Mauryhill tour #2

WOW Holly, nice work... You can come to my mud hole anytime. LOL

Sorry All, I have been hiding. So to say!!!! Just lost my grip, and got into FB games. To fun to lose yourself in. ^_^ But I have been told that I was missed, will not say who. But I guess I needed to show myself.

We all miss you Tils. You are a big part of how we feel about DG. Hugs also.

Nice to see you posting again, Tills. ♥

Sorry I'm bad LOL

Dave has started the Photo Contest.

Hugs

I put my spider web in just for fun. My first time at entering.

Now if we could hear from Redchic!

That's right! Good to hear from you too Tilly. You needed a little escape time, that's okay, but we sure did miss you. Glad you are back.

Willow, you are a great photographer. You could enter more than one. There are lots of categories..Personally, I love spiders, to watch do their spidery activities, but not if crawling on my arm after I have been pulling up tomato vines. My class is studying spiders right now, and we made little spider puppets out of brown corduroy cloth, pipe cleaners (the legs) with beads for eyes, white yarn spider threads, and felt decorations on the back. I am now all out of 4 tubes of fabric glue, but it was fun and they were happily playing with them all afternoon.

This message was edited Oct 20, 2009 9:05 PM

LOL Too Funny,,,, Glue!!!!@!

Holly love the pergola and the new path! The fall colors at your house are gorgeous! I love the beads set in the concrete (mental note to self to remember for my next project!)

Thanks for the kind remark Holly. Never thought I would hear anyone say that about me LOL

Hi Rachel, Good to hear from you. Thanks for the compliments. The beads were fun, but we had to work fast before the concrete set. I think there are mosaic techniques one could use to make it easier to set them. i bet Pixy would know something about how you could do it.

Here's a photo of the path as far as I've gotten this week. We went to get more bricks (used up the first pallet load) and they turned out to be not quite the same color. Some were just older and more weathered, but some were a brown mix, so Harley took them back. Now I have to wait til more of the right color are available. Oh well, plenty of other work to keep me busy, and my arm needs a break from pounding the mallet.

This is the iris bed with creeping thyme and sedum ground covers. Also with new fence that the deer can get neither under nor over.

That same bed wraps around on the other side of the fence. This little orange flowered plant just blooms for months. I think it is an agastache. It was a sale table plant with no tag. I must do something about the keeled over crocosmia. Are you supposed to chop everything down to the ground?

This message was edited Oct 25, 2009 8:53 PM

Holly - Agastache it is.
Allow the Crocosmia foliage to go dormant. I treat them like Hardy Gladiolus.

Holly, I love your path. It is such a nice entry for your home and looks very inviting. A great project!

Love your path and pergola......really adds a nice finished touch! As far as grapes go I have had a great deal of succes with Venus grapes and they don't even get as much sun as they should have. Send Harley and his crew this way.....LOL

This message was edited Oct 26, 2009 10:40 AM

Your path looks very nice and I love your fence. Wish we could have fences here. My three deer heard my DH open the cart shed door yesterday and came running over for their apples. They are so cute.

Wow. That looks so different. Nicely done!

Wow!! Nicely done!! That path is gorgeous and pergola is beautiful. Really enjoyed the tour of your beautiful garden, even in fall and thanks for showing the surrounding area. Gives me a better perspective of the 'island'.

I've been hiding too, (losing myself in playing games too, Tills) my cousin in PA got me started playing cards with her and we try to beat each other in other games. It's been fun visiting with her. So much still to do and I just haven't been able to get it done.

The path is coming along nicely! And you have great fall color.

Why is this titled #2? was there another thread previous that I missed?

holly & harley well done! I have enjoyed the walk through. I always want to see the whole area. your closeups are fabulous but let me see the whole area. please?

Hi Sally. I hope you are doing alright in all these rainstorms. I'm glad you enjoyed the tour.

Gwen, it's number 2 because I did a virtual photo tour about a year ago. The link is in one of the posts above. People had been talking about how to better include folks who live far away and how to get to know each others' gardens better. I thought photo tours were a good idea and wanted to get the ball rolling so to speak. We need something to lift our spirits when the days shorten and the wind blows wet and chilly. I'd love to see a photo tour of your place. You could be next!!

Steve, I don't have too many photos from farther back because I'm always trying to avoid including some pile of junk in the picture. I'll see what I can do. I might have something that shows a little more of the yard. If not, I will be brave (or foolish) and get out and take wider angle photos tomorrow...if there is a moment to dodge between rain showers.
Here is one taken from the corner of the vegetable garden that shows the house and out-building in the background

Nice spot.

Holly you hippies shouldn't worry about such things. they become part of the garden. nice shot of summer spendor! Thanks.

This shows the other end of the veggie garden, with new pergola at the end of the beds. There is an area that we rototill (rather than do raised beds) on the other side for big stuff like corn and pumpkins, though I didn't do corn this year.

This message was edited Nov 7, 2009 10:33 PM

Here is the northeast corner of the yard, diagonally opposite the veggie garden, on the other side of the house. I have a weeping birch tree with blueberry bushes around it, also the beginning of cardboard and woodchip mulch to beat back the grass and weeds. Beyond that, a Hinoki cypress, and a Colorado blue spruce which does not appreciate our climate and is not doing so well. We have it because it was what the guys picked for our living Christmas tree several years ago, and it needed to be planted somewhere.

The outside of the shrub border around the patio. That's a burning bush and camellia 'apple blossom' both of which need to be moved, the first because it is outgrowing the place and I have read will get twice as big even though the tag said "dwarf" and the second because it dislikes the full sun (does okay this time of year).

A shot from six or seven years ago that shows the patio garden under construction and provides a view of the southern part of the yard. The old cherry tree is the largest tree. It was here when we bought the place, along with several old apple trees. On the outside of the fence, a friend of ours keeps all his stuff in the plastic carport, trailers, old vehicles, and piles under tarps. He placed the broken concrete patio blocks with his excavator.

Same cart full of pie pumpkins.

Yum! You must make a lot of pies!!!!!

Nice Holly. I now have a concept of the vastness of the garden. You have a lot of room to work on it. Very beautiful what you have done. I like the way you are using all of the hard scape to accent the areas around. You look like you have a lot of sun with the openess of the property. Nice!

Another nice view of your garden. You have a lot to take care of and are doing a great job. We're soggy, had a bit of a dry spell today, so I got some clean up done outside. Mom was watching out the window and she said I wore her out. Almost have everything done for winter, my place is small.

Thanks for the walk about, I truly enjoyed it.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and appreciation. It is actually good for me to step back and take pictures. When I'm in there weeding for the umpteenth time it is hard to see progress.

Sally there are times I wish my place were smaller. An acre and a half is a lot to take care of. It started out as fairly level pasture with several fruit trees and a couple of old pickers' sheds, including a six-seater outhouse from when this was a currant farm. I have tried to give some shape to the garden around the house so it doesn't look so plunked down in the middle of a field.

Yep, Steve, I have sun, and lots of it. And Gwen, we do make a fair number of pies, and pumpkin soup with ginger. This overwhelming number of pumpkins was kind of accident though. Last year I didn't have as many as I wanted (enough to give out to kids in my class for Halloween in addition to making my own pies) so this year I planted 2 vines and then 3 more volunteered out of the compost heap. Add to that a very good squash year. I have sold some to a local health food grocery, given away bunches, and now I'm doing a fund raiser for the school activities fund (part of which will buy a load of compost for the school garden) and had the kids decorate pumpkin pie recipes and tie them to the stems.

Here is a current photo of the patio garden from the same location I took that picture 7 years ago.

Very nice change. What kind of pumpkins do you plant? Did you save seeds?

I copied this recipe out of a magazine while I was waiting to get my hair cut tonight

Curried Pumpkin and Peas (6 servings - 45 minutes)

2 T unsalted butter
1 med onion, sliced
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 1/2 t curry powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
2 lbs pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cut into 1 inch pieces
2 med red potatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 c low sodium chicken broth
3/4 c golden raisins
3/4 c frozen baby peas
cilantro for garnish

Heat butter in a large pan over high heat. Add onion and cook until golden brown. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more. Stir in curry powder, salt and pepper. Add pumpkin and potatoes and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Pour in broth and raisins and cover, reducing heat to medium.

After 15 minutes, add peas. Replace cover and continue to cook until pumpkin and potatoes are tender, 5 to 10 minutes more.

9.2 g protein
4.9 g fat
48.8 g carbohydrate
258 calories
514 g sodium
7.3 g fiber

Holly, I have really enjoyed my virtual walk through your garden! You guys have done a beautiful job!

Isn't it just amazing to see before and after shots of a garden you have built? It gives you such a wonderful sense of accomplishment!

That curried pumpkin really looks delicious. I'm going to try it this weekend.

I got some pumpkin plants at the high school horticulture program sale. The tags just said 'pie pumpkin' so I don't know the specific variety. Then the ones I put in last year re-seeded themselves where a vole chewed into the rind and spread seeds around. I also had yet another pumpkin plant sprout up from the compost. I harvested some that had a very round shape and others that were kind of squat, wider than tall. I'll be saving some seeds for planting. We have roasted the seeds too, and they taste pretty good.

Julie, it really does help to look back at what the area was like 7 years ago. Otherwise it is hard to appreciate incremental progress. The trees really are growing!

I figured you'd probably like some new recipes, since you had so much pumpking. I think I'm going to try it out this weekend, too.