Quote of the Day: Marilyn Monroe
“Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius.
It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
~ Marilyn Monroe
Do something absolutely ridiculous today, you’ll be glad you did!
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Drink to Your Health
Mr Chiots and I try to be very healthy and I’m always trying to find ways to layer more nutrition into our diets. I’m typically a water drinker, not really enjoying much else as far as beverages go. I have no trouble drinking hot tea in the winter, but I’m not a huge fan of cold beverages. Lately, however, I’ve been trying to drink more iced teas in order to add more vitamins, minerals, trace elements and antioxidants to my diet.
So far this summer I’ve been enjoying iced organic black tea, organic chai tea and all kinds of organic herbal teas. There really isn’t anything much better than a glass of tea after spending a few hours in the garden. I buy all of my tea from Mountain Rose Herbs. One of my favorites is the ‘Seasons of Discomfort’ tea, an herbal tea made specially to help with allergies. Drinking glasses of this while working outside helps me not have as much trouble with the allergies from all the pollen.
I must disclose that they give me a small percentage of what you purchase if you click through the links on my blog. But never fear, I’d never recommend something if I didn’t buy and love myself. I order all of my spices, herbs and teas from Mountain Rose Herbs as well as most of my face wash and face oil.
What’s your favorite cold summer beverage?
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Drowning in Cherries
Yesterday afternoon we went out to my sister’s plot of land and picked cherries from two giant sweet cherry trees. The old trees are huge and they were polluted with cherries. My sister picked, I picked, my mom picked, and Mr Chiots picked as well. We picked and picked, not wanting any to go to waste, but finally we had to call it a night. My sister took home 2 one gallon buckets, my mom took a few home and we ended up with a ton. After picking all afternoon the trees didn’t even look like we’d been there.
We got home late and I’ll be processing cherries all day. I’ll be making maraschino cherries for my Christmas chocolate covered cherries and I’ll be dehydrating lots of them for snacking. I may make some jam, and I may freeze some as well. We also picked tart cherries at my mom’s house and peas that need shelling. Here’s to a busy day filling the pantry with fruit for winter eating.
Are you drowning in anything that’s in season at the moment, filling up the pantry for the winter?
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Moving Plants
One of the things I love about gardening is how easy it is to move things around if you’re not happy with the placement of a plant or if a plant is not doing well in it’s current location. I often move plants, especially hostas. I have a shady flowerbed at the side of the house that is a hosta farm. I plants hosta seedlings there that pop up around the garden. I let them grow for a year or two and then I move them to a more permanent location.
I also move plants that are not doing well in their current location, perhaps the soil is too rich, too poor, too wet, too dry, or maybe it’s too sunny or too shady. Most plants seem to be happy with a move, they may be wilted for a few days, but most bounce back quickly (with the exception to peonies that don’t like being moved).
Do you ever move plants around?
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Dressing up a Garage Window
I’ve always loved window boxes and have wanted a few for the longest time. We’ve never installed any, we’ve just lacked time to make them. This spring I decided that I’d at least like to dress up the garage window with some annuals in pots. Since we didn’t have time to make a proper window box, I had Mr Chiots move a shelf that used to house birdhouses from the back of the garage to the front window. Then I potted up a few annuals in a variety of pots from my collection. With a few minutes of work the garage window looks 10 times better. I may use this idea on others windows on the house after seeing how well this works throughout the summer. I’ll see how much watering needs done and how the shelf holds up to the weather.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d like it as much as a proper window box, but now that it’s finished I think I like it more. I love the little details with all the different shapes, sizes and colors of pots. It’s a great way to use all those pots I’ve been collecting throughout the years and was storing in the garage.
I filled the pots with a few different kinds of begonias. They’re perfect for this shady spot and they’ll bloom all season long. I may try to keep starts of these in the basement so I can save some money next spring.
For less than $10 in plants, I think this really dresses up the window on the garage! It makes me smile every time I pass by heading to the back garden.
Do you use potted plants or window boxes for added color in the garden?
