Category Archives: Deanna Greens and Garden Art

Jun11

Summer Kinships Bloom

Posted on by
Standard

As the summer solstice approaches we relish the vibrant blooms in the gardens and roadside, as well in our homes.  Our dream is to bloom with our kin folk.  Dean and I refurbished our living room, a blend of fresh and vintage.  Midnight, our Labrador is ready for the companionship of kin, and is on the welcome committee at our home.  In the meantime a few recent travels take us to our families in other Missouri towns.  Dean is such a proud father and grandfather.  He carries his digital camera to capture the moments and shares his finds with zeal.

Late April we were blessed with another grandchild.  Elise is Dean’s first born grandchild.  Beautiful baby.  We took the occasion and traveled to meet her early May when she was less than a week old, and another one this past weekend.  The last Saturday in April we honored my deceased father, aunt, and uncle with a Relay For Life team of kin at the cancer relay held downtown St. Louis. Mother’s Day was a visit to an old lookout point in St. Francois County  with my daughters and their families. We had another May day trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens with my brother and sister-in-law.  And there is summer league baseball with our oldest grandson, Brendan. The first weekend in June we celebrated the 30-year birthday of Dean’s daughter, Liz as well as the birth of our youngest grandchild, Elise.

“Let us be grateful for the people that make us happy, they are the charming gardeners that make our souls blossom.”  Marcel Proust

May30

Co-Thriving

Posted on by
Standard

“Co-exist” is a word that became popular a few years ago. It implies people, critters, and plants living harmoniously on this earth despite our differences. A lofty goal, easier said than done, but is wonderful to experience when it happens. I would rather think “co-thriving”.  I want to thrive rather than just exist. I know there are other people in my world who feel the same.  Even my Labrador, Midnight thrives when people surround, a social animal. My geraniums thrive in the warm and sunny afternoons and a humid Memorial Day rain storm.  Rain finally came after many cloud build-ups this 3-day weekend!

I am hitting the age where more of my colleagues are retiring.  Dean and I attended a happy hour this past week for  one of my friends. More Cardinal ball games and late mornings are in my friend’s new season.  I can be entering that season of life in about 4 years and 4 months. That would be 225 more work weeks. Oh, I forgot I have a few vacation weeks in there as well, but who is counting?! I want to thrive, not merely exist during retirement. Good chance I will do just that because that is what I am doing now. Key is, co-thriving with my Dean, family, and friends. I believe green plants and gardening will fill my days, as well as serving with joy the people God places in my life. Much like today. “And those who were seen dancing were thought to  be insane by those who could not hear the music” Friedrich Nietzsche is quoted.  I hear the music, and I want to dance every season of my life.

May21

Green Whispers And Wryly Weather

Posted on by
Standard

After repotting my perennials and mulching last weekend, the weather turned wryly. Chilly, rainy days like very early spring or a late autumn started the week. What happened to May? My spinly pear tomato plant is probably wondering the same.  The rain water will help produce juicier fruit, but the leaves did not like the overnight temperatures in the 40’s.  Plants are resilient, as new growth is  coming from the base. This is the second growing season for this pear tomato plant given to me by my girlfriend from Minnesota.

An absolutely gorgeous Saturday today. Our plans changed for the day, and Dean and I will get to the Missouri Botantical Gardens tomorrow with family. This morn I rest and reflect on the front porch with my sanctuary of green surround.

I pitch a withered branch or two from my geraniums. The new buds have popped up and the leaves greened with the spring rains and sunshine. Their red blossoms should open next week or so. What I love about my gardens is there is no time table. I am an artistic gardener, rather than a scientific gardener like my father was. A meandering pace and organic existence are what I need from my green passion.

“Working in the garden gives me something beyond enjoyment of the senses…It gives me a profound feeling of inner peace. There is no rush toward accomplishment, no blowing of trumpets. Here is the great mystery of life and growth. Everything is changing, growing, aiming at something, but silently, unboastfully, taking its time.”  Ruth Stout

 

May8

Mother’s Day Weekend

Posted on by
Standard

My Saturday was filled with caring  for green life, as so many Saturdays and Sundays in the spring time. Dean and I made an early run to the greenhouse as summer like weather was forecasted for the day. Dean mowed the grass while I attended to weeds and watering. Our peas, lettuce, spinach, arugula, parsley, and dill are sprouting. The chive plants are in full bloom. I cut a bundle, and dropped some off to Jack Mac, executive chef  and friend at Chandler Hill Vineyards. He told me how to use the blooms in my cooking this week.  For this weekend I put together a red potato salad snipping my chives and young voluntary dill sprigs into the bowl.

As tradition goes green plants and May flowers fill my Mother’s Day weekend. This year is no exception. Maybe it is tradition from my childhood.  My motherSeeds Quote still enjoys a potted tomato plant and another pot of summer favorites like petunias or geranium. This Mother’s Day I sit on the porch bench surrounded with early morning mist, song birds, and quietness from the world’s busyness. Midnight,  our Labrador joins. He, too relishes the weekly early Sunday morning date with nature. My pots of perennials and annuals complete my sensual needs this morn.

Apr21

Green Passion And The Porch

Posted on by
Standard

As most weekend mornings go, I cannot sleep in long.  Weekday awakening before 5:00am makes it difficult to sleep much past 7:00 am on the weekends.  The weekend to-do-list is long, so Saturdays are packed. On Sundays, I start at a slower place making meditation and prayer a part of my morning. The front porch welcomes a cup of hot honey chamomile tea an inspirational gardening book, and me.  The sights, sounds, and smells of a rain storm bring freshness to the morning.  I became one with the springtime outdoors, crisp breeze and tender green plants and white dogwood blossoms.  A bit shabby from winter life, my potted plants are waiting for a play date with their gardener.  I withheld that Sunday knowing next Saturday will be a better time for gardening.  This time was set aside to rest rather than produce.

Besides my green passion needs to get fluffed up like a flatten feather pillow.  For months my focus has been our house, all those details with a major insurance claim … the funds, renovation, inspections, and the move back in.   There is a good-size pile of paperwork still needs sorting through, but it can just wait.  This gardener needs to get her green thumb out again, play in the dirt, sow some herb and vegetable seeds, design some pots of virid green life.  We had no time to sow in trays, so direct sowing it will be this year.  Better late than never.

Ambitious thoughts for another Saturday, Dean and I spent a good part of the day cleaning gumballs and rocks out of the front yard.  The neighbor’s gumball tree scattered its fruit all over the neighborhood with the help of the spring winds.  The rocks surfaced during the water and sewer line repairs.  Perennials were brought out from the garage.  The babies are seated in the cart while the large potted birds-of-paradise, lemon tree, asparagus ferns, geraniums, and arrowhead plant are now situated in the newly mulched landscape.  Our succulents have been outdoors on the front porch for about a month.  We placed a covering over them with a frost-forecast.  Fortunately March and early April have been mild like much of the winter. The herbs and green leafy vegetables will be sowed next weekend as well as annuals planted in a couple of moss baskets. Only so much time during one day. The journey is a part of gardening, not just the end result … one day at time …one season at a time.

I relax on the porch another Sunday.  This particular morning is special as my two oldest granddaughters join me.  Talking and soaking in the morning sunshine, it is a tender moment indeed like the fresh spring foliage…and more porch Sundays to look forward to.

Apr6

To Eat Intelligently Is An Art

Posted on by
Standard

“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.” ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld, French author wrote.  This author lived an exquisite lifestyle in his French chateau in the 1600’s. And the one and only saucy “The French Chef” herself, Julia Child was an American chef who brought the French cuisine to the everyday American in the mid to late 1900’s.  This “mindful, purposeful eating” is an art almost lost, but has been resurrected once again with the farm-to-table restaurants and crafted foods and spirits in today’s food culture.  The term “slow food” was coined in Europe in the 1980’s, and has come to the United States full swing.

Locavorism is encouraged. Niche farmers, gardeners, and chefs bring fresh meats, fruit, vegetables, and herbs to their plates and that of their community.  The Bent Pig and Hannahway Farms in Farmington and Chef Jack MacMurray at Chandler Hill Vineyards in Defiance are such people.  Farmer’s markets will open this month with their early crops.  An American diner such as Ethyl’s in O’Fallon, Missouri has their crafted meats, slowly smoked which fills the neighborhood with a mouth-watering aroma.  After work one evening this week I devoured their pork sandwich served with a heaping dollop of coleslaw between the bun and sweet, smoky BBQ pork, Carolina-style.  I slowly savored every bite.  Local does not always mean the best as my stop at a small cafe for a warm bite before my doctor’s appointment yesterday morning reminded me of that.  A “Popeye omelet” described on the menu said bits of bacon with spinach and Swiss cheese. But mine had chunks of bacon fat that resembled the Swiss cheese.  Gross!  I could not finish it!  The smell of bacon turned my stomach tonight when I came home to my daughter preparing a “brinner ” menu for her family.  See how long it takes me to get over the bacon phobia.  I usually love the leaner slices!  Tonight I created an overnight french toast using leftovers:  day old raisin bread bargain bought at a local bakery soaked in an egg-milk mixture laced with some of my home brew vanilla extract, and then topped with leftover reduced-fat cream cheese spread and fresh blueberry sauce.  Tell you how it turned out on my next post.

So go back to my original quote “to eat intelligently is an art”… it means to eat within a set budget as well as “lean, clean, and green”.  It takes some planning and improvisation.  My health goal this year was to lose at least 20 lbs.  Patronizing those farmer’s markets, growing my own veggies and herbs, and eating more plant foods will help me achieve that goal.  Based on this week’s visit to the doctor’s, I have lost.  As long as I do not eat too many slices of that french toast, and keep to veggie omelets, I will do accomplish my goal tastefully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb24

Almost Home

Posted on by
Standard

I had a deja vu  moment this past weekend while walking down a neighborhood street to the auto part store with my Dean and our Midnight.  During our brisk walk I approached a view unforgettable from my childhood.  An old brick house, the grandmother’s house of a farm family I grew up with just down the road from my childhood home and tree farm.  I was 12-years old again and at the place where I knew I was more than 1/2 way home from the old town ball diamond where I played softball.  On occasion my sister and I would walk to ball practice and our games.  It was at least a 2-mile walk one way, and required us to cross over the interstate on a cross walk. Considered a summer adventure, not scary.  Over 40 years ago, my hometown St. Peters, Missouri was a farm community. Everyone knew each other, and for the most part everyone was trustworthy.  That cross walk was torn down a few years back.  But if it was still usable today, would I let my 10-year old or even 14-year old granddaughter walk that distance to ball practice from home and back again?  I would say “no” as this community has greatly changed in size. We do not know our “neighbors” like we did back then, and who knows about the interstate traffic and travelers.  The world has changed its character.

“Almost home” is like those familiar places and people.  Thankful for, content with. The rental house has been a temporary refuge for us, almost home.  But home and family is where we are meant to be.  All my senses clearly see, smell, hear, touch, and taste its warmth.  The pine wood and painted walls smell fresh, clean, new.  These colored walls are awaiting our human presence. I hear our birds chirp near the front porch in the maple and dogwood trees. And I feel the crisp new bed linens and quilt to my skin as I lay in my bed along side my husband. This weekend we will be moving our personal items back to our renovated home. And our hearts come with. Living minimally has been refreshing like the aromas of fresh wood. Dean and I vow to continue this.  As I wrote a few weeks ago, “’Home’ is where you lay your head, and share your heart and blessings with your family…” no matter the structure or belongings.  The Books of Matthew and Philippians in our Bible say, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?” and “I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content–whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.”  My prayer for each of us, we know that God our Father provides for our every need and that we each are content with His provisions.

 

Feb6

Pancake Morning

Posted on by
Standard

“Talking, talking, pancakes” is what Dean describes our first morning together.  We loves our pancakes!  This Saturday morning is no exception.  This improvising personal chef had one over-ripe banana in the fruit bowl and one bottle of Wells Banana Bread beer left in the refrigerator from the holidays.  This combination created some delicious pancakes. Is it Hermann’s German culture or my German heritage from my deceased grandmothers influencing the weekend menu in this home?  Probably a little bit of each.  Here it is folks … Banana Beer Pancakes with Caramelized Banana Beer Sauce.

This morning Dean and I talk weekend topics over our pancake breakfast.  Errands to run … purchase and install new window blinds in our rejuvenated home, and a tile floor selection for the bathroom.  Then dog food and possible organic vegetable and herb seeds to purchase at the local farmers’ co-op with an afternoon run out to our 7-month greenhouse at Boone Hollow Farm in Defiance, Missouri.  I will get the organic soil turned up today while Dean looks over the structure for winter wear. February brings us closer to spring.  Besides the Groundhog tells us it will be an early spring this year. Spring-like today, but winter returns with frigid cold weather after the weekend. Deanna Greens And Garden Art will start our 4th growing season.  In another 4 or 5 weeks, seeds will be planted in our beds for an early crop of lettuces, spinach, and peas. The garage is too crowded with our extra storage during the house renovations to get the gourd and herb seedlings started on the heating pads.  All direct sowing this year.  Flexibility and improvisations once again.  Life requires it.

“Look around for a place to sow a few seeds.”  Henry Van Dyke

 

Jan10

Red Geraniums

Posted on by
Standard

This time of year the work day is eased into analyzing aggregate reports, research on other wellness programs, event planning, and networking for the year.  I like the slower pace which last about 4 – 6 weeks in December into January.  It is when I finally have the employee wellness events booked on the calendar.  Yes, forecasting  at least 9 months ahead.  It is much like a teacher and his/hers curriculum planning during the summer for the next school year.  It will be another busy year at St. Louis County, the busyness starting next week with several meetings and a health fair.

Much the same as with the farmer, his/hers planning for the spring and autumn crops is done during the frigid cold months.  My father was a tree farmer, and the winter was filled with book work and ordering of a new stock of plant liners.  My siblings and I would plant 100’s of plant saplings through the spring; lots of hoeing, weeding, and watering in the summer; and  autumn a few more plantings and prepping the pines for the holiday harvest.

I cannot say Deanna Greens And Garden Art has quite the planning of a full-time farmer.  The greenhouse is a hobby of Dean and I’s while we work full-time. Our part-time organic herb and vegetable growing is fragrantly and deliciously rewarding while the beautiful geranium blossoms are pleasing to the eyes.  During Dean and I’s Nashville mini-vacation in December, we toured the Belle Meade Plantation.  Each room in the historic house was festively decorated with period Christmas ware, with the kitchen set in the 20’s.  The kitchen is my favorite room. And there set a terra cotta pot of red geraniums in the windowsill, again another favorite of mine. A vintage flower.

The subzero wind chill has me hibernating today.  I wanted snow, but not this frigid cold stuff. God forgives my absence in church, and He knows my severe allergy to the cold.  Early morn I went outdoors in my pjs, robe, socks, and slippers to let our Labrador into the fenced yard, not realizing just how cold it had gotten over night.  It dropped 30 degrees in less than 12 hours.  My joints have been screaming about it since 7:00am.  The daily antihistamine did not take much of an edge off the symptoms, so I took an extra dosage this afternoon.  Drinking lots of hot herbal tea while I watch cooking and gardening shows, write, and read …

“RED GERANIUMS”

Geranium

Life did not bring me silken gowns,
Nor jewels for my hair,
Nor signs of gabled foreign towns
In distant countries fair,
But I can glimpse, beyond my pane, a green and friendly hill,
And red geraniums aflame upon my window sill.

The brambled cares of everyday,
The tiny humdrum things,
May bind my feet when they would stray,
But still my heart has wings
While red geraniums are bloomed against my window glass,
And low above my green-sweet hill the gypsy wind-clouds pass.

And if my dreamings ne’er come true,
The brightest and the best,
But leave me lone my journey through,
I’ll set my heart at rest,
And thank God for home-sweet things, a green and friendly hill,
And red geraniums aflame upon my window sill.

by Martha Haskell Clark

 

Jan9

Dabbled Gray Sky Against Walls Of Color

Posted on by
Standard

The dabbled gray sky has turn white this morn.  A welcome sight.   Big heavy snowflakes.  Midnight heard me say “snow” while hunkered in his bed next his master’s side of the bed.  Up he arose, click-clack on the wood floors, stretching before reaching the back door.  Our Labrador was excited to go outdoors to see the white spectacle.  We sure welcome this snowy Saturday.

Dean and I visited the house again today.  Renovations are coming along nicely. Drywall and mud have been completed.  The painter is working over this Saturday.  Splashes of our new color choices were on the walls yesterday.  Today the whole walls are cool hues, such a contrast to the gray sky.  A shade of teal and blue in the kids’ room.  Two shades of grayed blue in the 2nd bedroom. The master bedroom is “kissed blossom”, just a touch of lavender-pink.  The bathroom is “bungalow white”.  The living room has “pillow mint” suggesting a restful room.  The adjoining kitchen ‘s”sweet mint”is a tinge deeper shade, reminds me of our garden herbs.  Such a cool palette.

Dean and I finished a few Saturday errands, pet food and wild bird seed at the old town country store and a few other items at the crowded grocery store. The sky lightened for a bit, but soon the gray returned.  A table lamp and cup of hot peach tea bring warm comfort into the house as I write.  I anticipate more snow before the night is over.  Temps are dropping and will dip down in the teens overnight. White bean chili and sweet potato muffins will bring coziness to the dinner table tonight. Might find a jigsaw puzzle to busy myself with this evening while the cats curl in their furry balls. Snuggle time with a warm throw, maybe Dean and Midnight to join on the couch.