The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Holy Mycology, Batman, They Pushed the Door Open

My dog has always been curious about the space under our back deck. I knew something probably lived under the back deck, but who knew it was a herd of wild mushrooms?

This herd has become so successful that is has outgrown it’s hideout, and burst forth to embrace the day.

Carpe diem!

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my family and my friends and the place that I live. These fill me with joy every day.

Wake Up and Smell the Free Crepe Myrtle

Life can get us all down sometimes.

No matter how blessed and lucky we are, sometimes (especially with the current state of the economy) we get just plain sad.

Well I have been just plain sad. So sad that I haven’t even felt like gardening or blogging—or blogging about gardening.

But an act of generosity by a friend helped to snap me out of my funk and back into the garden,

My girlfriend Smitha is going through a home remodel and has had to tear up her entire garden. She had a beautiful crepe myrtle that was going to be destroyed so she asked me if I wanted it.

I said, “Yes!” My landscape guys removed it for me and planted it, and voila, a beautiful new tree.

During the tree wrangling process I started to pull weeds and cut back straggly plants and the next things I knew I was gardening again and all was right with the world.

Renew, reuse, recycle—rejoice.

Another Bloomin’ Orchid

I still say that orchids are easy-peazy but I’m also very proud of myself lately because I have several orchids blooming at once—ones that have never bloomed before.

Here is the latest. I wish I knew what it was but, alas, it is one of my garage sale purchases and it came without a label. It is also extremely fragrant in a deep, earthy, musky, feminine sort of way.

The most important factor in growing orchids in your house is a good window with appropriate light.

 

Bubblegum Alley

My idea was to take my son on a little vacation, and spend some quality mom/son time with him before jr. high school.

And of course, I wanted to do activities that he liked. So, there were times during our three-day adventure when I ended up in places that I wouldn’t have chosen for myself.

Like Bubble Gum Alley.

Bubble Gum Alley is located between 733 and 734 Higuera Street in downtown San Luis Obispo, California. It’s pretty self-explanatory. But I’ll go ahead and explain it, even though when I think about it, I throw up in my mouth a little. It’s an alley 15-feet high and 70 feet long that is completely covered in multiple layers of chewing gum.

Used chewing gum.

Now to me, this “tourist attraction” would be way better if it was completely erased from my memory bank. But my son loved it, of course. He read about it and came prepared with two pieces of bubble gum, one for him and, gulp, one for me.


I dutifully chewed my piece of gum, as did my son. I bravely approached the alley, holding my breath, because if I had caught a wiff of some unexpectedly bad odor I’d have hurled on the spot.

I pulled the gum out of my mouth and attempted to stick it to the alley wall. I couldn’t get it to stick, so I started squealing and dancing around, not in a good way but in a manner very entertaining to my son.
I finally got it to stick and ran in the opposite direction from the alley.

 It was my son’s turn, and he seemed almost as disgusted as I was when it came right down to applying his gum to the wall. After the sticking ceremony was complete, I couldn’t wait to get away from that particular tourist spot.

And wash my hands.

ROAD TRIP!

My youngest son is ten.

This is his last year in elementary school, and it’s parent/teacher conference week, with half days all week. What better week for a ROAD TRIP!

I won’t be able to do this next year. This is it, my friend. Next year is the dreaded, evil middle school—aka Jr. High.

Since someone has to stay home and take care of my older son and make the money, I need to go on the trip.

So, this car trip consists of my ten-year-old and me. I had originally planned to take him all the way to LegoLand, in San Diego, a place he’s always wanted to visit. But, because of a meeting that falls smack in the middle of the week (you know who you are) I had to shorten the trip.

And what was my son’s second choice—since he couldn’t go to Legoland? That’s right, you guessed it, The Madonna Inn.
 
What do you mean you didn’t guess The Madonna Inn?

Ten reasons why we like the Madonna Inn:

1. It’s located in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.
2. It’s located in one of the prettiest towns in California.
3. It has one of the best, brand-new heated pools anywhere.
4. In it’s restaurant, it has the greatest men’s room in the world.
5. Pink chenille bathrobes.
6. Every room has a different tacky theme that you will talk about for years to come.
7. None of those silly pillow top mattresses and fluffy pillows–It’s slabs of foam all the way baby.
8. It’s close to Pismo Beach.
9. It’s never crowded.
10. Really nice people work there.

Fun With Genetics and Pumpkins

I planted seeds from two different pumpkins this year, one was a Galeux d' Eysines (pink warty), and one was a Princess Pumpkin.
Only one or two of the Princess Pumpkin seeds sprouted. Most of the pink warties sprouted but a lot shriveled on the vine.

So almost all, if not every single pumpkin came from pink warty seeds. The variation is impressive. Now I know I don’t have to go out and buy many different seeds or pumpkins to get seeds from.

All I need is one or two.

These two are definitely from the Galeux d’ Eysines.

Pear Butter

I made pear butter and it actually came out great!

Yes, you are reading this correctly.

I, Chigiy, klutz extraordinaire, accident-prone dork, actually made a successful batch of pear butter. A friend of mine ended up with way too many red pears so she passed them on to me, mostly because I said I was going to make pear butter from them. Then of course I had to. I didn’t realize how much time it would take. And it always takes me about twice as long as normal people with normal amounts of brain cells.

I brought the pears home and looked up a recipe on my friend Elise’s recipe blog, Simply Recipes, found a recipe, and made it.

The recipe says to use Bartletts, but all I had were red pears so I used them and not only did the butter turn out tasty, the color is really pretty.

See?

Home And Garden Tour

I was asked to design a garden for a home and garden tour.

Of course I was very excited about this proposition because the home was located in an old established and historic neighborhood called the Rose Garden. Also because I used to live in that neighborhood. The home I was given to work on was a traditional home on a beautiful tree-lined street.

The owners wanted to do a garden using mostly their own furnishings, garden art, pots, etc. They had a very limited budget so I was asked to suggest ways for them to clean up, rearrange, and fill in their yard without lots of trips to the nursery.

I’m proudest of these areas:
This old fountain didn’t work very well. It was missing a few pieces and it was cracked in several places. We turned it into a planter and it looks beautiful.

before

 
after
We cleaned up the stone planting bed, added some more shade plants and freshened it up with redwood bark.

before

after

In the front yard, we trimmed shrubs, took out a couple of tired junipers and replaced them with azaleas, cyclamen and heuchera.

before

after                                                               

We again freshened things up with a layer of redwood bark.

Voila.

My Famous Quince Syrup Recipe

Oh, all right.

It was supposed to be jam, and somehow it all went wrong. So now I have 11 ½ jars of chunky quince syrup.

Everyone knows I can’t follow a darn recipe, which is why I don’t have a food blog.

I have a gardening blog.

And I have to say that even though things didn’t quite go the way I wanted, the chunky syrup is really pretty.

Here is how I made my famous quince syrup. It would be best if you did not try duplicate this unless you would like some pretty pink chunky syrup of your own.

You were suppose to grate the quince with a cheese grater. I injured my shoulder in a freak yoga accident, so I matchsticked them with a very sharp knife then cut the other direction.

I had such high hope at this point.

 
I boiled the quince about twice as long as you were suppose to and it still didn't thicken up.

Aren't they pretty? And so good on waffles.

The recipe came from Simply Recipes. I'm sure it's a great recipe for someone who has way more brain cells than I.