The Compost Bin

This Ornamental Cherry Tree was a one year wedding anniversary present from my Aunt. It's now eight years old and has come a long way from that little one gallon pot that it came in.

Originally went I planted it, I did a terrible job. I guess I didn't pack the soil down well enough because it started leaning and looked pretty crooked. But it still grew nicely for about five years. Then a few years back we did a major pool renovation and it had to be moved. The landscaping crew wrapped it up nicely and put it in a nice safe corner of the yard away from all the heavy machinery.

And months later, when the landscapers were done robbing us of all of our money, they used one of those heavy machines to replant the Ornamental Cherry Tree properly where it sits today.

Here's my first bloom of 2009. Happy Spring!

It's always nice to see things sprouting after a long winter. Here's a photo of a hydrangea starting to grow that I discovered after cleaning out a flower bed this weekend.

Grow Hydrangea Grow!

I discovered something that I thought was pretty amazing in my garden this past weekend. It seems that some of my cool season greens have lived through the winter. The plants looked dead as a doornail all winter but once the overnight temps started staying above freezing, they started sprouting again.

The Swiss Chard, the Arugula and the Bok Choy were all buried under snow for a good portion of the winter but I guess that may have helped insulate them from the cold. Either that or they're some sort of super vegetables.

This is great news because these are three of the plants that I picked to put outside in a hoop house before the danger of frost has passed. I guess my seedlings will be fine.

Holy cow, I have figs!

I'm shocked because I only bought the fig tree this season. I guess I'm used to fruit bushes and trees not doing anything for years. My blackberries took three years to produce fruit and my climbing hydrangea is on like it's 5th year without any signs of flowers. The can learn something from this fig tree.

One the best things I did this year was hide my vegetable garden. It's still located in the same place and you can still see it but it's not as noticeable when your sitting by the pool.

There's nothing wrong with seeing a vegetable garden while you're swimming. The problem is that when you can see the garden, you can see that it needs some weeding. And who wants to think about weeding when your goofing off with your kids in the pool.

Someday, I'd like to surround the garden with a nice custom made wood trellis fence and have tons of vegetables and flowers growing up it. And while I'm dreaming, how about a great looking arbor that you have to walk under to get in the garden. That would be awesome. For now though, I'll have to settle for a few ornamental grasses, a butterfly bush, some petunias and a musa basjoo. And really, they aren't too bad at all.

Just wanted to share some pictures of my father's grapes today. He has over 250 grape vines growing on his property. Most of them are still too young to produce grapes but in a few years, he'll have a barn full of wine barrels to show for all his hard work.

Did you ever spend all summer taking care of a weed that you thought was a flower? Well I did.

Last year we had petunias in this hanging basket and I'm always reading about people who have petunias that reseed like crazy, so that's what I thought was going on in this basket.

Even though not one single petunia has ever reseeded in our yard, despite buying a few flats worth of them every year, I was still optimistic. It probably just needed some fertilizer and then it would start to flower.

My wife, who dedicated her summer to making the yard look good must have asked me about 15 times what was growing in this basket. And each time I scoffed at her and said something like, "you silly woman, don't you know the difference between a weed and a petunia?" Or "I'm a world famous compost blogger, don't you think I know what I'm talking about?" I think I even said these things with a French accent, just to sound more annoying.

Well the summer is almost over and still nothing. It doesn't look like this plant will ever have petunia flowers on it. At one point I was tempted to run to the nursery and buy some to save face but being a man (who sometimes speaks with a phony French accent) I fessed up and told her I was wrong and that she was right. Damn my weed identification skills.

Ahhh yeah, this is Anthony coming at ya from W-H-O-S-T-A and I've got another funky beat for you to get your groove on. This one is called "Hosta Pictures". Check it out baby.

Last night, when my wife came home from food shopping she noticed this egg was sitting there next to our azaelas. Earlier that day, she had dug up some of my burnt Zinias and now there was an egg in this burnt zinnia hole. No one noticed any birds in the area so now we have a mystery egg staying warm in the mulch.

My best guess would be that it's a duck egg. I don't know anything about what bird eggs look like but I say duck egg because we always have ducks hanging out by the pool. A few years back the pool was broken and we had ducks and frogs living in there so I guess these ducks remember the good old days and like to visit.

My son thinks it's a dinosaur egg and that would be pretty cool although I think we would have noticed a T-Rex popping a squat in our Azaelas.

I know a lot of Bloggers like to do a Wordless Wednesday but I think I prefer doing it on Friday and I like to add some words.

My Wordless Friday With Words picture is of a spider hanging out on the little fig tree that followed me home one day.

Just posting a few random blooms today.

I was driving home from work the other day and had to stop the car to take of picture of this guy's lawn. He must be the most hated person in the neighborhood but to you Mr. Dandelion Farmer, I say, you're awesome!

Now here's a guy who probably hasn't used a lawn chemical in years and that's a good thing in my book. Most of my neighbors are retirees with lawns so green that it looks like someone painted them. If a stray leaf should blow into their yard, they're outside within minutes to pick it up.

Crews come every week to cut, spray, feed and blow all the debris off their outdoor green carpets. Having a "perfect" lawn was something that's important to that generation but thankfully the tradition is fading away.

And because I don't want to be considered the lazy Joe on the block, I'm out there working hard to get my organic lawn to look pretty good. That's my goal, just pretty good. As long as it's green and cut nicely, I'm happy. Thankfully, I have tons of clover mixed in my lawn that covers the looking green criteria. And it holds up better to my kids food traffic too.

But this Dandelion Farmer guy doesn't mind being the lazy Joe on his block. And in fact, in my imagination, I see him as being proud of it. Maybe his entire basement is filled with wine making equipment and he's producing homemade dandelion wine by the barrel. And that's a lot more exciting that having a boring lawn.

And the winner of the first garden fresh food ready to get eaten in 2008 goes to chives. Tell him what he's won, Johnny.

As the grand prize winner, Chives, you'll receive a wonderful spa day which includes resting on a luxurious bed made of baked potato.
Oooooooohhhhh.

But that's not all. We're also going to slather you with the finest sour cream.
Aaaaahhhhhh.

This past weekend I was excited to see that the buds on my rhododendrons are starting to swell up. That usually means that spring is on it's way but as I'm typing this post, we're in the middle of a winter weather advisory in New York/New Jersey. It seems that after getting an inch or two of snow today, it has decided that ice should fall from the sky for the rest of the night.

Checking back on some old posts, my Rhododendrons don't usually open until April or May. So seeing that bud was really just wishful thinking on my part.

My rhodos will have to wait a few months before they can start blooming and I'm going to have to get the shovel out of the garage tomorrow morning and chip away that ice.