VooDoo Lily

 My friend Gary and Barbara have a marvelous garden...their garden has been used for many garden tours. One of the very magical plants in their garden is the Voo-Doo lily which blooms once a year and only for one day.

It is quite beautiful and quite big...

You can get some perspective with Gary sitting in back of it. It just bloomed...and because of social distancing, we didn't have a chance to see it this time....but luckily I had some amazing pics from last year and since it just bloomed, I decided I needed to share this......It was amazing in person! 

And here are a few of my own lilies...not quite the Voo-Doo but still pretty.

Painter's Nursery

Our yearly trek to Painters Nursery in Old Fort, NC happened once again - come rain or shine....this year, it was SHINE fortunately. Every year we're wanting to cut back but it never happens.

It's a huge place, only open from March thru July...the rest of the year is spent getting ready for the following March opening.

Beautiful annuals and perennials along with vegetables (which is my favorite).

There is outside space and indoor greenhouses, beautiful hanging pots and other colorful offerings.

We bought some of those vibrant Asiatic lilies in orange...they are almost flourescent.

So just starting to pack up...every year we wish we brought 2 cars...

Packed very tightly...

And the front seat....... crazy...I drove home with my knees touching my chin....well it was worth it...Garden tour to follow as soon as we have the planting done. Of course, the highlight of the trip is ending up at lunch somewhere. My son likes Papas and Beer so that is usually our choice...a great day.

Spinach Anyone?

Wow, this pile just kept getting higher and higher - the last of our wonderful crop of spinach. We had to clear out the bed to plant butternut squash. I couldn't believe what a beautiful crop we had this year; and we all love it.

So lots of spinach dishes coming up in the next week...Yum!

Garden Time

We made our yearly trek to Painter's Nursery last week to load up on flowers for the summer. We have lots of places for planting and although we do have perennials, we also love the annuals for months of color. Painters is only open a few months from March until July. The rest of the time is spent getting ready for the next season.

 It's huge....

 really huge...with lots of sections outside

 as well as an indoor greenhouse

 that goes on forever.

 It's hard to get out of there without dropping more money than you want to.

 They also have several outdoor sheltered areas for plants.

 This fabulous nursery is located in Old Fort in NC.  We just love it here.

 There's a place to picnic if the mood strikes you.

 What tickled me most was this "Cat Grass" with a sign that said - "For your cat to munch on while he contemplates the meaning of life"

I have just the cat in mind!

A Gardening We Will Go

Well, we started off the season with a bang and always great fun deciding on what to plant each year.

We've used lots of perennials in the past as ultimately they are easier but have switched to annuals for color all summer long.

Our grass is still green and not crunchy brown as it is now.

Lots of day lilies...

and yard art - thanks to my son who loves designing gardens.

And around to the back, we have some pretty gardens...

doing well when first planted.

And around our bird feeder, some really unique looking - Zoey Zinnias.

Our pride and joy - an asiatic lily hybrid - gorgeous!

Our veggie garden was huge this year as John added 3 more raised beds making a total of 9 - what to do with all this food that comes in at the same time.

Raised beds are the way to go with such great soil; everything becomes monstrous in size - almost like mutants, BUT THEN.... the word got out and in came the....

BUNNIES...that grew very quickly

AND DEER.

The Simmons "ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET" was open for business, whether we liked it or not There went our beets and some other crops. Our tomatoes did wonderful for the first couple of weeks and the the "late blight" hit hard killing all the plants...SIGH...my favorite part of the garden. These were among the few tomatos we got...

So I am so looking forward to the fall, getting out of this heat and brown crunchy grass and bad tomatos. Sept 1 marks the time for me. I know it's not truly fall yet, but in my mind, I start thinking that way - putting out decorations and

getting ready for lots of fires. I'm counting the days.
Tomorrow is Fiber Junkies with my tons of fun friends who love to play together and get messy and messy we intend to get - will keep you posted.

Stackable Vegetable Soup

No, this is not a new quilting pattern; it's exactly what you would think. We did have a wonderful vegetable garden this year thanks to lots of rain and our new raised beds. We've never used them before and it was quite an investment in time, labor and money but what a difference they make. Our soil here is not great and the raised beds were filled with purchased soil and compost.  

My husband built them; him and my son hauled them outside.

Everything thrived and grew to monstrous sizes...

almost like veggies on steroids.

We don't use any sprays and lucked out with the animals not using them for midnight snacks although we did find some little bunnies hanging out there.

The only bad thing is that they all come in at once; it's great fun and so pretty to see all the colors sitting in baskets in the kitchen...

but what to do with them all.

This was our butternut squash patch, my favorite squash...and by the end of summer

it looked like this, but my husband counted over 80 squash and they are one veggie that will keep for most of the winter in our cold garage.

Everything is going fast but I'm not complaining; as much as I love these wonderful veggies, I love September as in my mind, it's the beginning of fall season and holidays and holiday decorating. I used to be a teacher in NY and we always started back the day after Labor Day, they still do so I would be going back to school this week...

but instead I'm making gobs and gobs of vegetable soup 

to use up all these wonderful veggies......

and then I freeze meal portions in a ziploc bag inside an 8x8 pan. After it freezes, I let it set out for a little while making it easy to remove from the pan and stack them in my freezer - Stackable Vegetable Soup.

Yum...Yum...