January
January 2013 was the
opposite of our beginnings in 2014. We
didn't even have snow really until the end of the month. We were out in the yard working yet at the
beginning of the year and in fact were still harvesting perpetual spinach from the unheated greenhouse.
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| Barren Back Yard |
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| January Chard |
February
Snow is here but so is a sunflower! Apparently there was a sunflower seed from
the birdfeeder that made it into the compost and grew in one of the indoor pots I had
a geranium cutting in. At the time it
flowered, it was about 3 feet tall. The
pot is on the bottom shelf of my plant rack and the stem grew through the wire
shelves. A welcome diversion in one of
the gloomier months of the year.
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| Little Bit of Sunshine |
March
Two great things happen in March… Shannon's birthday with the annual
trip to see the butterflies at Fredrick Meijer Gardens with my family and
starting my plants for the garden. So
excited to see the little green babies popping up. Makes me hopeful for spring when it is
usually still snowy, dreary and cold out.
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| Butterfly at FMG |
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| Baby Seedlings |
April
Many of the babies have graduated to pots and the grow light
rack.
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| Grow Rack |
Meanwhile outside the fall planted garlic is up and growing nicely. Days are longer and warming up enough so I want to be outside.
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| Happy Garlic |
May
Tomatoes potted up into 4” pots are too big for the grow
lights now and we have moved them to our small, unheated greenhouse along with
everything else that doesn't fit inside anymore.
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| Busy Greenhouse |
Our apple tree is loaded with blossoms this year. Last year a late frost killed all but one apple on our tree. This year is looking much more hopeful. Beautiful and humming with bees.
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| Bountiful Apple Blossom Blessings |
June
Wonderful strawberries this year. While we ate all the strawberries from our
small patch, I picked several flats to freeze from a nearby organic strawberry
farm. Definitely worth the work when we
eat them in the middle of winter in a smoothie.
July
Ah…. warm. Some might
say too warm but that makes the tomatoes and us happy.
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| Tomato Beds - Basil Pots |
My gardens are full of flowers and of course I couldn't narrow it down to just one. Here is a photo collection along with the little pond.
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| Pot Man at Little Pond |
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| My Messy Cottage Garden |
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| Asiatic Lilies with Striped Grass |
The garlic harvest was abundant and I braided it so we could hang it to cure.
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| Garlic Braiding |
August
Harvesting in earnest now… beans, cucumbers, onions,
peppers, potato seed pods, summer crook necked squash…
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| Day's Harvest |
Oh, and tomatoes, lots of tomatoes. It took awhile because we had a lot of nights when the temperatures dropped below 55 degrees and that sent our tomatoes plants into stall mode but they are finally ripening.
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| Find Smiley |
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Vine Ripened Tomatoes
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Since we had a lot of rain, the grass strip which is usually brown at this time of year is a lovely green and of course a few more flowers.
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| Green Grass in August! |
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| Morning Glories |
September
Sukkot was early this year and we spent two weeks in
Missouri at Season Of Our Joy enjoying the fellowship, dancing and
services. This is one of the dances that
Shannon coordinated and created the garments for called Garments of
Praise. It was a lot of sewing but
turned out beautiful we think.
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| Garments of Praise Dance at SOOJ |
We still managed to harvest quite a lot of tomatoes and peppers when we returned and that all went into many, many jars of salsa, which we are still enjoying.
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| Makings for Salsa |
Oh, and the tomato plant that grew up through the second story deck to join my herb pots was over 10 feet tall. I’m sure its not a world record but it was for us!
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| Tall Tomato Plant |
October
Snow… yes snow that
covered the ground and stayed for a few days in October made me hurry to finish
all the outdoor chores.
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| Frosty Herbs |
We harvested a bumper crop of apples, 8 five gallon pails of them, the majority of which we turned into apple sauce. We believe we have a Jonathan apple tree which is sweet and crisp. So yummy.
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| Apple Sauce! |
Not so yummy were our carrots. They were amusing in their shapes but they were a bit woody as we waited too long to dig them up. One of 2014’s goals is to do better with this.
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| Carrot Man |
November
Well, when one plants bulbs alone, there isn't much to take
pictures of. It was a cold, rainy and
snowy month and I put over 500 bulbs in the ground, either at the Holland
Community Garden or in our gardens. The
proof will hopefully come up in spring.
ThanksHanukkah was blessed, all three parties we had and busy. I was asked to be apart of a program
promoting the library called “Geek the Library” which was a lot of fun.
This last one is a drawing I did for the baby shower invitation that I gave for my sister who married a fireman and is expecting a baby boy in February 2014.
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| Baby Fireman |
December
Lots and lots of snow that came down and did not go
away. Several days of ice storms created
a lot of chaos and beauty. Here are a
few of my favorite icy nature pictures.
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| Southern View From Our Deck |
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| Azalea in Diamonds |
Hope you enjoyed our year in review. Share with us your most memorable garden experience from 2013. Please leave a comment.
