked one of the fruits a while back and Greg was pretty sure it tasted like key lime. I'm thinking this "lime" has grown too big for a key lime and maybe it's a persian lime? I'm leaving it there to see if maybe it will ripen and actually be a lemon. *shrugs* it's a nice plant either way.
Some pics of the baking I've been doing:
Spiderweb decorated chocolate cupcakes in silicon baking cups
Rhonda and Greg's wedding flowers and cake
Greg and Rhonda "saved" us some pieces of the cake but forgot to bring it over until last night. They should have just eaten the whole thing, as intended, and quickly. Whipped cream and strawberries just don't keep. Jason criticized my use of strawberries when he ate a piece last night saying they tasted terrible. Tonight I finally got the time to cut off a piece and discovered Jason's error. The strawberries had (as expected) gone bad. I mean hey, it had been 5 days with no preservatives, what did he expect? What was unexpected was that they had not only fermented (he figured I'd put a liquor in the cake - silly boy) but that they had also grown mold. I cut off everything that had touched a berry and ate the topmost portion of the cake. I'm not sure even that was a good idea. Not sure if I feel a bit queasy because of what I ate or just the thought of it. And that's the "bad idea" part of this post.
Today and last night I spent out in the yard weeding in preparation for swapping out some plants and readying the garden for winter. And also because I wanted to decorate for Halloween. A little later than I wanted to, but with the trip and the rain this was the earliest I could get to it. Spent about an hour weeding last night, and an hour putting up decorations, and another 5 hours on it today. The garden is finally prepped for the new planting (and I went out and bought more plants tonight) and I have at least some decorations up. There's more in my head, but this is at least a start.
In other news, I have the most idiotic "gardeners' tan" now. It's like a farmer's tan (short sleeves) combined with a lorry driver's tan (right arm more than the left) with the added yuck of stopping at the wrists where the gardening gloves were. And really, "tan" is a generous name for it. It's a burn of course. I figured I'd be okay this time of year. I figured wrong. At least I was wearing a hat so my face didn't get done. And of course I was careful to keep Georgia in the shade.
Note the carpet of weeds in the lower left corner. That's where most of my time was spent.
I hacked back the irises in the centre of the shot, trimmed both of the bushes in front of the porch pillars, removed the hibiscus tree so I can keep it inside for the winter and hung some "spider webs" that I wove from a ball of twine, some plastic spiders and some plastic bag "ghosts".
Also, the bottle brush went into bloom overnight. Here's a better shot of that glorious thing:
Jason has finally come around on bottle brushes being sensational plants for this climate, and agrees that they can look pretty (he'd never seen one fully in bloom before), and I used that as ammunition tonight when I made him buy two more; dwarf ones this time. They will be replacing the ixora under the kitchen windows that the dogs ate. Hopefully they will leave these alone as they are a bit spikey and I'm hoping that will discourage them. And who knows, they might also dislike the smell of eucalyptus. Then again it might smell delicious, who knows.
Still to do is plant all the mums and snapdragons I bought today and earlier this week, mulch and finish cleaning the dirt off the hibiscus so I can bring it in to the kitchen. And of course finish the Halloween decorations.
My little mouse asleep with her Mus.
That's it. Time to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow with lots to plant.
Lemon flowers at night
The store that sold this had it labeled as a lemon tree. We picked one of the fruits a while back and Greg was pretty sure it tasted like key lime. I'm thinking this "lime" has grown too big for a key lime and maybe it's a persian lime? I'm leaving it there to see if maybe it will ripen and actually be a lemon. *shrugs* it's a nice plant either way.
Some pics of the baking I've been doing:
Spiderweb decorated chocolate cupcakes in silicon baking cups
Rhonda and Greg's wedding flowers and cake
Greg and Rhonda "saved" us some pieces of the cake but forgot to bring it over until last night. They should have just eaten the whole thing, as intended, and quickly. Whipped cream and strawberries just don't keep. Jason criticized my use of strawberries when he ate a piece last night saying they tasted terrible. Tonight I finally got the time to cut off a piece and discovered Jason's error. The strawberries had (as expected) gone bad. I mean hey, it had been 5 days with no preservatives, what did he expect? What was unexpected was that they had not only fermented (he figured I'd put a liquor in the cake - silly boy) but that they had also grown mold. I cut off everything that had touched a berry and ate the topmost portion of the cake. I'm not sure even that was a good idea. Not sure if I feel a bit queasy because of what I ate or just the thought of it. And that's the "bad idea" part of this post.
Today and last night I spent out in the yard weeding in preparation for swapping out some plants and readying the garden for winter. And also because I wanted to decorate for Halloween. A little later than I wanted to, but with the trip and the rain this was the earliest I could get to it. Spent about an hour weeding last night, and an hour putting up decorations, and another 5 hours on it today. The garden is finally prepped for the new planting (and I went out and bought more plants tonight) and I have at least some decorations up. There's more in my head, but this is at least a start.
In other news, I have the most idiotic "gardeners' tan" now. It's like a farmer's tan (short sleeves) combined with a lorry driver's tan (right arm more than the left) with the added yuck of stopping at the wrists where the gardening gloves were. And really, "tan" is a generous name for it. It's a burn of course. I figured I'd be okay this time of year. I figured wrong. At least I was wearing a hat so my face didn't get done. And of course I was careful to keep Georgia in the shade.
Note the carpet of weeds in the lower left corner. That's where most of my time was spent.
I hacked back the irises in the centre of the shot, trimmed both of the bushes in front of the porch pillars, removed the hibiscus tree so I can keep it inside for the winter and hung some "spider webs" that I wove from a ball of twine, some plastic spiders and some plastic bag "ghosts".
Also, the bottle brush went into bloom overnight. Here's a better shot of that glorious thing:
Jason has finally come around on bottle brushes being sensational plants for this climate, and agrees that they can look pretty (he'd never seen one fully in bloom before), and I used that as ammunition tonight when I made him buy two more; dwarf ones this time. They will be replacing the ixora under the kitchen windows that the dogs ate. Hopefully they will leave these alone as they are a bit spikey and I'm hoping that will discourage them. And who knows, they might also dislike the smell of eucalyptus. Then again it might smell delicious, who knows.
Still to do is plant all the mums and snapdragons I bought today and earlier this week, mulch and finish cleaning the dirt off the hibiscus so I can bring it in to the kitchen. And of course finish the Halloween decorations.
My little mouse asleep with her Mus.
That's it. Time to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow with lots to plant.
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Date: 2009-10-20 03:29 pm (UTC)and hooray for gratuitous baby pics!!! Never have too many of those =D She's growing so fast! Just adorable!!
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Date: 2009-10-20 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 11:50 pm (UTC)i find that my lemons take forever to go yellow. and even when they are yellow, doesn't mean they are actually ready. they can get an almost orange hue to the yellow before they are easy to remove from the tree. they longer they are on the tree- the sweeter they get too.