A gardening giveaway

Since I've had a little run of gardening posts of late I thought it was only fitting that I do a giveaway for a gift certificate for gardening. I love this company! They were growing organically before it was even "in style"! I have been ordering from The Tasteful Garden for a long time and it is my favorite place to buy all my vegetable plants. If you don't have space for a vegetable garden don't worry, they sell herb sets, cool things for the kitchen, books, fruit trees and lots more stuff.

I started writing a little garden blog for them last year which was fun and which you can link to through my side bar!

But I don't think you even care about all this, do you? You just want to know what the giveaway is for, don't you? How about a $50.00 dollar gift certificate! Yup, it's true. Enough to buy lots of tomato plants or a Myer lemon tree or some raspberry bushes.

Here's all the blah, blah, blah to get up to 6 entries total AND each entry must be a separate comment so I can attempt to use the pick-a-winner software:

1. You must be a follower of my blog- (1 entry)
2. You must link to the drawing on your own blog and let me know you did! (1 entry)
3. Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
4. Leave a comment on any other post of mine (1 entry)
5. If you have been a follower before this giveaway or a member of Chickberry or SITS please post a separate post for a bonus entry!
6. Visit The Tasteful Garden and post an additional comment telling me what you'd buy if you win!

Drawing will be held on Sunday, January 17! Winner will be notified on January 17 in a post here AND by e-mail. If I don't hear back from you within 24 hours a second winner will be chosen and you will loose your prize.

Sorry to be mean and all but I have a short attention span and if I don't get stuff taken care of right away I tend to forget to do things!

If you have any questions you can post them your entry comment below. Good luck and happy garden dreams!

PS. The rest of the peony story will post on Tuesday morning! Thanks for following along!

Peony tales - conclusion (PKW)

Not saying you'll need one but I promised the possible kleenex warning and here it is!
As soon as I got home I called the neighbor who plowed my gardens and asked him to come over right away to cultivate a new field for me. He came that same evening and worked up the rich, black earth into what seemed like a huge bed.

When my children left for school the next day I took a bunch of boxes to the farm and started digging, being careful to keep each tag with each tuber. About ten minutes into the digging Doug came home and said he had the day off work and he was going to start plowing right away! Oh no! Lori and I dug and dug and piled peony tubers into the truck helter-skelter. We were covered in dirt and mud but no matter how fast we dug the rows still stretched on.

We heard the tractor starting up and realized we were never going to get finished so we grabbed two more plants and then watched as that shiny metal started ripping out years and years of beauty and history. Did I mention I never did like Doug?

It made me sad to watch so I left to drive carefully home. Careful of the blisters on my hands, careful of my precious cargo.

When the kids got home from school they filled buckets of water from the spring and we spent hours and hours planting the 27 plants that had been rescued. Five had tags. The rest were a mystery.

They all grew. Each one into magnificent plants laden with blossoms of every color from the palest yellow frills to almost black single blossoms. Most of the varieties I could never identify. I found out later that the man who had lived on that farm for over fifty years was a peony breeder and had varieties from all over the world.

Each year I lived in that old house the peonies took my breath away. I could feel the history in the blossoms. Feel the mystery in the unnamed varieties.

Sometimes I thought that leaving my beloved farmhouse and my gardens and my friends would break my heart entirely. But time does heal all wounds, eventually. Or at least make them manageable.

Several years ago when I was back in Ohio I asked the people who now live in my old home if I could walk around the yard. The peonies were gone. The old apple trees were gone. The perennial beds were gone. So much was gone. All of that clutter was just in the way of mowing they told me.

I left that day feeling so sad. So much lost beauty for the sake of an hour or two saved on a lawn mower.

That tiny kernel of sadness for loss still resides in my heart…for the lost peonies and the lost dreams. There is a small consolation recognizing that the blossoms are still inside with me in memory. I can easily close my eyes and recall the feel of the moist, rich soil under my hands as I cultivated around them. My mind still sees their glorious colors illuminated in the late afternoon sunshine.

But sometimes no matter how vivid the memory, my heart still grieves for the passage of time and the loss of something wonderful.

Tend your peony beds carefully, my friend. They may never come again.

If you missed the first part of this story just click on this link.

Peony tales - part one

Warming weather continues here on my blog. This story was written about my Federal style farm house in Northeastern Ohio. You’ve all heard the stories of my beloved old, farmhouse in Ohio. The place where my heart still resides rejoicing in the sprinkle of snowy apple blossoms from the ancient trees. The place where my souls joy lived in the grace of countless lilacs and daffodils and peonies planted everywhere on the property.

The peony field sat atop a gentle slope above the old spring. Two gnarled old apple trees stood sentry above the clear cool gush of water from the pipe in the hillside. The tin cup hanging on the stub of a branch there was always ready to help with a drink of cold refreshment no matter how hot the day.

The peony field was not always there. In fact, the peonies came from old, old garden stock rescued from the cold, steel blades of a tractors plow.

Lori, a woman I had become “baseball Mom” friends with, purchased a decrepit brick farmhouse with her husband. The home sat on a little, flat piece of land and had always been intriquing to me with its Federal architecture and overgrown surroundings.

Nothing invokes mystery and history for me like farm buildings and homes in disrepair and overgrowth. I feel if you take a moment and lay your hand or your cheek against the weathered old wood you can feel the history of the place. You can feel the moments and the magic and the memories from some other farm wife who laid her hand or cheek in that exact spot. Gazing at a carefully placed rock edge in a now-weed filled garden it is easy to imagine that same farm wife carefully snipping blossoms to fill a glass jar in the center of her scrub-worn kitchen table.
Lori’s farm was no different.

Fields surrounded her house with chest-high weeds and I never ventured into them on my visits there. We rummaged in some of the old buildings planning restorations and we sat at the edge of her crumbling front porch talking about having the simple joys of grass you could walk through without worrying about snakes and tripping over abandoned farm equipment. One early, early spring day I got a frantic call from my friend. Her husband had endured the overgrown fields long enough. He had purchased a brush hog and plow for the old tractor that came with the property. Unknown to Lori, over the period of several weeks he had been hauling all the rusted old farm equipment and fallen-down fence posts out of the area. Lori had decided to venture into the wasteland provoking the urgent call.

“Jenny,” she exclaimed, “there are all kinds of things planted in that field! I don’t know what they are but there are all kinds of tags and markers but no actual plants!” Well, hey, the kids were at school and I can never resist a plant mystery so I jumped in my car and ran right over. She lived fairly close but it felt like the drive took forever. I was so intriqued and so excited.

She met me in the driveway and we ran out to the field and started looking at all the tags. There were hundreds of tags – all with different names on them: Schaffe, White Japanese, Boule de Neige, Mons Jules Elie. We looked and deciphered and read fading painted signs for quite awhile until it finally dawned on me that these were peonies. Scraping away some of the leaves and dead plant growth on the ground you could barely see the crowns starting to show growth.

Oh, I was excited until Lori said that Doug was plowing that field in two days and he could care less what was planted there. He had told Lori to dig up anything she wanted for the house but the rest were going to be plowed under!

Total panic! What! No! Oh no, no, no! I told Lori I would try to get them all moved and she said she would help.

To be continued tomorrow!

For the next part of the story just click here!

And PJ, this past post is for you! (evil chuckle)

A summer story for all of you freezing friends!

OK, OK! I get it. I was cruel bringing up sunshine and oranges and flowers. So I am going to do a two-fer today!

This is a story I wrote several years ago but since you all seem to be freezing I’ll try and warm you up a little bit, OK?

Yesterday my husband and I had a few errands to do in downtown Phoenix. Afterwards we went driving around some of the historic neighborhoods and decided to visit a nursery that we had received a gift certificate from. A lot of wrong turns and rambling around and we eventually stumbled across the little nursery tucked into the middle of high rises, vacant lots, boarded-up houses and parking garages.

The nursery gift shop and office was inside a small, 1910 bungalow and surrounded by wild, out of control greenery. The grounds around the bungalow were a potpourri of mismatched pottery, pots, broken tools and overgrown plantings with hoses in bright blue and neon green snaking through the profusion of leaves and flowers. Cement blocks held abundant pomegranate bushes next to flats of purple salvia, while lime green sweet potato vines ran rampant from black plastic pots. We wandered around for a bit talking of this plant and that. Trying vainly to think of places where we could integrate another 100 or so plants into our yard.

The proprietor wandered out after a while. This little garden creature was probably about five feet tall and tipped the scale (while holding a big potted plant) at 95 pounds. Her feet were tiny and bare and very, very dirty. Her crocheted garden hat was grimy and worn low shading a wrinkled and wizened nut brown face. “Oh,” she said, “I see you looking at my salvias. I am addicted to salvias!”

And then she launched into a 15 minute recital of why she loves them, why they are wonderful and why I needed to buy one of each variety. I told her we were going to remodel our backyard in the fall and I would come back and let her help me create a salvia planting and she clapped her hands in delight like a small child promised her favorite flavor of ice cream.

We sat on the cement steps by her porch and talked about gardens we have loved. I told her the thing I missed most was lilacs. She popped up from the steps and literally danced into the little house and came back with a picture of a Persian lilac bush. She told me I could grow them in Arizona and, in fact, had 5 in her own backyard. The fragrance was the same but there were a few special things the bushed needed to survive our summers. But, she promised, they would grow and thrive in our extreme summer conditions.

After her little speech she looked at me, carefully. She looked over at our shiny, car parked at the curb. She looked at my tennis shoes. I think she even noticed my short fingernails with a little bit of garden dirt under them. She reminded me of a little, inquisitive wrinkled bird tipping her head this way and that in studious concentration.

Then she said, “I think you might be the kind of person who could love a lilac bush.” I replied that I thought it would be difficult to find someone who didn't love lilacs.

“Oh.” she said, “you would be surprised. Lilacs have their down time, like everything in nature. People hate down time. They want their flowers to always be blooming, to never have dead leaves or bare branches. They want everything to be pretty and perfect and beautiful all the time - but it's not. If you can stand these Persian lilacs looking brown and dreary for several months they will reward you with flowers and fragrance. The flowers will only bloom for several weeks, but oh, it is heaven when they blossom.”

On the way home in the car I was uncharacteristically silent, looking out the window and thinking about her words. I thought how true they were - we all try to be perfect all the time. We apologize when our hair is not right, when our clothes are not right, when our house is not perfect.

But I think I am going to try living my life more like the lilacs - radiant, happy and simple, soaking up the sun and the sky and the clouds and the birds and going through the plain, bare and sad times with as much grace and peace as I can gather into my soul.

And on those glorious days that are perfect, the days when my granddaughters rest their petal soft cheeks on mine, the days when my husband and I sit doing nothing together but enjoying being together, the days when my hair is shiny and perfect and the breakfast toast and jam is especially wonderful- I am going to rejoice with my whole being.

AND YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ORIGINAL POST THAT STARTED ALL THIS FREEZING STUFF!

Do you think you could paint your skin with craft paint?

The reason I'm asking is I'm thinking about painting myself to look like this. Wouldn't that be cute?

Because honestly, somedays I feel just like a chicken feeder. Don't you?

It's the constant peck, peck, pecking that depletes all my cracked corn, you know?

Is that a weird analogy?

Probably.

So this afternoon instead of painting myself to look like a vintage chicken feeder I decided instead to escape the ringing phones and the knocking at the door and the dog barking and go out to my little herb garden. I snipped and cut and did some of my winter pruning under the pale blue Arizona winter sky.

The air was perfumed with the cuttings of heliotrope and scented geraniums.

And then I sat on the little brick wall and with my lavender, basil and thyme scented hands I peeled a perfect orange picked from the neighbors tree.

That sublime burst of sunny freshness and the warm sun on my upturned face soothed the chaos in my mind. The words of Anne Frank came to mind...“The best remedy for those who are unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.”

I sat for a while longer. A bird rustled in the glossy leaves of the orange trees. Far off I could hear the laugh of a child.

The potential of acrylic body paint was momentarily forgotten.

But just so I can be prepared, what do you think? Would it be safe? And should I paint a chicken on my face or would that really just be too much?

Sigh.

It's Vegetable and Turkey Tuesday!!!

Didn't you get your official blog notification today?

What?

Is this like the time I wore my pajamas to school and it wasn't pajama day? Or the time I thought it was crazy hair day and it wasn't and people laughed at me viciously scarring me permanently for life?

Not that those things ever happened to me. But I just didn't want you to feel bad that you didn't participate in this massive, nationwide Blog post day to honor Vegetables and Turkey.

So...

With no further ado...

OK, you caught me.

Technically there is no Vegetable and Turkey Tuesday.

I just couldn't think of anything to write about.

But I did want to show you all the stuff I picked from my garden on Sunday morning INCLUDING a plethora of eggplant. (Yes, eggplants are a vegetable and yes, I was showing off with the word plethora) And some of my Thanksgiving decorations INCLUDING part of my turkey collection.

And somehow now I just feel cheap and dirty from this tawdry attempt to disguise the fact that I was just feeling totally uninspired to write a blog post tonight.

So I leave you now.

Red in the face.

Ashamed of myself. And deeply, deeply, deeply embarrassed.

All I can say is, please accept my sincere apology.

It will never (or possibly never) happen again.

And please, please, please don't hate me because I'm lazy.

Sigh.