Texas style photography and words
I loved the color of yellow on this brightly colored planter.
I wished it was bigger but bought it for the color.
It was big enough to hold two moss rose plants.
Let me tell you these plants love the location and have been showing off.
Moss rose is one of my favorite plants I have it in about 5 different locations in the yard.
I love the fushia pink moss rose next to the yellow planter.
Accenting with pops of color in your yard keeps it from being too boring and makes it fun.
I love flower pots anything unique is right up my alley.
Normally I love bright colors, patterns, etc. but I knew I needed one of these head planters.
This one is called David and I got one for my sister Sheri and one for me.
I love the way the hair turned out it looks like dreadlocks.
Our daughter Jeanelle thinks the head planters are creepy.
Being creative with the design or grouping of the planters and the plants can be a challenge but I love it.
For lunch today I made us Caprese Salad it’s very light and something good for a hot summer day.
Recipe
3-4 good-sized tomatoes these are homegrown that is why the colors are so good.
1 – 8oz ball of soft mozzarella
Fresh Basil Leaves
Sea Salt, Pepper, Parsley, and Olive Oil.
Cut up the tomatoes, cheese and basil leaves mix with olive oil, and add salt, pepper, and parsley drizzle with olive oil.
Right about the time the tomatoes really start producing here come the stink bugs.
We battle this every year and it’s so annoying. They do not bother with the yellow or the orange tomatoes but they sure do love the red and purple.
I had read to add 1 – 2 tablespoons of Dawn to a gallon of water in a sprayer. We did this 5 days ago and now the tomatoes are perfect so we will be doing this every week to get back our tomatoes crop.
Here are a few tomatoes from today one of our favorite ways to eat them is tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, and Italian dressing covered with foil and placed in the fridge for a few hours this will last a few days. This is yellow, red, and purple tomatoes in this mix.
On an average day, we pick about 30 tomatoes
Fresh vegetables are one of my favorite times of the year.
After the digging was done we weighed the potatoes there was a total of 262.20 #s of sweet potatoes.
I have enclosed a picture of a few buckets of potatoes. These are 7 gallons and 20-gallon containers.
Andrew and Adrian helped dig one day and Karina and Sophia help dig another day. For kids, it’s like a treasure hunt digging for potatoes.
We had some potatoes that were almost 7#s each and others that were 15″ long. None of these have been stringy I think the stringy potatoes must be old because it has nothing to do with the size we have cooked some big ones.
My husband over plants everything so we end up with plenty of vegetables to give to family and friends. Our freezer is full of squash, peppers, leeks, and onions. Some have been grilled some baked.
He gave one of his friends 50#s of potatoes to share with his family. We gave our daughter Jeanelle about 25#s but she will be back for more.
I have made 3 sweet potatoes pies using my grandmother’s recipe, 2 to give away one to share. I also made a cream cheese sweet potato cake that was the best cake I have had in a long time we shared that with Jeanelle and their family. I made some sweet potato pecan bread that turned out really good. We are trying to be creative around here.
We have been eating sweet potatoes at least 2 x a week. I want to try and cook some Hasselback ones.
I did read you can bake, cool, peel, and freeze so I might do some of that but I need that second freezer.
Fall tilling and planting has started so before you know it we will be overrun with cabbage lol.
My favorite part of the spring and summertime is when everything is blooming.
These day lilies always put on a show.
The potting bench is painted and stained to match the house.
There is a large bucket for dirt on the left hand side under the bench. This is actually under a part that lifts up with hardware cloth and there is a tray to catch the excess dirt so it can go back in the bigger pot.
I actually love it and as you can tell its been getting used quite often.
In the wintertime I always put the fragile pots in the greenhouse and sometimes the plants live but sometimes they don’t. The ones on the bench the small fern on the left lived the big pot was repotted and now is thriving.
I always think about moving these after I have watered them and they are very heavy to move then.
I buy the small bowls at Dollar General or on clearance to have to put plants in for small gifts.
The aloe vera or some of the other succulents or sedums like lemon balm work well in the bowls. Right now on the back porch I have a few with airplane plants in them. Even the pothos or Ivy work well for a good while in the small containers.
The plastic wicker chair has seen its better days its been around about 10 years and I had bought 6 of them at Big Lots they use to be on the back porch until the rockers rotted off so we took those off and now its a very short chair to sit in. I just like the way it looks by the potting bench.
The trumpet vine graces the top of the back of the potting bench as a garland of sorts but it gives the bench the perfect touch.
Planting new plants in the yards or in planters is very relaxing for me and it soothes my soul.
Here are a few more blooms from our yard. We plant all colors of flowers but have more pinks and purples than anything else.
These first flowers are Petchoa it is a new cross between the Petunia and the Calibrochoa. Since I love both of these flowers I wanted to try this one out this year.
This planter is one my hypertufa one in the backyard I had made a few years ago using a exercise ball for the mold. Normally I plant petunias in it. So far the container has held up okay but I have learned a few things about making these planters to try next time. A tree limb fell on my one in the front yard and broke it.
The second flower is the Rose of Sharon also known as Althea. I love althea and this week will be going to the garden center to find a few more colors of this colorful bush. This Althea was shared with me by a twig with rooting solution and it has grown like crazy ever since. These blooms remind me of the Hibiscus.
The third flower is one of my favorites the Knock our Roses. They bloom like crazy in the spring and summer and if you want them to bloom more they love left over tea grinds. We save all our tea grinds for our acid loving plants.
Our garden has been doing great this year that is until all this rain hit us the last few weeks.
To much rain makes the ground soggy and when the sun comes out it steams the plants so they go through a spurt of looking like heck for awhile. Hopefully the tomatoes survive it seems like we waited so long for good tomatoes.
We have given away about 100#s of produce so far mainly yellow squash, zucchini squash and cucumbers. We have put quite a bit up in our freezer and eaten squash 2-3 x a week since it started making. We eats lots of cucumbers and tomatoes as well. I made some zoodles to put up as well.
We put up 7 quarts of dill pickles yesterday that is only the start.
We share a good amount with Jacks brother, sister n law and mother n law. My mother n law loves tomatoes.
This pic is from a few days of picking this was not quite all of the squash and cucumbers but it was enough to make a good picture. We had eaten a few tomatoes already as well it is so hard not to eat them they taste so so good.
Jack has put a lot of time into the garden this year and it has really paid off. I think we have 53 tomato plants maybe more. My favorite tasting one is the mater sandwich and beef steak.
Planting a garden and watching it grow brings us both great pleasure. Sharing with friends and family makes it even better.
Getting to photograph the harvest really makes my day.
This was our first year for onions and this was our only onion bloom it is a 10/15 onion.
Not all onions bloom and the bloom is where the seeds are at. If you get no blooms you either buy more seeds or onion sets for the next planting.
These blooms are similar looking to garlic blooms just different color flowers. These two pics were taken 2 different days so you can see the progress of the changing flowers.
All gardens have beauty even before the harvest.
Sonya Lira Photography 