June... errr September in the Garden

 I am working on the June album for my old web page on the Gardening page.  This is one of my favourite photos of the west coast planter that sits in the front garden.  In September it looks quite nice also, with the mounding alpines and no blooms.This photo was from 2010, June.  Now the mounding plants have covered the pea gravel mulch and need to be pruned to keep them from growing over each other.
In this bed and to the left of these plants I have some David Austin roses.  I had montebretias in front of the roses, but they were flopping over the stone path.  I dug them out last week and gave them away by putting them into plastic bags at the street with a FREE sign on them.  When Derek came to get his black bamboo shoots, there was one bagful left for him.  Today, I transplanted the Japanese quince that I have had on the deck, into the spot in front of the roses.  Hopefully, it will have its red blossoms that will be equally attractive to the humming birds as the crocosomias were.  I have too many pots on my deck and shall move more off and into the garden as soon as I find spots for them.  I have two small willows that are doing well in the pots, but they like lots of water, so they will need to be in a place where I can easily water them. 

This is another June photo from 2010. It is a good shot of the back garden... well part of the back garden.  The stone path is about a year old.  The grass surrounds the apple tree.  The yarrow that is looking so good in the photo, has died, and I really must replace it.  Maybe I could put the very nice delphinium I have on the deck, into this spot.   In September, that is today..the apple tree is loaded with apples and is dragging the branches to the ground.  The michaelmas daisies are in bloom.  The stone path is looking good as it has the lovely Corsican mint growing between the stepping stones.  I replaced the field stones you see in the path with round stepping stones over part of this path, and it is much easier to navigate.  The field stones are too uneven unless I have managed to find a good flat side to them.

I have these June photos because I have been working on the June album for my old web page.  I have finished the resizing and tweaking of the photos for this album.  I should have 17 pages of 10 thumbnails per page.  There are some really good plants and photos in this album and I must get them finished and loaded to my old web page.
I was amazed to find that I could get the music on my ipad, on this old page.  It has a bit of javascript I found on the internet to make the music play... and I did that years ago.  I was much younger then.  :-)))
I mowed the lawn also today.  I have been busy!  In the morning I finished preserving the 25 lbs of purple plums.  I have 22 pints of the fruit.  I pit the plums, quarter them, and bring them to a boil for about a minute to get rid of any bacteria.  I add a tiny bit of sugar, a bit of water  and a splash of brandy to help preserve them, .. of course.  :-)).  I have a few dozen left over for enjoying fresh.  They are so good.  In the afternoon, I made 8 quarts of minestrone soup.  We tested it for supper tonight and it is very good too.  So, I have 10 of the 580 ml plastic containers to label and freeze.  The rest we will have for lunch in the next few days.    Since I am not eating wheat, I did not add the broken spaghetti.  I boil some up for Pat's soup, each time I make it.  It needs to have parmasean cheese and basil added to it just before serving.  I will be making ratatouille, muligatawny and a few other soups soon, also. We are trying to stay away from the prepared, salty soups, we get in the grocery stores.  So, since I like to have something on hand these homemade soups should fill the bill for convenience.  The apple tree is loaded with fruit, so I may be making a lot of apple sauce, too.  Maybe even a pie or two for himself.

Since my doctor told me about this Wheat Belly book I am back to losing weight again.  This book is very very scarey.  Wheat causes all sorts of problems for our physical and even mental systems.  It seems that the genetic changes to the wheat in the last 50 years have caused us to become obese and have all sorts of other diseases.  You really must get a copy of the book and read it.  It is hard to get 'off wheat" but you will notice a difference in just the first few days.  I notice my energy level return to normal.  I thought I was just getting old and slowing down... well ... now I know that a lot of this tiredness was  due to the effects of wheat.