Just A Seed: The Life of A Poppy

The life of a poppy seed is short, but very beautiful!

The poppy flower bud.  Little does it know the long journey it is about to embark on!  From bud to flower to pod to seed and FINALLY to our shower.

Poppy flowers come in a variety of colors, including pink!  They can be either double (as in the picture) or single.  I'm not really a fan of the single poppies.  Why would you want a single row of petals when you could have this gorgeous beauty?

Sadly, poppy flowers don't last very long.  So enjoy them while they last! 

After the petals fade and fall the poppy pod stands tall and proud.  The poppy's pod has an important job.  It protects the precious seeds and allows them to fully mature and dry in the safety of its circular shell.  The green pods contain seeds that are not dry.  The green pods are very difficult to open, but once the pods dry to the correct point, little 'doors' at the top of the pod open and the seeds can escape.  A light breeze or a passing human will stir the pods and they scatter their seeds in all directions.  Sometimes the seeds will travel several dozen feet away from the original pod.  The pods act as tiny catapults! 

Each beautifully designed poppy pod holds hundreds of tiny seeds.

These seeds can be collected and planted next year or they can be used in a variety of interesting items, including soap!

The finally step in the life of our poppy seeds: Lemon Poppy Seed soap colored with natural safflower powder.  These little poppy seeds have traveled from bud to flower to pod to seeds and now will work as powerhouse exfoliaters to get our skin smooth.  

In life,

we can only hope to be as beautiful or as useful as the humble poppy seed.  

Gardening Danger

I spent yesterday evening in the ER and then with an opthamologist.

I have a corneal abrasion on my right eye.

Gardening is dangerous! At least for me.

This is the third time I've hurt my right eye while gardening.

Yesterday, I was cleaning out the garden and cutting everything down and the sharp cut end of a grape vine whipped into my eye. It pulled out my contact and cut my cornea from the bottom to the top. It hurt so bad! I thought it would start feeling better, but after three hours I couldn't stand the pain. I couldn't open my right eye at all and my eyes wouldn't stop watering.

In the ER they gave me some anesthetic drops and WoW! I could open my eye! Then they used some fluorescent orange dye and a blue lamp to see the abrasion.

It would have been very interesting, if it had been someone else's eye!

Then they sent me to an opthamologist and he examined my eye again and put a "band-aid" contact on my eye and gave me some antibiotic drops.

With the contact on, protecting it from the air, my eye felt 100% better.

I guess I will be wearing protective glasses from now on when I'm gardening.

It's a dangerous hobby.

Tibby Tilling and Garden Moving - again

So, the garden is on the move again.

I'm moving my flowers out of the raised beds and putting them into 2 beds on either side of the garden.

The raised beds just didn't work with flowers. It was too hard to see the flowers and the path upkeep was daunting. It's hard enough to keep up the veggie garden paths. Now that I have a fab electric lawn mower I'm not afraid to mow. In fact, I've really enjoyed mowing my front lawn this year.

Ok

So maybe, maybe, lawn is not the total evil of gardening.

Hey, I obviously can change my mind.

I keep thinking my neighbors are saying, "Huh, it must be Fall, she's ripping up her yard again. Huh, it must be Spring, she's ripping up her yard again." Well, I don't care. People move around their living room furniture. The garden is my BIG living room.

Tibby helped with the tilling.

I can't blame her. I was digging holes, why shouldn't she dig a few.

The dirt was so soft and fluffy too.

Dig, dig,dig.

Ha!

"Ok too tired. I'll just take a little nap right here in this handy hole."

Some of the beds are removed.

I had to do everything in stages. Move a bed. Plant some perennials. Move another bed. Ect.

Fluffy black dirt.

These are parts of my yard I've never really taken pics of, because I was so embarrassed of them. Hopefully they will look better next year.

Back to work.

"What's a dirt mustache?"

Garden Update: July 2010

At this time of year, there are so many things ready in the garden at the same time.

The peas are almost done. I will pick the final harvest today and pull out the vines.

The onions are almost ready to be pulled and cured for winter storage.

The cucumbers and tomatoes are literally hanging on the vines.

I pick a big bowlful every other day.

The peppers are just starting to ripen and turn colors - red, purple, orange and yellow.

The summer squash is also producing a bunch of nice fat squashes every day.

I didn't take a pic of them, but the eggplant is really, really producing well this year.

Yum! Lots of eggplant = lots of tasty winter meals with roasted eggplant.

The carrots, kale, lettuce and broccoli are also producing huge daily handfuls.

Kiwi and Tansy are happy about lots of fresh bunny munchies!

They are especially loving the big bunches of fresh basil I pick for them every morning.

They also like to eat flowers: pansy, rose petals, phlox and hollyhocks leaves (I like the flowers too much to share with them!).

Looking at the garden from my deck, facing south-east.




Looking at the garden, facing south-west.

In the foreground of this picture, you can see my attempt at a second crop of peas.

They produced about 1/2 a cup, but only grew 1 foot high.

The spring planting grew 3 1/2 feet high and produced about 6 cups.

6 cups is not enough peas! I always want more peas!

Unfortunately, they take up vertical space in the garden and I have trouble finding more room for them to grow where they won't be shaded by other vertical growers.

Facing west.

I let some volunteer radishes grow and go to seed in the path.

They are supposed to keep squash vine borers and other pests away.

It worked last year, but it does make the path very messy looking.

Tomatoes on the left and green beans on the right.

Everyone else seems to be picking their green beans, but mine are not ready yet.

Boo! I love green beans!

Tomatoes.

There was a wilt of some kind that attacked my tomatoes, but I sprayed them and mulched them with grass clippings and they seem to be doing better.

Cucumbers on the trellis.

I love picking a cucumber hanging eight feet up in the air.

So funny!

In this pic we have from left to right - tomatillo, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, painted lady beans, green beans, basil and more tomatoes. There is also some kale, but you can't see it from this angle.

Can I just say I'm glad that I made all my paths 3 feet wide?

All that fussy work this Spring, setting out the beds, was worth it.

Chinese 5 color peppers.

They are starting to change color!

Looking east.

Can you see Catty? She is underneath the arch on the left side.

In this pic - peas, onions, strawberries, kale, eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, summer squash, sunflowers, green beans and radishes gone to seed.

That's all folks!

I hope you enjoyed the update.

If you have an update on your garden, please leave a link in the comment section, so I can check it out. :)

Building a Covered Bed

I found some 5 foot lengths of black pipe at the local Menard's store.

They are called black flexible water pipes.

I like them ,because they are precut and I can put them in my car without looking like an idiot driving through town with PVC pipes sticking out of my back window.

Although, I still buy the PVC pipes sometimes - seems like I can't avoid looking like an idiot - at least occasionally.

OK continuing with the tutorial!

I also used a few branches, cut into 8 inch lengths, to hold the pipe in the soil, but I think I may end up using some kind of bracket instead, because the hoops tend to fall over when it rains and the soil gets soft.

Stick, soil, pipe.

Cover with row cloth.

Showing Off Plants

Just a post to show off the beautiful plants!

Aren't they gorgeous?

My Mom and I are throwing around the idea of having a plant sale in mid-May.

We started way too many plants (again - how does that happen every year?).

Last year we gave away the extras, but this year I think it would be fun to have a plant sale.

We could sell plants and I could sell a few of my cement mushrooms and glass plate flowers.

So, if you live in central Minnesota and want some plants........

Garden Redo - Totally New!

I changed the garden!

Now, there are 12 beds in the veggie half with 3 foot paths between each bed.

I LOVE the 3 foot paths. It is so much easier to get a wheelbarrow in between the beds. Also, the layout is much easier to navigate.

Finally - FINALLY! I have the pond exactly the way I want it. No more moving- I promise.

This will be a little patio area, as soon as I can move the tulips.

I still have a lot to do. There are some interesting projects I have in mind.

Re-a-lly interesting.

If you speak Minnesotan, you know interesting has a different meaning here.

It is a polite way to say- gross, disgusting, never-do-that-again, but this time it means strange, unusual, weird.

Wa-ha! Stay tuned!

Garden Clean-up

I have been working on cleaning my garden up this week.

It was a long, hard winter and there was a lot to clean up.

First, I picked up all the junk, trash, ect.

Then, I fixed the pond.

Last Fall I took most of the rocks off of the liner and took out the stream. I ran out of time and it got too cold, so I finished it this week.

Finally, I have the pond exactly the way I want it!

After only moving it 10 times!

Then I placed 2 more raised beds in area I want to make into a small patio. I just have to wait until the tulips bloom, and I can move them, to get started on the patio.

Then I started moving all my raised beds. Again.

Yes, I am crazy.