Home of Stella's Gardens

We are now living full time in Northeast Iowa, and working on the new gardens. It will keep us busy for quite a while...

As an avid gardener since I was about 7 years old, that gives me over 45 years of experience gardening in this part of the world. And every year teaches me a bit more.


Sunday, January 24, 2016

Orchid success!

Happy to report, my orchid is blooming again! Bllra. Big Shot 'Hilo Sparkle' which my son and DIL gave me two Xmases ago. I repotted it at one point, it didn't do much that year, but this year there is one nice stem. Unfortunately I'm still not keeping it quite damp enough, apparently, as indicated by some accordion pleated leaves. But it's put on a pretty good slug of new growth, from 3 bulblets up to 8....


 

The unnamed phal from the supermarket is sending up a spike, too, so looking forward to seeing that in a few weeks/months....

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Neglect of the Blog

Soooo It's been almost a year since I posted. We have been busy, that is for sure.

The brewing continues, with many ciders and meads and some country wines either in secondary, in the bottle, or long gone. Now that we've actually had some real apples


and pressed 15 gallons of juice, rather than using store bought, we can say we've got real cider on hand. It's still clearing in secondary in the 45*F storage room, to be bottled some day.
    

We've made 4 beers, extract and partial mash, and when the weather ever warms up we can make the next one. That will be an all-grain lager. Until we get above 35*F or so, the beer will have to wait, since the brewing is in the garage!

We have a total of six raised beds below the barn, and the two older ones above. The plans are for at least 5 more between the driveways. So it will be a busy year.