The new idea for using the Outdoor Hour Challenge Newsletter instead of a weekly nature challenge has liberated our family to follow our interests. I hope that your family is enjoying the subjects that come your way and that you take advantage of following up interest with the Handbook of Nature Study.
Lemon Queen Sunflowers sprouting in the lavender box.We are growing these as part of the Great Sunflower Project.
There have been several comments and emails asking if you can submit any nature study topics to the upcoming blog carnival. I would love to see whatever you do for your Outdoor Hour Challenge using the Handbook of Nature Study, or journal entries using the suggested ideas from the newsletter, and/or notebook pages from your own backyard studies.
Please feel free to submit your entries as you go along, just as you would have done with Mr. Linky. Here is the submission page for your entries to the carnival: Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival
I hope to get our next study posted over the weekend….probably our garden flower entry.
Flowers in Pots Attract the Bees and Hummingbirds…Easy to Maintain
My goals this year for our garden are a little different than those in the recent past. I usually focus on growing veggies and accent with flowers. This year I am going to be a rebel and do the exact opposite. I am growing color and accenting with edibles. I am hoping for more of an “artist’s garden” this year, providing a space to sit with watercolors and colored pencils and oil pastels on those long hot summer afternoons. Sometimes a garden is more than just for growing food, healing and refreshing us with its beauty and vitality. Of course, you can really call it a “bee garden” since the focus has been on flowers that will attract bees, birds, and/or butterflies.
Our deck usually has some herbs and a few veggies in pots, keeping them close for the dinner time crunch. It is a great plan and I will do the same this year with two tomatoes and some basil.
We have had a lot of hummingbird traffic at our two feeders as well as the colorful flowers.
I am keeping just a few flowers on the deck and most of them will be to try to entice the hummingbirds up to the feeders. Red geraniums, bright daisies, and a hummingbird favorite lantana or two. I started my zinnia seeds and much to my surprise I found a pot full of milkweed growing already over in the corner. Seeds and seedlings are all tucked in ready to go. We are planning on studying our geraniums along with the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson #163) this summer.
Back in the main veggie garden I am going to be growing pole beans…Kentucky Wonders. I am dreaming of the green towers of vines and the never-ending picking that will come as the summer progresses.
Lots and lots of Bee Balm growing in the butterfly garden.
What will be missing are many of the water thirsty plants that I usually have that yield very little in proportion to the effort like bell peppers.I have lots of great plants that are well established that will give color without a lot of work.
These are coneflowers, chrysanthemums, and daisies from last year. I will fill in the empty spots with seeds.
The boxes this year are filled in with coneflowers and zinnias, dahlias and daisies. The bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds are going to be having a party all summer long out there. I love having a cutting garden to fill oodles of vases indoors.
We ended up transplanting a few daylilies to the front of the box and the rest is waiting for me to come finish planting the sunflower seeds. Thunderstorm rolled in this day and I had to give up.
My new garden space is coming together and the seeds are almost all in the ground. We had a composting problem and somehow a load was dumped in the garden space with un-composted rotten potatoes so we are sifting through again to get those out before planting the Three Sisters Garden (pumpkins, corn, and beans). The pumpkins, corn, and sunflowers will also be part of our summer nature study using the Handbook of Nature Study.
Happy Squash.
I have four zucchini seedlings happily growing in their new spot and the sunflowers are all showing signs of sprouting as the garden comes alive.
Looks a little different than the last time…now the lavender is the predominant plant, along with the blooming dogwood.
I am hoping that I don’t regret our decision to shift our garden focus this year but as with anything we can always change things back next year. We have a wonderful Farmer’s Market in our town where we can put our hands on any veggies we decide we need. Still eating healthy and with local produce….an important goal in our family.
That is this week’s garden update…..next week hopefully I will share our Three Sisters Garden.
Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!
I think I forgot the sounds that come in open windows in the mornings and evenings. Winter requires the house to be shut up too much but with open windows I woke this morning to a an owl hooting in the neighbor’s tree.
“I’m awake! You Too!” he was calling.
What a great sound and it makes me wonder what all I have been missing closed up in the house for the winter.
This evening I am hearing crickets for the first time and the call of the tree frogs from across the street. It makes me happy to think we have reached the point where we can have open windows and doors to bring a little of nature back into our house. The mosquitoes are buzzing tonight too….found one in my bedroom and had to give him a swat. Now that I could do without.
We are busy working on weeding the garden walkways and preparing beds for seeds. This is a joyful, hopeful time. Outdoor Hour Challenge #12 includes choosing and planting flower seeds and I thought our family might include that as part of our first challenge for the month of May. (If you purchased the Garden Flowers Ebook you will have that challenge and corresponding notebook pages to go along with it.) I will share our seeds in separate entry later this week.
In the meantime, I thought I could share a little of the edibles in our garden landscaping. We try to mix edible plants with our flowers so we can harvest a little homegrown yummy-ness when the time comes. It also is such a treat to have a little handful of something each afternoon when we are outside…a couple of blueberries, a strawberry, or a grape popped in the mouth make even the fussiest of kids happier when they are helping to work in the garden.(You can read more of my tips for nature study and gardening with very young children HERE.
The blueberry bushes really are not all that happy looking. They are all covered in fresh green leaves but I am needing to read up on what a blueberry needs to really get established. I seem to remember something about how they like a pine needle mulch.
Mr. A’s strawberries are looking incredible and there are dozens of blossoms and little baby strawberries filling the box. These are an easy crop to get started and we purchased ever-bearing and June bearing plants so we will have a longer harvest. (There is a challenge for strawberries if you are interested.)
We were very surprised to see so many blossoms on the pear tree this year. We had pruned it way back to keep it out of the neighbor’s yard and this seems to have been agreeable to the tree. We might get a dozen pears this year….well, we can hope for that.
Figs….does anyone really like figs? This tree was here when we moved in 25 years ago and we have tried to cut it down several times, just to have it grow back more lush than ever. We have finally come to grips with it and we share the fruits with those in our lives who enjoy them. The birds like them too so I guess it is worth the mess.
Tomato in a pot to cover the ugly stump….sounds like a good idea and if it doesn’t do well we can always move it. We also have seedless grapes planted there on the fence to shield the ugly propane tank from view when we are sitting on the back deck. They vines get so green and climb all over, producing little sweet bites to nibble when I am out in the back watering in the hot summer sun. (There is a challenge for tomatoes if you are interested.) Do you have a place for a tomato in a pot?
Another reminder to us: Keep the back door closed in the evenings. This bat made its way INTO the house last week. The cat may have brought it inside but we aren’t entirely sure. We had a comedy act going on trying to get it to fly back outside. My boys ran and got the butterfly net and we were able to get him in the corner and inside the net. He really calmed down and just hung in the net long enough for us to get a good look at him. We released him outside and he fly away so gracefully. (There is a challenge for bats if you are interested.)
We are ready to start doing some nature study and the boys have been discussing what subjects we will study for the month as part of the new format of the Outdoor Hour Challenge. Don’t forget you can pick from any of the topics: wildflowers, garden flowers, birds, and/or mammals. You can chose one from each category or stick with one topic and study four of them in a row. Please feel free to make the challenges work and build on interest you find with your children. Don’t forget to submit your blog entries that you complete to the OHC Blog Carnival.
Last year we decided to relandscape the frontyard to get rid of the lawn. Our city raised the water and sewer rates extremely high (over double) and it just didn’t seem right to keep that green lawn year-round anymore. I had myself convinced long ago to make the change to a less water thirsty landscape but my husband loved his green grass. He changed his mind after the first $$$ water bill we received.
Here is what our yard looked like in August 2010.
At first we were just going to slowly remove parts of the lawn and plant natives and drought resistant shrubs. This was the first attempt at our remodel, planting more lavender and sage.
Soon though, my husband got motivated and decided to excavate some terraces with a friend’s heavy equipment. This meant building a block wall and then eventually a walkway made with pavers. This was a huge learning experience and we didn’t always enjoy the process but we did like the way it looked. It meant removing a messy magnolia tree from the yard but we replaced it with a dogwood. This was late August 2010.
The planting part is always fun and makes it feel like you are making progress.I don’t know how we would have accomplished this huge project without the help of all the children. My daughter is the paver expert and came to help us make all the curves and cuts just right. The boys were lots of help in moving plants around, helping to find just the right arrangement. This was September 4, 2010.
This was on October 4, 2010. Amanda and her dad are building the upper walkway that goes around to the side of our house. I use this walkway now to come from the backyard to the front when I fill the birdfeeders.
We had a mild autumn so we were able to finish most of our plans before the bad weather hit. This was taken November 5, 2010. We were installing a birdfeeding station…a total and complete success and the birds have been visiting every day since then.
This was taken on March 28, 2011. The yellow daffodils really perked up the yard and we decided that we made a great choice in paver color.
We did have to totally replace our front deck in the process because of rotted wood. This was the only part of the project that we hired someone to help us with since it meant removing the entrance to our house and reworking the stairs. My husband’s friend is a contractor and he had the job done in a day.
The grasses we planted in the autumn did not make it through the winter. We decided to replace them with yarrow. You can see the dogwood tree here in this image..we are eagerly waiting for it to bloom and get some leaves. My dear husband gathered some granite boulders from a friend’s land and brought them home for some added interest to the front walk. I am hoping to get one more big one if the opportunity arises.
Here we are today on April 26, 2011. The daffodils are done and the lavender is coming alive with purple. My favorite part of the yard right now is the California lilac that is blooming on either side of the deck stairs.
You can see it better in this image.
We have put a lot of hard work into this project and it continues to evolve as the seasons go by. We are anxious to see how it looks as the plants grow and the trees get leaves.
One last quick change we are making is to paint the shutters on the front of the house brown. You can see in the images above that we have one set painted. We were thinking we wanted them to be red but they ended up looking pink instead. My husband then found this brown and I think it is going to be a good match to tie into the deck and the yard. (They were white and blended in too much to the yellow of our house.) I am not sure about the front door color now…it is a nice shade of green but it may end up painted a nice brown as well.
We are now totally drought resistant in the frontyard. I am hoping we can get by with one really good watering a week, depending on the weather.
List of plants:
California lilac
Moonshine yarrow
Spanish and English lavender
Smoke tree
Dogwood tree
California poppies (not blooming yet)
Red Hot Poker
Sage – can’t remember the varieties
Day lilies – Stella Oro (these are planted amongst the daffodils)
Butterfly bush – purple and white
Forsythia
Blackberry vines – left these since they grow between our house and the neighbors
Crepe myrtles – two colors
Agapanthus (left from previous landscaping-waiting to see how they grow with little watering)
Heavenly bamboo (left from previous landscaping-also seeing how this goes)
Adding a redbud (have a coupon that I will use this weekend)
Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!
We are starting to build our new garden area to replace a huge portion of our backyard lawn area. It has been a dream of mine to take the water-hungry lawn out and replace it with color and attractive plants for birds, bees, and butterflies. My husband and I finally agreed on a plan and we started a week or so ago to build the first two garden boxes from recycled blocks that came out of our frontyard remodel last fall. We are on a limited budget for this project so we are reusing materials we have on hand and it is going to be a long range plan to add more as we have time and money. We did end up purchasing and hauling in a yard of garden soil that we added some of our homemade compost to so we could fill up our boxes. We didn’t use the complete yard of soil in the boxes but used the balance to top off our vegetable garden boxes and fill two pots for patio tomatoes.
Here is the first square which will anchor the whole project. We found some lavender on sale at Home Depot and we added four plants…..bees no extra charge. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that there are bees on these blossoms every day, at all times of the day.
We also have loads of bees in the dandelions over on the other end of the yard. I counted quite a number of bees in the yellow blossoms as I sat and enjoyed their cheerfulness one afternoon. My husband is not convinced to keep the dandelions and wants to pull them up. I asked him to wait a bit and then he can mow them over.
Mr. B is my garden helper these days and we enjoy spending time outdoors together.
The larger box is going to hold my sunflowers and zinnias. I am including the Lemon Sunflowers in this box as part of the Great Sunflower Project. I was reading on their website about their change this year and they have added quite a number of other flowers to the project so you can count bees in your area.
If you want to check it out, click over and read on their website but it looks like you can count bees on include Bee balm, Cosmos, Rosemary, Tickseed, and Purple coneflower.
The two brown piles of leaf compost that you can see in the image above are going to become part of another bee garden that we may get to this year. The link will take you to Renee’s Garden where she has collaborated with the Great Sunflower Project on a list of bee attractive plants for your garden.
The only other part we are planning on planting this spring is the Three Sisters Garden that will be a long row parallel to the sidewalk just behind where my son is working in the image above. The Three Sisters are pumpkins, corn, and beans that you plant as companions. I am excited just thinking about this part of the garden!!!
I am anxious to add in a few things as we have time and the weather warms up. My husband keeps telling me he doesn’t see my vision for the yard but I told him to have faith and see what evolves. At the bottom of the post are the seeds that I am planting in the new larger box if you are interested.
That is what we accomplished this week in our new garden project but here are a few of our on-going bee/butterfly/hummingbird habitat garden projects that are a work in progress.
We have been working on this section of the garden for a few years now and it is filling in and growing more beautiful with each passing season.
In our front yard we added some Moonshine Yarrow….this has become another favorite of the bees this spring. I am anxious to see how it grows over the summer since it says it needs very little water.
I have to share my new yard art piece that my dear husband found for me. It is a metal butterfly balanced on top of a pole with river rocks stacked. It is the perfect piece for our front yard. I love the way it moves in the slightest breeze and is a great addition to the look of the front yard. I decided it is all about movement…the grasses, the forsythia, the butterfly bushes, and now the sculpture.
I have enjoyed reading all the entries over on Jami’s blog An Oregon Cottage as part of her Tuesday Garden Party. Welcome to all who have clicked over to read my entry!
I welcome all readers to subscribe to my blog…see the sidebar for a place to enter your email.
Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!
Our Plum Tree – Leaves are coming on fast this week with the little sunshine we experienced. Plum jelly in the making.
I have started reading An Oregon Cottage and she has a great gardening/home blog that hosts a Tuesday Garden Party meme.I thought this week I would join up and share with all of you what is going on in my garden right now as spring starts to burst forth.
My garden is definitely not a winter garden. I don’t do much more than throw out a few lettuce and carrot seeds in the late fall and those have long been harvested. My boys planted snap peas this past autumn but some critter of the night came and munched them down to the ground. I accept that I live in a habitat that offers yummy treats to my fellow creatures so I took the peas in stride.
Our Walnut Tree – Perhaps the squirrels will leave us some this year. 🙂
I think the theme of this post is going to be the PROMISE of a summer garden and fall harvest since that is what I observed as I toured around yesterday.
Our garlic chives are starting to grow again…can’t wait.
The oregano is filling in and hints at the summer pizza and sauces to come…of course, I had to nip a few leaves just to smell as I walked around the boxes.
My son’s strawberry box is greening up nicely as well. We are going to be adding a new strawberry box as soon as we can get through mud to built it. (see the last photo for a photo of the location)
This should tell you how badly I need to tend to the garden after a long winter. These onions are popping up despite being mixed in with the mullein and the dusty miller. I know I am not going to get to this part of the garden for at least a couple of weeks….just being honest.
So as long as I’m being honest, here is what the state of most of our garden boxes at this very moment. Very sad and in need of a good weeding before we can even think about getting something new planted. The saddest part is that if I put my mind to it, I could have this tidied up in an afternoon.
Moving away from the vegetable garden and onto the flower boxes is a little bit more cheerful. The tulips are just beginning to give us a hint of their deep purple blooms to come. I love my little tulip patch and look forward to watercoloring the flowers once they start to really shine.
The chrysanthemums that I planted last year look like they made it through the winter nicely. I look forward to seeing their happy little faces in a few months. This box has coneflowers as well so this spot has flowers long into the autumn once it gets started. I decided a long time ago that I needed to include a couple of flower boxes along with the vegetables because it cheers me up to see the color when I look out the window. Food for the soul.
This wallflower has been a great plant in our garden for the last two years. I actually saw some bees buzzing in it too! Happy bees.
Here are some guys who came uninvited to my garden! My son spotted these whoppers in the back of the bed and of course I had to take a photo.
Now for the exciting part of the post!
See that fresh garden territory? I finally convinced my husband that this “lawn” was using up valuable garden space and very expensive water (rates just increased again!). We are trying out a few possible configurations to build some raised boxes with one center block bed to hold something artsy. Any ideas are welcome. It usually gets summer sun mid-morning to late afternoon so probably about six+ hours altogether.
So there ends my garden survey for this first week in the spring season. I am truly looking forward to the change of the season.
Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!
Our December World still has a fragrance. I stepped out the front door and down the steps and out of habit I reached to touch the lavender next to the stairway. Running my hand along the leaves and then placing my hand up to my face, I smell a summer smell. The leaves this time of year are a silvery-gray-green but they hold a sweet lavender smell that I adore.
Rosemary
My eyes started looking for other things that might have fragrance and I spotted my new rosemary plants up by the birdfeeder. They still have a few purple blossoms on the ends and as I kneel to take a photo or two I spot a bee buzzing near-by! I am surprised.
Violet
Around the corner and back to the back steps I spot my favorite cold weather fragrant flower…the violet. There are just a few starting to bloom but each flower holds a potent gift of violet goodness. Besides….who can resist a purple flower?
Oregano-Still a few leaves to pluck and bring up to the kitchen.
My garden is pretty much sleeping for the winter but tucked into Mr. B’s box are a few herbs and these give a fragrance to winter as well. He has thyme, oregano, and chives all hanging in there despite our cold temperatures.
Peas late in the season
I notice that the peas we tucked in the box a few months ago have woke up and are growing. It will be interesting to see if they continue to grow.
Garden box and my leaf pile.
The rest of the garden is pretty much done and the pile of leaves there in the background will soon be spread over the remaining boxes as a nice winter blanket. The smell of the leaves as they decay is rich and potent, ever promising to protect the few plants that are left for the winter and then to enrich the soil when we till them under in the spring.
So there you have our fragrant December World….perhaps you have some smell that reminds of the coming winter. I encourage you to open your sense of smell this month and see if you can discover some odor to enjoy. Wood smoke? Pine boughs?
Thanks to Palmy from Mens Sana who sent me a link to her fragrance entry….you will need to translate if you don’t speak Italian.
The weather has been a little bit cooler in the mornings so we were able to get out and clean up the garden boxes. I pulled the first of my compost from my compost barrel and mixed in the rich black soil as I readied the boxes for a few cooler weather crops….carrots, lettuce, and peas.
There are still plenty of zinnias ready to bloom, herbs growing strong in the sunshine, and the tomato is still forming some small green fruits.
I was making a list of possible things from our garden that we could study from the Handbook of Nature Study and I realized there are few things blooming that we need to get to before too long.
Our list:
Salvia: Lesson 161
Black-eyed Susans: Lesson 140 and 131
Pansies: Lesson 152 (we are going to do this one again)
My son brought me this leaf that he found in the yard….he thought the red edges were unique. I feel another nature journal entry coming on for us with this pretty leaf as the star.
We also cleaned up under the walnut tree and the view from under the branches is the perfect way to see the autumn sky. Before too long all the leaves will fall and we will have a different sort of clean-up day but we did enjoy this day and feeling a sense of accomplishment. Gardening is like that….you get to feel the satisfaction of a job well done.
What is she looking at? We could not figure it out for a day or two. Then….
We took a closer look.
We could not believe the size of this tobacco hornworm.We at first thought it was the tomato hornworm but after investigation decided it is the tobacco hornworm which also eats tomato plants.
The birds ate a few of them and we picked off the rest. I love it when a new and interesting nature study subject comes our way unexpectedly.
I like the way it looks like their little feet are holding onto the branch. My son was fascinated with their mouths. Another great subject for our nature journals.
If you would like to know more about hornworms, you can read in the Handbook of Nature Study in the section on the hummingbird or sphinx moths (Lesson 75).
I have been neglecting my garden. I confess it and I admit it. The herbs are going to blossom and then seed because I am not cutting them regularly. (These are garlic chives.)
My strawberry patch turned brown because of lack of water but here it is coming back to life after two weeks of daily attention.
Okay…is this the prettiest little pink flower ever? I filled a couple of empty pots up with some sort of succulents from Home Depot at the beginning of the summer. I did not realize when I got this one that it would have these pretty flowers come the August heat. Gorgeous. There were about ten flowers blooming at a time on each of the plants. Wish I could remember what kind of plant this is and I would give it to all my friends. I will have to check Home Depot next time I am there.
Our sunflowers this year were quite disappointing. They bloomed for a day or two and then immediately turned brown and shriveled up. After last year’s bumper crop, we felt like we hardly had any at all to count bees on for the Great Sunflower Project. This is the Lemon Sunflower which I have come to love for its big yellow petals.
We are still picking tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and zucchini from our garden but nearly as many as normal. The squirrels are eating or dropping all the walnuts from the tree and making a huge mess. I have already started my fall garden clean-up which is very early for us.
Our attention has been in our front yard, remodeling to remove the water thirsty grass and replacing it with plants that need less water. We removed a tree and put in a retaining wall while we were at it.
Here is the before photo:
Here is where we are now:
We are hoping to finish the basics and fill in with plants and pavers as we have time and money. My husband and the boys are doing all the work themselves. I will write up some future entries with exactly the process we have worked through to get where we are in the remodel.
That wraps up this garden update. There is always something to do and something to plan for the garden isn’t there?
