Friday Favorite: My Mom
If you’ve been reading here long, you know that my mom is an avid gardener. She cultivated my love of gardening from an early age. Whenever she went to the greenhouse to get annuals for the flowerbeds, I was allowed to pick out a six pack to plant. When we ordered seeds for the edible garden, we were each allowed to choose some variety of vegetable to grow (I remember always choosing something blue for some reason). When I lived in Ohio we cultivated an edible garden space in her yard together.
My mom battled breast cancer six years ago, it metastasized to her bones last year. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer last September, after discussing various options she decided she only wanted palliative care. Her last 8 months of life were good, considering what she was fighting. Her battle with cancer ended on May 19th, four days after my parents celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary.
She lives on in the gardens, both at her house and in mine. My garden is filled with plants I got from her, her garden is filled with plants she got from me, both of our gardens contain plants we got from her mother’s garden. We enjoyed gardening together, we enjoyed visiting gardens together. She will be sorely missed.
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Quote of the Day: Joy Larkom
“Potagers, ornamental vegetable gardens, call them what you will, are seductive masters. Create one of your own, and it draws you to it like a magnet. There’s a deep satisfaction in a beautiful, purposeful garden. Beware though, if you are serious about producing vegetables, of forfeiting productivity to the easy charms of herbs, self-seeding flowers and topiary shrubs. ‘There’s nowhere left to plant’ is not an uncommon cry, and ironically, the larger the garden, the worse that problem can be.”
Joy Larkcom in Creative Vegetable Gardening
It’s no secret that growing vegetables is my passion, but I also love a beautiful garden. Even though the tidy, neat rows of a classic food plot in the back yard is quite lovely, I much prefer the potager type look, where vegetables and flowers are mixed together in creative ways.
I’m finally at the point in my garden here in Maine, that I’m starting to add the hardscape features and plan the layouts of the gardens. Hedges are being planned, walkways are being set out, edges are being defined. Funny enough, the above quote is true, the larger my gardens are the less space I feel I have left for the vegetables.
The best way I have found to combat this is to grow a bit less, since I almost always end up with way more vegetables than I need, scaling back the amount is the best way to find space for everything I want to grow. I’d rather have artichokes and green beans instead of just green beans. I’d rather have onions and carrots than just onions. It’s like a puzzle to plan a garden, a little time spent defining edges and planning in the beginning help make everything fit in the end.
Do you find your vegetable garden always too small?
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Friday Favorite: Quercetin
This Friday favorite is for Mr Chiots, who suffers terribly from seasonal allergies for the entire spring/summer/fall. In the years we’ve been married he’s pretty much always been on some sort of prescription for them, but they all quit working after a year or two and he has to move on to something else. The drowsiness and other side effects were also an issue for him with the prescriptions. Four years ago, a friend recommended trying Quercetin. Low and behold, this product is a lifesaver for him. He LOVES it!!! It works beautifully for his allergies (another bonus is that it’s very inexpensive).
I thought I’d share here in case any of you suffer from allergies and would like to give it a try. He takes two capsules at breakfast, one at lunch, and two at supper. He’s tried other brands of Quercetin and this one with added C and digestive enzymes works best for him. His favorite part is that there are no side effects, no drowsiness! So, if you also suffer, give this a try, it may just work for you as well.
Do you have seasonal allergies?
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Friday Favorite: A Canvas Hat
I’ve been wearing canvas hats for years. My first ones were purchased at Target 17 or so years ago. These have all worn out or gotten lost of the years, thus new hats were in order. I took the plunge and gave the Scala Wide Brimmed Hat a try. As soon as I put it on I knew it was going to be a winner!!!! The brim can be folded up partway, halfway, fully, or flipped all the way down for lots of coverage on a really sunny day. It shades my neck and part of my shoulders as well. I got these hats on Tuesday and wore them all day Wednesday and Thursday while working in the garden. They get 10 thumbs up from me! I didn’t have time to get Mr Chiots to snap a few pics, so you’ll have to do with a quick selfie.
These hats are perfect because they can be packed and don’t take up much space. In fact, I always have one in each car during the summer months, that way I’m never without a hat should I end up out in the sun. My skin does not tolerate sunscreen, so a hat is a necessity for me. When I find a hat I can wear comfortably all day, I’m super happy. Here in Maine, being able to hold up a head net during black fly season is also a necessity, this hat is perfect for that as well. I’m definitely buying a few more of these beauties and I’ll be buying some for gifts as well, now I just need to decide while color I want!
Do you wear a hat while working outside?
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Friday Favorite: Amazon Music & Bose
I keep my blog add free for a variety of reasons, mostly because I hate ads on blogs. There are some of you who support me with a monthly subscription of $5 or $10, that’s a huge help in paying my hosting bills (which are spendy). Another way to help support this blog is to click through my amazon links (or set up a bookmark through my affiliate account). I get a few pennies whenever you purchase something from amazon. Between the subscriptions and amazon most of the bills associated with maintaining the blog are covered. Amazon is a huge bonus for those of us who live rurally and can’t make it to the store conveniently or quickly or find some products locally. I also love that lots of small businesses use Amazon as their storefront so they don’t have to maintain their own websites. Because we purchase a lot from Amazon we have a Prime membership and we love all the features that come with it, like free TV shows and movies. One feature I’ve discovered this past year is Amazon Music, which is so much better than Spotify (which I was using before). Even their free version that comes with Prime has no ads (something I’m really keen on). A few months ago we upgraded to the paid version and am really enjoying it, since we have music on in the house for 12-14 hours a day, it’s something we get a lot of use out of.
We use our iPad mini as our music player and it hooks up to our speakers via Bluetooth. Mr Chiots got me a Bose SoundTouch for Christmas this year, the main unit along with a smaller speaker for my sewing room. It’s super nice because I can turn on the smaller speaker when I’m in my sewing room and it plays the same thing that’s playing downstairs. We’ve always liked the quality of Bose products (their noise cancelling headphones are another one of my favorite things) and we are really impressed with this particular system. If you’re in the market for a music system with add-on speakers I highly recommend it!!! In the future we’ll be adding a few more speakers for different rooms in the house, I’m thinking my office could use one next.
If you’re a music lover give Amazon music a try, I think you’ll end up loving it as much as I do! I even download lots of songs to my phone and use Amazon music to listen while I’m out and about. I’ve been able to discover lots of great new music that I would never have found otherwise. My music tastes are pretty eclectic, I’m a big fan of modern folk, bluegrass, and pretty much everything but top 40 type music.
Are you a music lover? Do you listen in the car and around the house? What’s your favorite style of music?
If you’d like to try Try Amazon Music Unlimited
