Curb Appeal

In a recent post I was lamenting the fact that we haven’t yet won “Yard of the Week” and I surmised that this is because of the derelict state of our parking space at the top of the yard.  Who wants a parking space in their yard anyway?  Well, I don’t, but we have one and since our garage is one-car only and the driveway is super steep, it is a convenient place to park our second car.  The former owners filled the space with crushed red brick/gravel and outlined it with big rocks.  Last year we enlarged the space so two cars could fit there without squishing the grass.  At that time we removed all the rocks that edged the smaller space.  We planned to edge the new, larger space with bricks to create a nice uniform edge to hold the gravel in place and keep it from rolling into the grass.
We finally got around to accomplishing this last week.  Granted, we still lack 72 bricks to finish the end, but I am impatient and wanted to share!  Of course, this improvement is all because of my Mama!  Although Papa provided the bricks (or perhaps we stole them from his stash!) Mama loaded them and brought them to my house, then unloaded them.  She dug out all the sod from the edge (with mattock and shovel), leveled the ground and put each brick in place.  I helped by measuring the width, weeding, hauling bricks and discarded sod.  Oh and I took pictures… my specialty!


Here’s what it looked like before we got started:

After we reseeded the front yard last fall, the “edge” of the space totally deteriorated so we had to dig out a lot of grass.

But after several hours of digging and hauling we were still not done… haha!  But we only quit because we ran out of bricks.  So, here is the almost completed project:




All we need now (in addition to the remaining bricks) is some more brick gravel to fill in the space.  And maybe pull a few more weeds. ;)  Then it will be all fresh and clean looking!

I also mentioned in my post of yore that I was planning to add salvia to my front flower bed.  I finally found my salvia specimens at Walmart and I got five of them to fill in the space behind the pink verbena.  While I was there I also bought six pink perennial dianthus to go in between the verbena, so hopefully (if voles don’t eat them) they will come back next year and I won’t need annuals for color in this bed.
Voila!






It looks so much nicer now… hopefully some certain committee members notice, too! ;)  Stay tuned!

Happiness is a pink peony…

My peonies are blooming… and for once I have more than two blooms!  I have five peony bushes in the yard and for the first time since we planted them five years ago they are all producing flowers! 

These two came from the same bush but they are two different shades of pink! :) 

While I was out photographing my peonies, I took some other garden shots for you.

Purple and white bearded iris:

Plum iris:

Evening primrose:

Knockout roses:

The pink knockout positively glows at dusk:

I just can’t get enough spring blooms! :)  Stay tuned for more garden updates!

Flower Power

I have long been in the quest for “Yard of the Week” from our local beautification committee.  Even before I knew there was such a thing in our community, we joked about winning this award.  So, in my continued effort to make my yard better and prettier each year, I planted a bunch of annuals this past week. 

In previous years I had pink impatiens along the front walk.  They always did great and grew really big.  But they were constantly wilting in the summer heat and I had to water them every day.  Last year I decided to try petunias.  They were all eaten by something (evil pests!) or they died from lack of sun.  There were no flowers.  It was a landscape tragedy!  So this year, in the search for a pretty, drought/heat tolerant, and shade loving flower I selected begonias to be the star of my front yard.  While these plants don’t like full sun (well hello friend, and welcome to MY YARD!) they have thick waxy leaves which supposedly help prevent water loss during hot summers.  We’ll see.  In true Sarah fashion, I bought hot pink and light pink begonias with green leaves.  They also come in “bronze leaf” variety, but I prefer the green ones.  Although according to Google, the brown leaf variety can tolerate more sun. 

I planted them every foot or so along the walk, alternating light and dark pink:

While I was at it, I put in some bright pink verbena in the mailbox bed.  I even moved the last of the liriope out so the annuals would continue uninterrupted along the edge. 

I love this plant… the little daisy like flowers grow in a circular cluster.  Aren’t they cheerful?  And you can’t beat that pop of pink! :)

I usually neglect this area because it’s too hard to drag the water hose up here… and that’s probably why we don’t win Yard of the Week.  It’s the only flower bed you can see unless you crane your neck down the hill as you are driving by to glimpse the rest of the yard.  Hope those beautification committee members are driving slowly by my house!! :) 

To make up for my past failings, this year we are sprucing up the mailbox bed.  I planted a second knockout rose bush on the other side of the mailbox and of course my new cherry tree.  I just need to move some other things around to fill in those blank spaces.  I’ve also got plans to clean up the “parking space” at the top of the yard.  Now that we have nice grass, this is another spot that is holding us back from being an award-winning yard. 

I’m also planning to put blue salvia in between the pink verbena.  I think that will complete the look!  And it will coordinate with the purple clematis on the mailbox. 

In addition to the flower beds, I also got my flower baskets back on the fence.  Like last year I again filled them with coleus, New Guinea impatiens, and lime sweet potato vine. 

The magenta impatiens (these are actually “sunpatiens” which have been bred to survive better in the sun, not that I have that problem!) aren’t all flowering just yet, so I’ll keep you posted on their progress.  Last year this same combo got so big I couldn’t keep them watered, so this year I upgraded to a bigger basket.  It looks kind of empty now, but don’t worry, it will fill in!  That coleus is called “Chocolate Cherry.”  Yummy!  :)

I rounded out my flower shopping trip with a few ferns for the back deck and the front porch.  Ferns are about the only thing I can keep alive under there. :)  That is, if I remember to water them…

Looks pretty good… the easy part is over, now onto the hard part: keeping it looking this good all summer!  :)Thanks for stopping by, if you need me I’ll be in the yard pruning, weeding or watering something…

Favorite Things: Kitchen Edition

If you’re anything like me, you spend plenty of time in front of the stove cooking meals for your family or whipping up a delicious baked treat!  Today I want to recommend some of my favorite kitchen gadgets that make cooking or baking just a bit easier.

1.  Aluminum Half Sheet Pan

I used to have multiple packs of baking sheets from Wilton, Walmart, etc to make cookies, biscuits or bake chicken, etc.  They were always covered in baked on grease, they were black and grungy looking a month after I got them.  They warped so badly in the oven you could hear them popping out of shape from the other room.  Then I discovered this:

The Nordic Ware Aluminum Half Sheet Pan is heavy-duty and won’t warp.  It’s huge which means I can make more cookies at once and it doesn’t fit in the dishwasher so I’m forced to handwash it (which you should anyway to make it last longer!)  The only problem is that it’s not nonstick, so that’s where item number two comes in…

2.  Non-Stick Silicone Baking Mat

Ahhh, silpat, where have you been all my life!!!!  I seriously love this thing!  You can find these in many different colors and brands, but I just got the original Silpat brand. 

It fits my sheet pan perfectly, of course, and it’s totally heat proof.  It also rolls up for easy storage, I just put it with the aluminum foil in the drawer.  Plus, nothing sticks to it.  It makes perfectly browned cookies and biscuits, and it’s easy to wipe clean after use.  (If I’m making something other than baked goods, I just line my baking sheet with foil for easy clean up.)  And if you are a chicken wing-lover like we are, you will need this:

3. Half Sheet Pan Wire Rack

This also fits my pan perfectly so we can oven roast a bunch of chicken wings quickly and easily.  You can also use it for a multitude of other things: draining fried foods, cooling cakes and cookies, etc.  It’s great!

And since you are doing all this baking, you are going to need a reliable oven mitt to get your pan out of the oven, like this one:

4. Silicone Oven Mitt

I wouldn’t settle for any regular old silicone mitt, though, I found this one from Mastrad with the thumb on the bottom for great flexibility (I find those with the thumb on the side hard to use). Not only is it heat proof, it’s waterproof so you can stick your hand in boiling water to fish out an ear of corn if you want.  The main reason I got this is because it’s easy to clean; I was getting tired of ruining my oven mitts with grease stains and having to wash them all the time.  This one you just run under water and voila, all clean!  It has a cotton liner to keep the heat from burning your hand, and its soft. :)  Plus, it comes in lots of colors to match your kitchen!  We got green.

5.  A nonstick plastic spatula that acts like a metal one

Complicated, right?  Michael had been searching for a spatula for turning eggs that was super thin (like a metal one) but nonstick plastic so it wouldn’t scratch our egg pan.  He discovered the Matfer 12” Slotted Pelton Spatula.  It’s the ultimate for fried eggs, cookies and more! 

6.  Stainless steel juicer

My husband also has a love for whiskey sours.  And every now and then we buy citrus fruit for a recipe.  So all that lemon squeezing called for a citrus press.  I had one of those plastic ones with the screw on glass basin to catch the juice.  It was tough work and the plastic drain was always clogged with pulp and seeds.  So Michael found an alternative:  the citrus press, a handheld metal juicer made by Norpro.  We got it last week and it works flawlessly.  It’s nice and heavy so you can squeeze it without too much effort and still get all the juice out.  Best part?  No pulp! :)

 

7.  Kitchenaid Mixer

Gosh, if you don’t have one of these, you probably need one.  We received our mixer as a wedding gift, and it’s pink.  :)  Woot!  It’s a workhorse, perfect for mixing up cakes, cookies, frosting, etc.  We even use it to “knead” pizza dough for 10 minutes at a time.  Apparently it can do a ton of other things, too, but I mostly use it for baking. 

 

So, that’s just a few of my favorite kitchen gadgets.  I would add a food processor to the list, but I don’t actually have a “favorite” one of those.  We have a basic one that’s too small for making our salsa recipe all at once.  So a bigger one is definitely on the wish list! :)

Do you have any favorite kitchen items I need to know about?