Sunflowers and Pumpkin.

Late September, so that is about six weeks after planting all my seeds in the garden, and look at these sunflowers opening up. Bloody hell they are big and bright. The funny thing is you can actually see them follow the sun across the sky, in the morning they are facing east and at the end of the day they are watching the sun set in the west like a bunch of Florida sunbathers. I think the word for what they are doing is "heliotropis". Anyway whoever really thought of flowers twisting their necks to look around, sounds a bit scary that way doesn't it, like one of those portraits in a haunted mansion
Below are some more of my yellow squash (courgettes), its possible I may have planted too many and won't be able to eat them all, but part of the fun of growing your own veggies is giving them away to friends and family. Everyone always says how much better the taste is than the stuff bought at the supermarket. I did not know it but everywhere there is a flower on a squash plant there will eventually be a squash, what a surprise, I thought the flowers and the produce were seperate items on the same plant, truly I am a "Witless Gardener".

Heres some corn for you to look at. Really looks different when its not sat with you watching a movie don't you think? I have learned that corn is a grass and that it self pollinates, doesn't need bees or anything in order to propagate. Good word that, propagate. When you see a sturdy iron garden gate or castle portcullis you can say " Now thats a propagate" LOLOLOL I'll be here all week folks, tip your waitresses. Last but not least a Pumpkin.....TaDaaaa. I know ,I know it is green, but my ex-hippy wife has promised me it will turn orange. Just be patient she said. There is that P word again, time to go look for the orange spray paint. Oh and pumpkins grow right out from under the flower too, just like a squash, amazing what you learn.!!!!
Well time to toddle off to work so hopefully all you bloggers and friends and family out there will have a great day. Next time you see a flower look under it, there might be a surprise right under your nose.
Keep on digging,
Garden Geezer

Big Garden, Small visitor. "P" is for picking.

As you can see from this photo the garden is really growing now, and as you can see by my stylish attire, visiting the garden is almost the first thing I do when I get home from work. The other thing you can see in this picture is a little visitor. Nope we did not grow him in the garden (although when he becomes a handfull I often think it would be a good idea to bury him in it) he arrived from Atlanta for a visit to Nana and Paulpauls house. His name is Christian and he loves to visit his Nana. Being from the mighty Metropolis of ATL, the whole gardening thing is quite new to him, actually at his age almost everything is quite new to him. He couldn't wait to go outside and have a look at everything and even though his feet are tiny compared to mine he did manage to squish a few of my plants. Ah well I can't get mad at him I've squished a few myself since taking up this garden hobby. Anyway Christian and Iwandered all over the garden, he asking questions like "what was that I just stepped on Paulpaul??" and me saying "well son, that used to be a cucumber plant" and on and on just substituting cucumber for whatever else he was trampling on. I think it might be a good idea to grow grapes then we can put those feet of his to good use !
In this picture you can just tell from the body language of us both that Christian is about to go Godzilla on more of my plants and I am starting to reach out to grab him and explain that if he keeps squashing them there will be no food to eat next time he visits.
Almost managed to get a picture of my lovely wife on the Blog but didn't pull back far enough.
O.K. these are my yellow Squash which I believe are called Courgettes in England ( a much fancier name don't you think, ) they are getting to the point where they are almost ready to pick. Cheri says to be patient and give them a day or two more. So I shall try to practice the "p" word, how do you think I will do?

Well if you thought Paul was going to Pass the Patience test then you are Pitiful.
As far as I am concerned P is for Picking, and look what I picked !
Now I did manage to restrain myself and only pick two items but" aren't they beauties mate, crikey"
A courgette and a marrow or as they say here in America yellow squash and green squash.(zucchini) I have to say here and now that I have spent most of my life doing anything I can to avoid eating veggies but, I did grow these myself so for the first time in my life I uttered the previously unimaginable sentence"Honey, let's eat these vegetables tonight". D'you know what, those things tasted great. I didn't even have to cover them in mashed potatoes or drown them in ketchup to mask the taste. (childhood tricks)
It was almost a shame to eat them, I mean look at the colour and size and shape, those were perfect squashes...squash...squiiii...veggies.
This blogging stuff is fun isn't it, but hey it is 3:30 in the morning now , so its off to bed for me. I hope all your squashes are perfect too and all your kids and grandkids have really small feet.
Gnight
Garden Geezer

Pickles and Princes, Cabbages and Kings.

Here is a good picture of the other half of the garden The back row is Sunflowers then Cukes, Squash, Zucchini,Pumpkins. Nearer to the front were the carrots lettuce, beets, and something that didn't come up 'cos every time I walked through the garden to look at stuff I managed to step on it. Oops ! Weeeelll we didn't expect everything to come up, lolol.
I am not quite sure what it is I am so happy about in this picture, it could be anything, 'cos life is grand when your garden is "coming up roses". It seems that I am standing over some of Miss Cheri's lettuce if I remember correctly. I'll bet some of you didnt realise how big the garden was because I only showed y'all 3 rows in the previous couple of posts. Well let me fill you in, we actually had Squash, Zucchini, Lettuce, Carrots, Beets, Cucumbers and Pumpkins. We also had Sunflowers and even though I had seen sunflowers before and knew they grew very large, I figured someone had been pouring "Miracle Grow" on them, and I truly did not expect a massive size from ours as we were trying to grow our stuff without chemical assistance. Oh, a word of advice to all you new gardeners and veggie eaters out there...... do not go to your local garden store or hardware store and ask for pickle seeds, apparently pickles are made from cucumbers! Who knew? Everyone but me it seems. Mike Davis my neighbour and the local hardware store guy, managed to keep a straight face when I asked him, in front of a store full of people, for pickle seeds. He had me repeat it a couple of times so all the locals could get their jollies laughing at the idiot "furrner" in town, then he calmly faked a phone call to a "seed supplier" and told me he could have some for me in two weeks. I will say he was kind enough to educate me before I left the store with all the seeds I needed that he did have in stock. I suppose we all bring joy and entertainment to people wherever we can, even if it is by accident .


Here is the "Garden Geezer" himself looking all smug and content, not feeling the least bit stupid after shopping for pickle seeds. Its really nice to sit on our grassy embankment with a cup of hot or iced tea and watch the garden growing. Usually my lovely wife is sat beside me but someone has to be behind the camera recording this stuff for posterity. I have a picture somewhere of 3 tomatoe plants that my friend Charles' Nana gave to me, I'll see if I can find it and post that on the next entry.

Bye for now,
Keep hoe-ing
"Garden Geezer"

The Miracle of Growth....aka "Look What I Did"

Can you believe it, just three short weeks after the hoeing and prep work, furrowing and seeding I actually had stuff coming up out of the ground. The smaller row to the right is a row of beans, the one in the middle is also beans .I was very impatient last year and just jumped at the chance to put up a couple of stakes and run some string between them so that my little "sproutlings" would have something to climb. Little did I know they weren't even crawling yet , never mind climbing. The row to the left is corn, I know, it just looks like bits of grass but you won't believe how big it grows. Its like having a garden full of Triffids....(a little bit scary at night)

The rocks you can see around the edge of the garden/patch are all from IN the garden, I did not realise when we moved to the mountains that I was going to have to actually move a mountain to grow some veggies.

Here are the same three rows just a week or so later, l-r beans, beans, corn. As you can see they were getting bigger and it was time to do a little weeding between my rows. Judging by the smile on my face I must have been "reet proud" of the progress my little sproutlings were making. Like the hat?? That is my "its drizzling a little bit but I'm going down to the garden, hat"
If you click on the picture it will enlarge and you will be able to see the raindrops clinging to the cornleaves. That was about the only rain we had that summer and I spent every other evening watering my plants with a hose 'til I installed a sprinkler on a post high enough to give the whole 400sq feet a soaking. Growing up in a mostly urban part of England we never really grew anything for eating and such, although as kids we did of course slice the tops off carrots and put them in a saucer of water to watch them grow. Mum said us boys, Paul, Craig and Chris were growing potatos in our ears some of the time but she never dug 'em out and cooked them.
I am going to post this now so that i can continue the next entry with more photos

Look Where We Live.

Time to get started on this thing , soooooo ,here goes. What better title for the first entry than the actual name of the Blog. Shall I say it one more time....Look Where We Live. We being my wonderful gypsy dance teacher wife,Cheri, and me the wannabe gardener himself "Garden Geezer". Where...being the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina, home of millions (literally) of Fraser Fir Christmas trees, moonshine stills (probably, though I haven't seen any yet) and friendly hillbilly folk who all seem to have a little garden in their back yards.

As a result of moving to an area where it is almost a law to have to grow something you can eat, and being married to a woman who eats more veggies than anyone I have ever met in my life, I became an unwitting gardener. You will find out how unwitting I actually am as this Blog progresses i am sure . When people around this part of America say "garden" they are almost always talking about their food gardens not their flower gardens, although they are "right proud " of their flowers too. Most flower gardens are in the front yard so everyone driving by can see them and most food gardens are in the back yard so that the neighbours don't have to cringe at the sight of you using an old bedframe to grow your cucumbers on. There is an awful lot of "making do" up here, especially amongst the old timers, so you can see some wild and wonderful uses for worn out or discarded objects as they are salvaged and put to use in gardens and yards.

Today's photo is of "the Geezer" himself hoe-ing through his first ever garden, or 400sq/ft of dirt. I suppose it isn't really a garden until something other than your footprints are planted in it ! I must admit I did feel a bit like Neil Armstrong when I looked back and saw all those workboot prints in that virgin expanse of turned and hoed soil. That first garden was last year 2007 and the gardening bug hit Cheri and I a little late in the season so we did not even sow our first seeds 'til the middle of July. Everyone told us nothing would "make" because we started late, but we weren't really bothered by that, we just wanted to get our first years practice in.

I should say at this point that it was MY first years practice, Cheri had of course done all kinds of gardening in her hippy/commune living youth and proved to be a great advisor and prompter for me in my first garden. She is still prompting and guiding me this year too, although I do not mind getting gardening books from the library or chatting with locals to find out what works best where etc. I think that will do for a first Blog entry, what do you think? Yeah , maybe I will continue with this story tomorrow night, either way whether I write it down or not the story will continue. I hope your story is as happy as ours.

All the best

The Garden Geezer