i don’t think this is really a tiger lily but it IS the most luscious orange and it’s blooming this week in my yard. and cookie and i were just talking about woody allen movies the other night, so that phrase is on my mind.
these plants were a gift from the doctor across the the back street a couple of years ago—he was thinning out his beds while we were working in our yard and he asked if we’d like to take some of the gleanings to plant.
david put them in all along the side directly across the lawn from my office window. that year they were goners really, and last year they came up, but didn’t bloom. but this year—wow, this is their year, alright. i never realized from the distance of our yard how beautiful they are, sporting a sort-of double flower . .
along with all the other lilies—they are stupendous this year. and not just mine, either; everywhere i go on my bike rides i’m seeing abundant lilies.
before i launch into a very long garden update (because in garden time, it’s been too long, you know?), let me get you caught up on the non-garden news. as i mentioned last week, i’ve been madly working on secret projects and patterns for our fall projects club and i gotta tell ya, i am in yarn heaven in that department. and it’s not just me either—half have already found a home with karolyn to be test knit and the two of us can hardly contain our adjectives in email—we are besides ourselves.
sigh. too bad i can’t show ya . . .
david is busy working on his shipping strategy and the design of the accompanying eBook; beckie and helena are clearing their calendars to schedule help days for packaging kits and stuffing envelopes.
and i’m getting ready to skip town to go to knit nation in london, hahaha.
(that’s truly not as carefree and evil as it sounds—i’m in a total panic)
before i go, i’d love to finish this last piece of my rené cardigan and so far, i’ve not been making such excellent progress to that end. i decided to work on it while we watch the tour each night, but by the time we get to do that these days, i’ve been pooped. in fact, i’ve only twice been able to watch a complete stage in one sitting—we’re already behind on the race, heh.
but i’m hoping to catch up tonight . . . we’ll see. the actual knitting is going well, so i still have hope for victory.
meanwhile, there’s nothing like a little blocking prøn to loosen the kinks and have i got some for you. after a whole day of finally wrestling my bookkeeping into submission, i treated myself to blocking my sweetgeorgia cashsilk scarf.
mmmm. i love the way the pattern and yarn work together to produce that beautiful dark/light shading which makes the embossed areas of the pattern pop.
this is an extra-nice cashmere/silk blend that knits into a fine, luxurious fabric, characterized by luscious drape and an inner glow that can only be generated by quality fiber.
with a yarn like this, every stitch just falls into the place the way it’s supposed to
drawing out clean, distinct pattern lines along the scarf length
which are accented by eyelets filled with a gorgeous hazy bloom of soft light. exquisite, isn’t it?
and tomorrow, we’ll have the pattern ready and waiting, right here.
but today is for the garden—with an opening round of applause for david’s finished railing project, which finalizes the outside projects plan for the house (excepting plantings, of course, which i doubt we’ll ever want to be done with).
the big landscaping in the yard below is done and now it’s up to us to add plantings as we go. i already have my eye on splitting myriad hostas from my backyard beds
which are bursting at the seams this year, and transferring that lushness to the side yard, where i’m sure it’ll flourish. we’ll accent those with specimen shrubs, perennials and my friend debby has offered splits of her many, many varieties of day lilies (a favorite of mine). it will be fun and we can take our time doing it.
those hostas are all in full bloom now and what a thicket of flowers they’ve got to show this year. these are a real favorite of the bees and if i walk through this area, i can hear a steady drone of sound from their busy work of visiting each bloom to collect nectar.
this is where our shade plants grow best—while not technically dark, the spot is protected almost all day from direct sun and the ground here stays moist and cool.
these beds filled to the brim in what feels like no time and are in great need of thinning. good thing we created more planting space in that adjacent lot.
it’s funny, because just around the corner, literally on the other side of the fence, our vegetable garden is in full, nearly all-day sun and we grow completely different things there.
bright, big squash flowers came out over the weekend and right on their heels—tiny squashes. looks to me like these are one of the round or patty pan varieties.
truthfully, i can’t remember which ones i planted where—once that first group of squashlets got eaten up, i just replanted sort of will-nilly. i like surprises. i hope at least one of these is of edible size before i leave; the whole squash crop could be gone by the time i get back, if the bugs or mildew get to them.
last thursday, david and i put in an afternoon together out in the vegetable patch, weeding, straightening up, pruning, and fertilizing. at the end of the afternoon, we put down the last of our newspaper and straw mulch to keep the weeds down and the ground moist around the plants for the rest of the summer.
i want everything to be nice an neat so david can navigate it easily while i’m gone—he’s going to have a lot on his hands to keep an eye on. and boo-hoo, i’m going to miss the excitement.
BTW, i’m looking for ways to make putting up the vegetables as easy for him as possible. i usually blanch the green veggies and freeze them in bags—not terribly time consuming, but it might be too much for david with everything else. i remember last year that there was a buzz going around about freezing uncooked vegetables . . . anybody try that and have feedback on it? did you do leafy greens that way too? was the final flavor all that you hoped for or did it fall short?
we hilled up the straw very high around the potatoes, as suggested by a couple of readers (thanks!). the potatoes are in full bloom now and i found something interesting on the king harry plants that i want to know more about
why would these flowers generate a little fruit like that and what sort of fruit is it?
the other varieties don’t have these fruits that i can tell, but they do have pretty flowers in dark purple, lavender, and white.
which just happen to be identical to the ones on the eggplant—how about that?
not completely surprising, since they are both nightshade plants, but still, they are a lot more alike than i would have thought, being that one grows fruit (mostly) below the ground and one only above.
i find both flowers so beautiful. i like this shot with the house in the background; it makes the flower look so mighty.
speaking of which, i found eggplants growing on the plants today. sweet!
further along and keeping with the nightshade theme, our pepper plants are suddenly loaded with fruit as well.
we have two kinds of sweet peppers and both are supposed to produced colorful fruit—yummy papers, above, turn orange and the red bells below turn well . . . red. we hope. i’m just pleased that our bell peppers are already so big and thick-fleshed.
peppers are one of those things that for whatever reason, just love our garden. we don’t even pay them a bit of attention and they give us bagfuls back—go figure.
the tomatoes are all looking healthy, thank goodness. i picked the first one today, along with some other stuff i’ll show you in a minute. i’ll need do a good pruning on a few of the plants before i go, but other than those, the rest are staying small-ish, but producing lots of fruit.
next door to the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant is my patch of greens, beets, and beans. honestly i have never seen green bean plants this size—almost waist high.
they’ve been in flower for about a week and the other day i saw thread-like beans growing there.
then this morning, they were already big enough to pick. i forget from year to year just how quickly vegetables grow, once they get going. you wait and wait for a measly sprout or flower and then BAM, you are suddenly picking like crazy just to keep up.
and look at my greens, whoa.
i swear they grow about six inches each day. most of these i’m leaving out there til the weekend, when i plan to show david how to get them from here to our freezer for winter. i don’t know how much he’ll actually do, but even a couple of harvests would keep things tame and prevent them from getting tough.
here’s another example of what i’m talking about
just two weeks ago i was thinning the turnips and the ones i pulled had the tiniest of bulbs underneath. now there are several that are 3-4 inches in diameter. how does that happen? and of course i’m not at all prepared for it—i’m not even sure what i’m going to do with those, since i mostly grew them for the greens.
this morning i netted enough green beans to keep a batch for dinner and freeze a nice quart bag full. while i was at it, i picked some greens to sauté and eat with the beans; we have roasted beets to round out the plate. with a couple of small baked potatoes, that is MY kind of meal.
(the tomato may not make it to the dinner table, hehe.)
and with that, i think it’s time for me to keep moving or i’ll never get everything done that i have to do. but here’s one last recent bloom for you to enjoy.
see you tomorrow when we’ll be getting our scarf love on . . .
35 thoughts on “what’s up, tiger lily?”
Yeah, that orange lily is a daylily I think (but you probably knew that).
My favorite part of the new scarf: The ends! Love how there’s just that touch of the non-linear there 🙂
Your posts are always so long and poetic and — to use a word I think I just read here — exquisitely written. And I’m going to come along and plop my bottom down with comments that are exactly the opposite but written with affection.
1. Wow that scarf! It really is gorgeous and you’re right about the light and dark shading. Wow.
2. Turnips. I don’t like them, but a friend has been treating her CSA turnips like potatoes at my recommendation, and she (and her 8 year old boys!) loves them.
3. I fell in love with a house last night but the back yard needs landscaping help. You’ll come out here and help, right? 😉
The scarf is just gorgeous now that it’s blocked. I can’t wait to see the pattern. Also, I should say, you’re doing a terribly good job of building the excitement for the fall projects club. I don’t know how anyone could possibly resist, but then I’ve been happy about it from the first mention.
One suggestion for those young turnips: sliver them like radishes and add them to salad.
Where I grew up Tiger Lilies line the roads – they have a very dark (brown/black) center to them.
I just recently added turnips to my veggie repertoire! The little ones are wonderful raw in a salad (almost like bamboo shoots, but better). Both small and large are good sauteed with apples in olive oil and butter.
I have turnips planted in my garden for the first time this year and pulled one up the other nite and it looked like a wee parsnip. Is this an indication that they need to be thinned more?
I’m also wondering how you prepare the greens?
Those bees in the hostas have nothin’ on you, Anne!
I love the scalloped hem of the scarf. In fact, I want all my shawls to have scalloped hems now.
Your garden looks incredibly happy and on the edge of bursting! Maybe you need to ask David to install a webcam at ground level so you can have daily inspections while traveling.
I guess the rainy spring we’ve had really did it’s work well, didn’t it? Your garden is just phenominal! Everything looks so healthy and happy. What time did you say dinner is going to be???? I haven’t had a garden in years, but still – there is little that is quite as satisfying as looking out over your own acres and seeing your hard work come to life.
I wasn’t so sure about the blue scarf for a while – but once again I’m amazed at what can happen to a project once it is washed and blocked. It’s SO pretty! One of my favorite things about knitting is to watch a fiber “bloom”. (No pun intended, since this was such a great garden blog today! LOL)
I’m green with envy! Your garden is simply beautiful. Have you tried stuffed squash bloosom. They will melt in your mouth.
We live in So. West Texas, this year it has been so dry. My husband is a Master gardner, it has been driving him crazy to keep plants and trees alive. His reward has been a very pretty yard, the flowers seem to be very unhappy.
The garden shots are amazing! And I’m loving the new scarf – it looks like a cousin of Butternut.
My husband has forbidden me from showing him any more of your beautiful garden posts – he’s afraid he won’t be able to resist the urge to move into your garden.
So, if you wake up some morning and there’s a short bald dude pretending to be a garden gnome, let me know – I promise he’ll go peacefully!
Yup what you there is called Hemerocallis fulva (aka double ditch lily). It is a daylily, but spreads sideways rather quickly in the garden via a rhizome. I have a whole bunch of them. Mine are only just budding. Notice how each one is different regarding the inside petals. The pistil and stamen are often glued to the side of those full inside petals.
The same thing happened to me last year when I grew King Hairy potatoes- I clipped off those seed pod looking things so as not to sap energy from the growing potatoes below. Perhaps you can contact Jim & Megan Gerritsen at Wood Prairie Farm about it.They have a FB presence too.
i’m amazed at how wonderful your garden is. I’m NOT a gardener so I’m very jealous. Our garden is a total mess but because it’s so out of control we do get an awful lot of birds in our garden which is nice.
Have a nice trip to London. I’ll say hello to you if i see you around Knitnation.
Oh I found the answer on the FB page: they are called seed balls! And are common in the King Harry and All Blue varieties.
You all have a wonderful garden. Everything is beautiful and so well planned. I love eating fresh vegetables from the garden.
The fruits on your potato plant are just that–potato fruits–and if left on the plant to mature will have potato seeds inside (as opposed to seed potatoes). Some varieties are more likely than others to set fruits, but crossing different varieties and growing out the seeds is how plant breeders come up with new potato varieties. As gardeners we plant the actual tubers so we know what to expect, and also to speed things up quite a bit! I love your garden!
Mary
Ooh! A Friday treat, a new pattern to play with. I used to have a similar Daylily, it spread beautifully and was a useful house warming present to help keep it in order!
love the grand finale coneflower shot! as always, thank you for the lovely knit and garden tour, Anne!
Oooo, the scarf is fabulous after blocking! You’re right, it’s the blocking that brings out the interplay of textures. The drape is very, very sensuous.
As to why to blanch veggies before freezing, I have it on excellent authority (my mom, the retired cooperative extension agent) that the reason is to kill enzymes that would otherwise stay active and cause the veggies to lose quality over time. Her wisdom is reinforced at the following website: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/questions/FAQ_freezing.html#27. To quote:
“Is it recommended to blanch vegetables before freezing?
Yes. Blanching slows or stops the action of enzymes which cause loss of flavor, color and texture. Blanching cleanses the surface of dirt and organisms, brightens the color and helps retard loss of vitamins. Blanching also wilts or softens vegetables and makes them easier to pack.”
Exquisite indeed! Both your new scarf & your beautiful garden!
My potatoes nearly always have flowers and fruit – they don’t detract from the crop, but don’t eat them – they are poisonous
The garden and knitting are both beautiful.
I like raw turnips peeled and cut into wedges; I store cut pieces in water in the fridge like I would cut carrots.
Regarding preserving the vegetables, I’ve not done much with greens, but imagine they could be bagged raw for freezing, especially if you’re using them for soup or stew. Green beans are disastrous if they’re not blanched, but peppers are fine frozen raw.
oh anne!
The only veggie we froze last year was zucchini. I grated it so I could use it in zucchini bread and chocolate zucchini cake…I blanched the first several batches, but then my MIL told me that she doesn’t blanch hers, she just freezes it as is. So I did that with the remaining zucchinis and used those bags first…just in case.
Your garden looks INCREDIBLE! Ours has had a VERY slow start this year…the spring was very chilly. Which, of course, was good for the lettuce and radishes!
Your garden is so far ahead of mine! Of course, mine went in late since it was so cold here. (Even planting late, it was 41 degrees the day I put most things in! Ugh.) Can’t wait for my first harvest. Hope it doesn’t come while we are at Sock Summit.
The scarf is just beautiful, and I have some lovely Cashmere Silk yarn in denim from Lisa Souza that would be just perfect for this.
Your flowers are beautiful!
Your garden is amazing – you must be feeling a bit niggled that you’re going to be away for a while when it’s going to be so productive. No doubt David will be picking and freezing for your return. We are currently dealing with a glut of cucumbers and loads of courgettes – shall be making courgette lasagne later today. You have a great support team back home to make sure that the first club shipment goes smoothly. It all sounds so exciting, and I can’t wait to receive my first parcel. I know it will be awesome!
Ooooh, that scarf looks lucious! As does your garden. I want to show this post to my husband & say “I want our yard to look like this.” Unfortunately neither of us are any great shakes as gardeners. Which is kinda sad considering how much of both our ancestors were farmers/agricultural laborers.
Turnips are yummy in stews instead of potatoes, and have the added benefit of having a lower glycemic index so are better if you have a diabetic in the house. What’s kinda entertaining to me about that is they taste sweeter to me than potatoes. But they do seem to be better for my mom.
What a wonderful post…both with the knitting and with the gardening. I love the scarf, BTW!
Your photos of your garden are great. It’s almost like being there with you.
One year when we lived in OH, we, too, had an abundance of green beans and I grew tired of blanching them, so just froze them after I washed and cut them up. That worked fine. If I were to freeze them now without blanching, I would wash them and, then, make sure they were dry before freezing them. If not, they freeze in clumps, but those cook up easy too, so tell David to take the easiest way for him to keep up.
Your garden looks amazing!! David’s going to be busy guy…but it will be a good busy. 🙂
The scarf pattern is beautiful!!!
To tell you how much in love I am with that scarf pattern would be so hard. It is exceptional as is all your knitting. You are the best!
Your garden is beautiful and I am very jealous. With temps here in the 100+ range, we are trying to keep things watered enough to keep them alive. I am taking the plunge and putting in a fall garden (plant now through the first of August). I hope for a smidge of what you have.
You are inspiring! Thanks for the spin around your knitting and your garden.
White beets are delicious sliced in salads. Once sliced they need to be eaten right away before getting bitter. I also love them shredded into slaw–or sliced really thin on cheese sandwiches…yum.
I freeze kale, chard, celery greens, onions, basil and parsley all the time. I usually rinse, dry and chop and pop them in a plastic bag–all with good results.
I’ve heard tell from a vegetarian friend that she does the same with tomatoes–for soups and sauces. I’ve not taken that plunge yet!
Green beans and broccolli frozen the same way were not a hit at my house. They loose their crunch and couldn’t be perked up even with a quick stir fry.
I love your garden posts this time of year!
My two cents — last year I started freezing tomatoes whole. Just clean them and throw them into bags into the freezer. When you take them out to make sauce, put a little water in the bottom of the pot to get them going, let ’em cook for while and then the skins just fall right off. I pull the skins out of the pot with tongs … it’s so easy. I haven’t tried raw-freezing with other veg but I might give a bag of greens a whirl this year just to see.
I usually grate zucchini and freeze it in 1-cup increments. No blanching needed there.
Peppers and onions I slice several ways (dice, mince, and in strips for fajitas) and freeze raw; the texture is mushier than fresh since the cell walls pop when the water expands as it turns to ice, but for most applications I’m sauteeing them anyway so a bit of mushy is just a head start.
I’ve never tried freezing raw leafy greens or green beans; my FIL makes spectacular canned green beans and carrots and he keeps us stocked all year ’round!
I wish my NE Ohio veggie garden looked as good as yours. We could use more rain about now.
I could picture some fall-blooming Japanese Anemones behind your hostas. I love mine and the foliage is beautiful as well.
Your scarf pictures make me want to go block something!
Your bell peppers are wonderful! Would you believe there is a shortage right now at the market here in California, and the only place I could find them was charging $5.99 a pound? I passed on that one. But when I can get them at a good price I chop them up right away raw, put them in freezer bags, and use them frozen as I need them for cooking. They don’t crunch as well as fresh, but the flavor is good for omlettes and spaghetti sauce.
Your potato fruit is exactly that, the fruit of the plant. Some potatoe varieties are more prone to produce fruit and some aren’t. This is where the true seeds are contained, although we generally propagate potatoes from the tubers. A woman called me once and thought her potatoes had cross pollinated with her tomatoes. They look the same because they are both from the same family of nightshade plants. Don’t eat them! They are toxic.