Saturday, May 24, 2014

Long weekend begins

Early morning light at Lake Padden
This morning I went to Lake Padden to join the Fairhaven walkers who would not be going for the longer excursion planned for Lummi Island. I wasn't sure who would be showing up, since the day turned out to be quite nice after all, although it rained all day yesterday. Five of us made two circuits around the lake. I had decided I would go to the Farmers' Market afterwards and practice taking pictures with my camera using the manual setting, but I forgot it, so I skipped the market and headed home. I snapped the picture above with my cellphone camera.
Beets and salad greens on the left
Instead, I thought I'd take some pictures of how my garden is coming along. All the pictures are taken with my cellphone, but the next two are closeups, using the Camera+ app. Sometimes when I think of purchasing more elaborate camera paraphernalia, I realize I don't actually make use of the ones I already have. The beets are looking really good, and the other day I harvested some of the salad greens, which are superb. The only thing I still need to plant are some arugula starts, so I picked some up today.
These are going to taste great
My garden neighbor Joan transplanted some of her strawberry plants into my garden last fall, and they have taken off like nobody's business. In fact, I am having to cut back the runners so they won't take over the entire garden. Everything is doing very well and I'm very happy, so far, with how the garden is coming along.
Cute pansy face
My front porch garden is also quite happy, with pansies and geraniums planted in last year's pot. I gave it a bit of Miracle-Gro and simply used the same soil. Later today I'm going to the movies by myself, and I'll ride the bus since the entire downtown area is cut off for the Ski to Sea parade. The race itself is tomorrow, with more than 500 teams from all over the country in town, so it's not a great time to try to find a parking place anywhere at all. Plus, I love to ride the bus. Have a great, safe, holiday weekend! I'll probably write another post on Monday, Memorial Day, since the Y will  be closed, the buses won't be running, and it's supposed to rain.
:-)

29 comments:

  1. LOVE the wonderful, sweet face on the pansies!! My dad's favorite springtime flower.

    Bud and I went to the Farmer's Market this morning and bought home grown tomatoes!! Yum...I had two consumed by the time we got home. Yep, took the salt shaker with us when we left home.

    Have a safe, wonderful holiday weekend.

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  2. ...ps...Sorry, I'm in my Bird Blog Admin "note to Anni"....sign out and get back into Hootin' Anni's.

    lol

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  3. Loving your garden(s). Have a wonderful weekend - full of love and laughter. And, since it is you, exercise.

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  4. Your gardens are beautiful! As is the picture of the lake! What are you going to see? Curious minds...

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  5. your garden and blooms look to be doing very well. :) i won't buy any more camera equipment until i learn my camera - and i haven't in 3 yrs i've had it. :)

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  6. Maybe I need to look at apps for my iPhone camera. It's all I use now. Your photos are wonderful.

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  7. Your garden is superb! Love those strawberries and the pansies. Don't know which movie you are going to see, but do let us know how you like it, because if it is good, I'll tell David to reserve it on Netflix.

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  8. The lake view is gorgeous, everything looks so green and healthy.
    You always have such good luck with your garden, but then I realize it's not good luck...it's hard work :)
    Sweet little Pansies one of my favorite flowers.
    Enjoy your weekend DJan !
    ~Jo

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  9. DJan, your garden is looking great. It won't be long before you have all sorts of tasty morsels for your table.

    I think your camera phone does a great job. I used a SLR for over 25yrs so I'm enjoying auto settings theses days.

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  10. You are going to love those strawberries. They are the least care of anything I grow. They are great in smoothies or salads.

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  11. ...and I just finished seeding my garden yesterday. It will be quite some time before my garden catches up to yours.

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  12. nice....those strawberries are going to be great...mmmm....need to have the shortcake ready....your garden is coming along nice...hope you have a nice weekend...spending mine in the mountains with my family.

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  13. Your beets and lettuce are way ahead of ours, and your garden is looking good.
    I love the green view of the lake.
    Have a peaceful weekend.

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  14. Well hello there! Sorry I've been away for so long. Just spent time catching up on your posts. Glad's all well.

    Your garden looks fantastic! I'm a little jealous and I do not have a green thumb at all. I'm going to the Farmer's Market tomorrow to get some strawberries!

    Enjoy the long weekend, xo jj

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  15. Looks to me like you have a new career in gardening - just lovely to see everything growing so well and I am amazed with your strawberries. WE almost have early crops in, but way too cold to plant everything - water is still drying up on most farms from flood - I think a sad crop round about here this year, unless the summer lingers on into the fall?

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  16. Your cell phone camera did a good job. The lake pic is great. And I love baby salad greens... so tender. They sell them at Central Market, but they're a bit high in price. I guess I could try them in my hanging garden out front. My backyard is mostly shade. DH and I did go to Ham's Peach Orchard this week and brought home all sorts of fresh peach goodies.

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  17. Lovely pictures D-Jan. I think the cell phone camera does a really good job,don't you. Your garden is looking great and you're harvesting already. My my. We have flowers on the strawberry plants, but no strawberries yet. Today was our carnival day and it kept fine but tomorrow may be rainy again. We seem to have such a similar climate, you and I and yet so far apart. Enjoy your 'day off' tomorrow.

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  18. Your garden looks great. We've harvested d strawberries and rhubarb in ours. We're also enjoying fresh salad greens. Today the spouse is having to pull out many of our tomato plants because they have a virus. They were already flowering and had a few small fruits...

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  19. Beautiful pictures! You are so lucky to have nice, lusty soil to grow a garden….the earth is very acidic and hard here…more like mining than gardening.

    I love the way the sunlight casted shadows from the trees on your picture on the lake. Beautiful!

    Sending you big hugs my friend…to you and Smart Guy. ((((((((((((HUGS))))))))))))))

    Happy Memorial weekend.

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  20. Good to get out while you can. Garden is looking good! What movie did you see? :)

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  21. I can feel the sun's warmth on those pansy faces. It gave me a flashback to some place and time in my life...just don't know where and when. Maybe it'll come to me.

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  22. The cell phone pics look great!And those strawberries are going to be beauties by summer's end!

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  23. I am LOVING having a cellphone with a decent camera - I use it so much & get pictures of things I wouldn't be able to without it, since a big camera isn't always handy to lug around.
    I'll have to check out this camera+ app.
    You're going to love those strawberries!! We don't have any berries starting yet, but our plants are going to town.
    We are still tilling our garden to loosen & dry the soggy soil.. it's just about perfect for planting, we'll probably do that tomorrow as we wrap up the long weekend.

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  24. What a gardener you've become, trimming back runners.
    We had our long weekend last week. We arrived back from UK and it's taken the entire week up to today to get back to a normal bedtime and wake up at local time. I never had this time lag issue in the past so I guess it's age related? Or maybe I just wanted to stay on Greenwich time?

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  25. Cutting off those runners will make more berries, you all should have a community strawberry bed..seems they grow well there. I have always liked Pansies..such cheerful faces! Today I am cleaning the garage..it is warm here for May nearly 90 so I turned the AC on:)

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  26. Dear DJan, I'm wondering if you're getting the promised rain today. Here it is muggy and hot and I am so lucky to be able to afford air conditioning for the days that are going to get even hotter and to use the ceiling fans on days like today.

    I marvel at what phones can do nowadays I went to lunch today with my sister-in-law and niece and great-niece and we all agreed that I'm stuck in the 20th century! Peace.

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  27. I can't wait for berry season. We just transplanted some black raspberries. Things are looking up around here.

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  28. Your garden is gorgeous, DJan. Your beet leaves would make Art jealous. His mom used to put beet leaves into her meatballs and meatloaf.

    Your pansies are beautiful and fresh strawberries? Yum!

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