Bloom Day May

After a lovely warm start to the month, it's back in the 40s today. Thank goodness for flowers.







Check out all the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day posts over at May Dreams!

Bloom Day, September

What do blooming flowers have to do with common sense food? Nothing, really. I also have a large ornamental garden and I like to share the pictures with the crew that participates in Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (15th of every month).

But in a way, my take on Bloom Day is like my take on food-- there are flowers that anyone can grow, just like there are meals that anyone can make. So here's some flowers that grew because I stuck a seed in the ground, and a soup that looks like gourmet fare, but tastes straight off the farmer's table.

Above, right: Nasturtium "Spitfire" from Renee's Seeds for the Seed Grow Project.

Left, Cosmos "Rose Bon Bon" from Renee's Seeds for the Seed Grow Project, below, Caryopteris, traded with a contact on MyFolia.com and bottom, Hyssop.















For the full September Bloom Day photos check out my flickr! Thanks to May Dreams for coming up with and hosting Bloom Day!

Squash-apple Soup with roasted ginger

1-2 pound squash (I used pattipan today, but butternut, acorn or pumpkin also work)
1 large apple
about 1" of fresh ginger root
Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 pound of bacon, chopped (optional, for carnivores)
4-6 cups stock
2 teaspoons white pepper
salt, to taste

Quarter and seed squash, brush lightly with olive oil. On a separate baking sheet (or in a pie pan), place about a 2 inch chunk of fresh ginger plus two large apples, cored and peeled, and brushed with olive oil. Roast apples and ginger for 20 minutes, and squash for 35 minutes in a 350F oven, or until a knife slips in easily. Allow to cool and then peel both the ginger and the squash. Put in food processer and puree. Make a stock with the peels (add all peels-squash, ginger, apple- plus a few white peppercorns and salt to 2 quarts of water, boil down to 1 1/2 quarts).

Sauté onion and bacon lightly in large pot. Add squash/apple puree, water, apple cider, brown sugar, stock, salt, and spices. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Stir frequently. Blend to thicken in blender-size batches. Serve with sour cream: one teaspoon on each serving.

Bloom Day, February

Sedum (journaled here)

Amaryllis "Splash"

I’ve both taken and unearthed photographs of our yard and garden from today back through my children’s infancy, when there was no garden— only grass. It has been an interesting journey back through time. I find a photo of the garden with the first patio, or the tree that fell. A wall of phlox that is now part of a mix. I had forgotten that the Knot Garden was originally a long rectangle.

We take pictures to preserve a moment. To document an event. To record something important or amusing. To remember. To admire. To create beauty or art. You take them for yourself, or for the ones who come after so that they remember, admire and see the art or the moment that the photographer valued.

Poinsettia (journaled here)

Are we real without our memories? If the stories aren’t preserved, did they happen? What does a memory feel like? Is it a photograph or a dream? Is it a movie that I inhabit, or one that I watch? When I say I do not remember, perhaps I only mean, I do not know, or even I am not there.

Will I be able to tell when I shot these photos? Will it matter?

Find all the Bloom Day posts at May Dreams Garden. More of my Bloom Day photos here.

A new year of Bloom Days

January Bloom Day is also my birthday, which some how made it rather special both as bloom day and as birth day. I felt like the plants were blooming for me.

Just two plants with actual blossoms-- the coleus actually bloomed about 6 days ago and is starting to fade. The papyrus is also "blooming" if you can call it that. Mostly it's about my solstice plantings. The tradition is described here by my gardening friend Sue.

My plantings were two amaryllis, because I had them and, working with Sue's instructions:

Columbine, for Maggie and Parsley for my mother The first set of seeds are seeds of remembrance and should be seeds of flowers that remind us of someone we knew and loved but who is now gone from our lives forever. This is the only one that hasn't sprouted yet.

Lobelia The second set of seeds are seeds of life and should be for plants that will make fruit or nectar and invite birds and butterflies to our gardens. These have microscopic sprouts as of yesterday.

Mountain Ash cuttings The third set of seeds should be tree seeds. We can honor Mother Nature by growing trees that will help clean the air we breathe, reduce excess sun on the soil, and provide shade for our heads on a hot summer’s day. The mountain ash are budding, which I did not expect, and I hope mean that there are roots.

Mustard The fourth set of seeds are seeds of faith and should be for plants from a zone that is beyond ours in warmth. It will help us to remember that we accept the “Leap of Faith” in our hearts and know that Mother Nature is capable of miracles.

So Happy Bloom Day in the deep midwinter.

Bloom Day November

I made a lovely cheddar-broccoli soup last night, but no recipe today. Bloom Day is for flowers.

It's early early morning in a November that's been more like late summer than mid fall. I've been out in the garden in shirtsleeves, and my cool weather crops are loving the warm temperatures and short days. The fall flowers are mostly fading on schedule, but the summer ones are thriving.

Inside, the Strepto and the holiday cactus are exploding with color, but I decided to stay outside in the sun. Plenty of winter bloom days ahead for the stay-at-homes.

A volunteer nicotiana, naturalized to a faded, variegated pink. The originals, planted maybe 12 years ago from flats, were white or dark red.

Dwarf iris. Never bloomed outside of June before.

Broccoli, bolted. The flowers, however, are also edible.

More flowers at my flickr page, and don't forget to go over to May Dreams and see everyone's November blooms!

Bloom Day October

Gloom Bloom Day October dreary wet cold. If we hadn't just had the coldest mid-October week in 140 years I believe I would have my late-season roses, my reblooming white iris, and possibly my new black iris. The beans that I was leaving on the vine for seeds are a loss-- vines died, so I don't know if the pods will mature enough to have viable seeds. The last pumpkin is not getting any riper, and the broccoli is in a holding pattern. Fingers are crossed for a promised warm-up next week.

In the meantime, still both fall and summer in the garden, fairly typical for this time of year.

Sweet Autumn Clematis, with blooms as beautiful fading as they are when full

More beauty in decline. Sedum with the turning foliage of canterbury bells.

I guess you can't have October Bloom Day without some mums


Head over to May Dreams for everyone's October Bloom Day, and to my flickr page for all my garden photos.

Bloom Day, September

Sweet Autumn Clematis

There are moments in a garden. Small quiet places full of wonder and power. They are easy to miss-- gardens are one of the "macros" of our lives. We tend to drink them in large gulps, instead of sipping and tasting. Even gardeners, down in the dirt, with the plants in our faces, sometimes miss these moments as we plow through the worms or collect the harvest, or even just follow the task list, trying to get done before it rains.

Bloom Day is a day for moments. So here are my September moments. No tasks, no meals, no panoramas. Small, quiet places where color and scent take over.

Bloom Day set at Flickr.

Head over to May Dreams for everyone's September Bloom Day.

Bloom Day, for Maggie and Barrie

We laid two dear friends to rest today. For Maggie and for Barrie, a bouquet of white flowers blooming in the garden on August 15. White phlox, convolvulus, liatris against budding sedum.

Bloom Day link

The Ides of July

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is hosted by May Dreams Garden. To participate, just post on your blog a list of what you have blooming on the 15th of the month and add a comment to her post for the month so followers can find you. If you don't have a public Blogger profile, don't forget to include a link to your post in the comment.

Mid-July, of course, is a problem-- EVERYTHING is blooming! Here's a couple of choice items, and since this is a food blog, look at the prior post to see what I harvested today (okay, yesterday, but it's raining, so I won't pick anything else until tomorrow). I've also started a flickr set for Bloom Day; I'll post my blooms and harvests the Ides of each month.