Sunday centerfold

It seemed like our Clematis plant was done for the season, but this weekend I was surprised to find one new flower in a totally different color!

Sunday centerfold

This is the clematis plant that is climbing up our deck.  The flowers are gorgeous!

Sunday centerfold

This elegant display is the result of a neglected sage plant that has been allowed to flower.  When I trimmed it, I thought these were worthy of a photo.  And they smell like Thanksgiving! (click to see another use for this "vase")

Sunday centerfold

We are so in love with our rose bush.

So much so that I even used one to decorate a cake! (but I was too stingy to sacrifice more than one)

(the recipe that inspired this beauty can be found here)

With the right photo effects, you can blur a messy kitchen into oblivion!

Sunday centerfold

Remember the buds on the apple trees from last week?  A lot can happen in a few days!

Check out this beauty from our new rose bush!

Sunday centerfold(s)

Surprise tulips from 2 years ago!

Buds on our Macintosh apple tree

Buds on our Golden Delicious apple tree (I have no idea why the buds on the yellow apples are red, do you?)

Return of the Sunday Centerfold

Color! Outdoors!

Hope of spring!

Hope - if not necessarily spring - has arrived in Northeast Ohio!

Lots of updates to come!  It was a busy weekend.

sunday centerfold

After all the negativity of this past week, I thought I'd post some pretty photos of other sunflowers that are thriving! (these are about 3 feet tall, babies compared to the giant growing by our deck)

The cabbage looks like cabbage!

Remember this?

For a long time, I was taking a picture of this cabbage every Monday, to track its progress.  Then, to be honest, it got really boring.  That seedling in the top picture is from March.  I planted them in peat pots and grew them on my porch, then transplanted them into the garden in early May.  I had just about lost hope on this one, but then, this week...

The color is prettier than this picture, taken on a really overcast day, indicates.

The cabbage started to look like cabbage!  It is still, at this point, a very small head of cabbage.  I have 4 of them growing and one seems to attract spider webs, which is kind of disgusting (I do clean it off regularly, but still...).  Given how much space these are taking up in my garden, and the nearly six months it has taken them to grow... well, I'm not sure I'll do this again.  But, like all other gardening projects, it has been educational.  I don't know if my cabbage is just slow, or if there is something wrong with it (both distinct possibilities)... but if all cabbage takes this long to grow, I am surprised it does not cost a lot more when you buy it in the store.

A lot can happen in a week!

It had seemed like a slow week, one in which work sadly took priority over photographing my vegetables.  But before I knew it, the weekend was here... and it turns out that in gardening, as in life, much can transpire in 7 days.  Take the progress of the no-longer-flowerless sunflower as an example!

Sorry, I can't do anything about my neighbor's chimney and antenna in the background... but hopefully it's the HUGE YELLOW FLOWERS that grab your attention!

We've done literally nothing to help this plant, with the exception of occasionally watering it with the hose.  I think it just finally outgrew its predators and it looks like we are going to have at least 10 yellow flowers!  It is gigantic.  I worry that once there are actual sunflower seeds in there, these stems are actually sturdy enough for an industrious squirrel to climb... but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Until then I am enjoying the view.

sunday centerfold

Standards are low at this time of year... if you are a plant in my garden that is anything other than green (or, sadly, brown), you will get a lot of attention.  Here is a zucchini flower that is pretty much the only burst of color back there right now!

Sunday Centerfold

So, the original title was going to be "Sunday Garden P***" (you know, rhymes with "horn") - just a playful way of saying "On Sundays I will simply post a picture of a pretty plant."  But then I thought, well, I did leave this blog open to being found in search engines... and I think that including that word might draw in the wrong crowd.  And while there is great humor in someone looking for that, and instead finding this blog by some vegetable geek in Ohio, the cost-benefit analysis led me to choose a new title.