Black-eyed susans are the common name for these yellow petaled beauties that grace my front and back yards. My neighbors two doors down and across the street have lots of echinacea, purple cone flowers, and my goal is to have the yellow and purple flowers interspersed in my yard, instead of so much of the yellow.
All my Project Black posts
An early rudbeckia and my garden last year
What’s Project Black? Visit Anna’s photo blog.
Gardening in Israel is different this year. This is the year of shmitta, the seventh year of a cycle, in which the land of Israel is supposed to lie fallow.
When I arrived at my cousin’s house in the Galil, I noticed that some of the plants were similar to those in my own garden: snapdragons, dianthus and white alyssum. The tops of the plants, however, were browned. In my own garden, I just reach down and pluck off the top browns of the plants. This is called deadheading, and it helps to rejuvenate the plant so new flowers will grow. In the shmitta year, however, religious Jews in Israel do not do deadheading. There are few tasks that they are allowed to perform in their gardens; mostly just watering the plants is allowed. They are not even allowed to apply mulch to the sides of the plants; this must be done in the year before shmitta.
I wondered aloud to my cousin if gardeners suddenly do a lot of gardening the week after Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, when shmitta is over and the new year begins. She reminded me that only religious Jews in Israel keep shmitta, so many of the gardens are kept up, despite the laws. She then told me about a friend who lived in a mixed neighborhood in Jerusalem whose neighbors got irritated with him because he was not tending his garden. He then put up a sign saying: “Shmitta Observed Here”, so it would be obvious that his garden was not in that state due to lazy neglect.
We are going on vacation. And so is this blog. When I will get a chance to post again is a mystery to me (as well as to you). Maybe next week? Stay tuned.
In the photo is one of the first rudbeckia (black-eyed susan) of the season. I have many of them growing in the front of my house. Rudbeckia are native to New Jersey.
Underneath my yellow rudbeckia flower is a geranium plant with purple flowers. The little orange “dot” in the upper left of the picture is one of my first marigolds of the season.
Or this could be titled:
First, Haveil Havalim #169 is up, in two parts, on a new (new to me, anyway) site: Part I and Part II. Jill’s blog is called Writes Like She Talks.
This brings me to the title of this post: Why blog?
And the subtitle: I stole this from Mother in Israel. (good topic, mom)
I do not talk like I write. I have always felt stifled in my talk, and therefore one of my goals with blogging is to say what I need to say in print. And hopefully in “real life” I can feel more comfortable expressing my ideas verbally.
Initially, I was hoping to connect with others locally, in the Highland Park area. What I have found is that many of those who read blogs are bloggers themselves. It has been a joy to connect with others around the world, in Israel, in France, in Seattle, in Virginia, in Chicago, in England, in (wherever it is you presently live). As Baila described me on her blog, she used the expression: “jack-of-all-trades”. The unfortunate conclusion to that expression is “master of none”, but I do try! So as many topics as I have introduced on this blog, I am sure there are more that I will explore in the future. And I LOVE comments. Please share your thoughts!
When Ilana-Davita linked to the latest HH, she included a lovely rose. It inspired me to post the little marigold on top of this post, that I found early this morning peeking under from under a geranium plant. This one probably was a self-seeder from last year’s marigolds. Unfortunately, the camera focused on the geranium leaves instead of the marigold, but I don’t have the patience (or time) to take the photo again. You get the idea. And thank you, Ilana-Davita, for letting me steal another good presentation notion.
NOTE: This blog will be going on vacation soon. Hopefully, I’ll write a little post about being away that should appear early Thursday morning.
And I’m stealing Mom in Israel’s conclusion, too:
Okay, that’s enough about me and my blog. Tell me about yours.
Can you buy produce from local farmers easily? What do farmers grow in your area?
Every Friday in the summer (June to November) we have a farmers’ market in Highland Park. It is fun to go and see fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers. This Friday I bought some mixed lettuce greens and two cucumbers. I ate one of the cucumbers as soon as I got home.
Regarding the recent tomatoes and salmonella fiasco, Yardsnacker theorizes that workers not washing hands is too blame. His theory makes a lot of sense to me. I trust the local farmers much more than what is in our supermarkets. However, I do not think that everyone growing their own tomatoes is the solution. Many people live in apartments. Growing any vegetables takes time, energy and knowledge. Tomatoes require lots of sun. That said, if you do want to try vegetable gardening, tomatoes are among the easiest to grow. I always put plenty of compost in my soil before planting my tomatoes. Composting is free, if you know how to make compost out of your vegetable scraps and garden waste.
After a busy Sunday (see the parade) and a Monday of work, here’s a simple post.
A snapdragon from my front yard.
Found this article Eating Nuts Greatly Reduces Your Risk of Heart Attack and Cancer so I thought, good time to talk nuts! (more on thyme and nuts under the photo).
According to the article, nuts won’t make you fat:
Nuts contain lots of fat, and many people are still operating under the food industry induced belief that fat makes you fat, so nuts are often shunned. But research does not support this conclusion. In the Nurses’ Health Study, the frequent nut consumers were actually a little thinner on average than those who almost never consumed nuts, and daily supplements of almonds or peanuts for six months resulted in little or no increase in body weight. Nuts apparently satisfy hunger and provide a wealth of nutrients, creating a feeling of satiety and comfort. This results in an overall lessening of food consumption.
I eat raw almonds as a snack throughout the day. I leave them in my refrigerator and just grab a few when I am rushing to get my kids or to an appointment, especially when I’ve forgotten to eat a decent lunch.
One topic the article mentions is soaking nuts before eating them. I’ve never heard of this, so I did a little more research. I couldn’t find any evidence of an actual study that said one needs to soak nuts. To me, I like nuts as a fast food, so the soaking would be really annoying, if it were a requirement. Do you think all the people in the nut studies quoted in the Natural News article soaked their nuts? I found one source that said the soaking isn’t necessary. But I have no idea what her background is that she is able to make this claim.
Enough for now on trying to weed out useful information on the internet.
Above are my raw almonds, which I decided to photograph in a bed of my thyme. I grow thyme in front of the house. It makes a great grass substitute. The thyme spreads itself all over (sometimes it needs a haircut) and produces pretty little lavender flowers for a few weeks in the summer.
Do like salads? Do you like elegant salads? Do you like the idea of being able to go to your backyard (or a container for plants, if you don’t have a backyard) and pick a pretty flower and round, green, tangy leaves to put in your salad?
In order to present to you nasturtium, the flower pictured in this watercolor, I wanted to show you a picture of this edible plant. Instead of showing a photograph, I decided to do a watercolor. When you paint, unlike in a photograph, you can choose what you want to present. So I decided to emphasize the flowers (which will become pretty petals of orange, yellow or red in your salad) and the round-shaped leaves.
The nasturtium seed looks like a shriveled chickpea. It grows easily: all you need to do is poke it with your finger into the ground. Don’t plant nasturtium where you have precious grass; the nasturtium plant will take over, and come frost time you’ll have a bare spot where you used to have grass. But I find it fairly easy to grow. The first summer I tried there was a drought in New Jersey, and these plants did not do well. But recently we’ve had a lot of rain, and my little germinated nasturtium plants are already sticking two round little leaves out of the ground.
More about nasturtium here.
The ground hog ate away at my peas. They were beginning to form, the little pea pods, and the big, bad ground hog chomped on them. I sprinkled the leaves with hot sauce, in the hopes that he won’t like it. My neighbor down the block has a ground hog trap; I think the idea is you capture the ground hog, and then you have to drive somewhere to the woods so then he (or she) can come scurrying back to your garden? What joy. Like I have nothing better to do.
I actually saw him in my backyard, and if I hadn’t been in a rush yesterday, I might have been able to capture him on my camera. But I don’t want to post villains on my blog, anyway. Instead, here’s a photo of a tulip that did not get eaten by a deer:
Why is it I call the ground hog a villain, and I have sympathy for the deer? Is it just because deer are prettier animals?
Here are the flowers on my neighbor’s dogwood tree.
Here’s the whole dogwood tree.
I learned from Gail that the cherry trees bloom first, and then the dogwoods show their flowers.
See my dogwood painting.