Ducks ALIVE in 2025!

[Vanalpaca]

I am not at ALL against specific beans.
It's just that, as a gardener, my successes in growing certain vegetables has not been the best.
Heck, the only saved 2024 seeds were some garlic cloves and a handful of sugar snap peas!!
Family loved ALL of the cucumbers from 2024 and all of the tomatoes from 2024 (almost all hybrid and purchased, though I was trying to get away from that,) that I grew and they loved the green beans from 2023.
I Hope to grow what I have seeds for in my seed cabinet in 2025 and to save as many seeds as possible.
That lady was lucky that you "read between the lines" for her seed request and used your "CSI nose" to decipher what she Really was looking for.
Just for the record, I am Very interested in keeping our vegetables diverse in case of massive crop failures in the future bc of monoculture farming, as well as livestock breed diversity.
I also want to emphasize that most of us out there--not me bc I own 5 acres--garden like people in Europe, a strip of land to the front of the house and a strip of land to the back of the house.
I moved here from such a property and I want to encourage ALL of you out there to plant vegetables with flowers.
Brie Arthur won her HOA's award for most beautiful front yard landscape doing Just That, and you can stretch your landscape and gardening beds in this way.
She also talks about planting peanuts in this video and pushes Rosiland Creasy's book, "Edible Landscaping."

Amazon.com

I've followed Rosiland's book for 2-3 decades. I was living in California when she published it and may even have a copy... I like profusion zinnias for color and low mounding habit, Borage and Comfrey both have bell like blue blooms. I grow marigolds but probably need more. Mine were saved from hybrid seed so I get a 2 foot bush. This year I got the nasturtiums to germinate so I hope to have those and cosmos. I'll buy some petunias for hanging baskets...and I'm growing scarlet runner beans...

 

[heirloomgal]

I also want to emphasize that most of us out there--not me bc I own 5 acres--garden like people in Europe, a strip of land to the front of the house and a strip of land to the back of the house.
I moved here from such a property and I want to encourage ALL of you out there to plant vegetables with flowers.

This year my front yard is going to be ALL about the veggies and the flowers growing together. Let's see if I can pull this off and have it actually look good!

 

[heirloomgal]

I've followed Rosiland's book for 2-3 decades. I was living in California when she published it and may even have a copy... I like profusion zinnias for color and low mounding habit, Borage and Comfrey both have bell like blue blooms. I grow marigolds but probably need more. Mine were saved from hybrid seed so I get a 2 foot bush. This year I got the nasturtiums to germinate so I hope to have those and cosmos. I'll buy some petunias for hanging baskets...and I'm growing scarlet runner beans...

Sounds like a beautiful combination of flowers and color. I'm a big fan of the Gem series marigolds after trying so many kinds. They don't need to be deadheaded, they smell wonderful, have hundreds of little flowers and a nice and tidy mounded bush growth habit. Only thing is I've found the saved seeds have only a 50% germination rate, probably because they are a wildish type of marigold. There is a type of cosmos called kenikir, it's really beautiful and reminds me of marigolds only it grows like a hedge.

 

[Vanalpaca]

Sounds like a beautiful combination of flowers and color. I'm a big fan of the Gem series marigolds after trying so many kinds. They don't need to be deadheaded, they smell wonderful, have hundreds of little flowers and a nice and tidy mounded bush growth habit. Only thing is I've found the saved seeds have only a 50% germination rate, probably because they are a wildish type of marigold. There is a type of cosmos called kenikir, it's really beautiful and reminds me of marigolds only it grows like a hedge.

I plant the flowers with an eye to what my honeybees want, a nice open single flower or a center loaded with pollen. They don't see red (bees) but love blue, white, and yellow flowers. Usually they are leaving the farm itself and flying off who knows where. They go out in early morning and decide where 'the flow' is best for that day's foraging and make their locator scent trails... So frequently what I plant, even in groups, doesn't peak their interes. Borage is 2 feet tall, kind of like comfrey with same type blooms but they PUMP NECTAR and can be a major source for the bees. I have a lot of those to spot out all over the garden but also where I WANT the bees....

 

[ducks4you]

Back from the latest SAME Alaska Cruise that we have taken 3x before.
We did it with a friend who MUST fill every minute with...something...
She brought along a companion who followed her everywhere and got very little sleep.
We Three on the other hand, took advantage of our very quiet room with a balcony to sleep with the door propped open and had at least one 12 hr binge sleep. We also hit a hot tub twice when nobody else OR their children that are babysit in the swimming pools, were not around.
DD, DH and I really needed the rest.
The Cruise company has been cutting back on amenities and have started charging for things that used to be "in the package."
We had several dining room meals that weren't very good. DH had a piece of beef that was inedible.
The steward asked about the meal and he told her. I added that the "lamb" was really mutton, 1/2 of which was inedible and unchewable.
NONE of the lamb we bought and even, 3yo in the freezer (this Spring) which was made into Shepherd's Pie and very tender and flavorful.
It wasn't my idea to eat dinners or an other meal other than the Lido deck, where they served an astonishingly great Eggs Benedict with salmon several mornings in a row.
Youngest DD was with us and she and I went on the excursion to see the glacier.
They lied to the whole ship that you could see it From the ship. DH stayed to relax in our room, and Might have had a nice but tiny view of it, but the captain never turned the boat around so that our side of the ship Could see it, as was Promised.
Apparently, from rumor to discovery, last year a Carnival ships captain went into the Tracy Arms Fyord and hit a small iceberg.
DD found it online, as it had been a story broadcast from the Weather Channel,
That doesn't explain why 2 years ago they never sailed anywhere closer to it.
I was told THEN, that another cruise ship got in before us and that was why. Our cruising friend told ME that I hadn't listened very well to the announcements. Right...
Really, the whole ship should have been told that we will enjoy the scenery of the fyord with it's terrain and waterfalls and wildlife and the best vantage is from the excursion boat. ONLY somebody stuck in a wheelchair could not have boarded the small boat, and, if you couldn't climb the stairs to the top, EVERYWHERE in the seated part of the boat got a terrific view. The Tracy Arm Fyord was closed due to excessive calving.
Although we were within 1/4 mile of the Endicott Arm Fyord it looked closer. The captain gave us a wonderful tour, stopped and turned the little boat for us to see "Bridal Veil Falls, and other sites, and we had a "capital" time.
We took the train at Skagway and there was still snow at the top, something We are only used to seeing in Colorado this time of year. We also saw a humpback breach 3x. The naturalist on board told us that seeing whales there was rare.
Last Alaska Inland Passage DH and I decided we only wanted to see the interior on our next trip.
Safe to say I am a little soured on cruising. I never liked haggling with Mexicans who really Need to see their stuff, and the high waves and nausea and crowded spots on the ship or touring.
It's bad when you remember the high points of your cruise to be finding several rubber ducks and, avoiding walking through gambling, but rather past rooms on our floor, I can remember adding to the scrabble game somebody had with magnetic pieces on the outside of their door.
The scenery was beautiful, the race to open sea and rough winds and whitecaps and 2 of our party almost throwing up their meal, wasn't.
Anyway that's where I have been for the past few weeks, traveling to, cruising and traveling back home again and a full day to recover from arriving at my doorstep at 4:30AM.
Never thought I would see O'Hare Airport, once dubbed the "Busiest Airport in the World," vacant of ANY red eye flights at Midnight on a Wednesday morning.
The other 2 in our party ditched us for an earlier flight home--they had no checked luggage and texted us of the change in plans. We arrived at the Seattle airport at 10:30AM, got seats where the plane would depart and stuck there, then saw that the destination of the 5:30PM flight was Ft. Worth.
There was NO ANNOUNCEMENT, and we had to scramble to go from gate C20 to gate N-3.
DD had just brought me Starbucks coffee that was ridiculously hot and I had to try not spilling on myself.
Our friend had originally wanted us to travel in the same car to the airport.
Good thing I listened to a frequent flyer last January who advised that we stay overnight at the Rosemont Hilton that had secure parking in their indoor garage, and their shuttles run back and forth to the airport every 1/2 hour at night.
DD drove us up and back in her very nice 2024 KIA Sentos, enough room for us and luggage, and we only had I-294 to deal with until we exited onto I-57, MY old interstate stomping grounds, and pretty much NO traffic all of the way home.
DH has already asked me if it's ok that he go again to Colorado in 2026 with our 2 DD's, and I said that sounded great.

 

[flowerbug]

the high points would be great, but i would be so glad to get home...

 

[ducks4you]

3 Trap Crops You Should Plant in June

Check out these trap crops you should plant in June!

modernfarmer.com