“There are no gardening mistakes only experiments.”
Janet Kilburn Phillips
October is such a nice time to be outside here in Arizona.
We don’t get the season of Fall here in the desert so we have to add our own Fall décor. This is the fun part to me. I do miss seeing all those beautiful leaves that other states enjoy but I also have a lot of fun adding faux Fall to our home too.
This month I continued working on organizing and cleaning up.
I now understand why they say having a garden is a never ending process. It does keep you busy but at least it’s peaceful.
If you have any sort of garden you know exactly what I am writing about. Even little potted herb gardens need daily care, as well as a house full of plants.
My mini gardens were a bit of a mess.
All that rain we had over the summer beat up the little gardens.
I added some tiny pumpkins. Even the mini gardens get decorated for the holidays.
I picked up a plant stand at the second hand shop. It was a really dark color so I repainted it. Not sure where it will go as of now, may bring it inside or even take it up north to Our Little Red House. It was $8. I call it a plant stand but I believe it is meant as a bathroom organizer.
The pool is cold. All our neighbors have stopped using theirs. I’m no longer hearing the splashing of water everywhere around our street. We have another side next to the pool fence that is an actual dirt yard but the pool side is all bricks or pool deck so that part of our garden is mostly pots. The chickens live on the other side of the garden.
Cold water is a shock at first but so refreshing once you get used to it after a few minutes. We don’t have a heated pool. If you come to Arizona in the Winter and stay at the fancy resorts, something I have never done, then your pool will be heated. It still gets cold here in Arizona. When the pool is cold, Fall’s here. I would love to experience what living somewhere with 4 seasons is like.
We were visited by the cities lovebirds again. There are four of them that hang out in the big tree over the pool. Getting a good spot for my morning and evening rituals of leaving seeds out for them. They’re native to Africa but have adjusted to our city really well. Watch the story about how they got here to our city. They are so adorable in person.
These birds are always a special treat to see and they have a really pretty chirp or song…what do you call it when a bird sings? I never have my camera with me when I come across them in our garden. When I run in to get my camera , by the time I get out there, they are gone. Little boogers. I have heard they love hanging out by water and seem to like the tree above our pool the most.
We still have a bunch of Basil, which is a good thing because my daughter makes this pesto sauce for her pasta dishes with it. So yummy.
3 cups basil leaves
11/2 tablespoons of garlic
¾ virgin olive oil
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients in food processor and blend. Boil 1lb of pasta and add Basil sauce.
Some plants I added this month were Rosemary, chives , petunias, marigolds, tiny white flowers, and green onions.
I had a nailed it moment with my failed attempt at concrete pumpkins. I watched this sweet grandmother from the south make these pumpkins and thought to myself…”I am going to try that”. Saw a bucket of what I thought was cement that belonged to my husband out in our building supplies and gave it a go. You know how I like to use what I have on hand, well that doesn’t always work out well.
I wanted to use cement but turns out I was using concrete. Figure I would have those textured bumpy pumpkins I saw a couple weeks ago in the store. I didn’t add a small jar to the middle though so my pumpkins came out really flat. Found my husband in the room watching an old classic movie and told him my pumpkins are a mess. They look like a cross between garlic and onion, and a tomato someone has stepped on.
If you want to watch that sweet little grandma from the south with her adorable accent, here she is in clip below. I’m not through with this, hopefully I will have a pretty pumpkin eventually.
That’s it for this month. Happy gardening adventures everyone.
Our Little Red House 
That lantern is gorgeous! Did it come with your house?
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Thank you. No, it was a gift from my husband’s aunt from Italy. I am not sure where you purchased it though.
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I think your pumpkins came out so cute! I bet if I tried this, you wouldn’t be able to tell what they are, haha!
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Thank you. The ones that people make where they leave them plain look really cool like little statues. If I can make them anyone can and I bet your pumpkins would come out beautifully.
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Love what I am seeing in your photos and what you have been up to.
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Thank you Liz. I hope all is well with you over there. It won’t be too long before you will be bringing out the little elf for holiday decorating too.
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There will be no Christmas decorations this year. It will just be Christmas cards, like last year.
No elves, since I last blogged. They are now elsewhere, who ever had them when I donated to charity shop.
I am just focusing on fall and the seasons ahead, as I did for the first time last year. This is my alternative to Christmas currently. Easier for me emotionally. X
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Christmas can be such a sad time, it is hard especially when families aren’t close or people have grown apart from each other. Here in the city I live in, they have all kinds of volunteer activities to help out others during the holidays. Wrapping donated gifts, stocking and organizing food boxes for struggling families and even helping out in soup kitchens for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals for homeless. They even have ranches here where people can go and help out with horses that were abandoned and need TLC. The horses are trained to ride special needs children and adults. The ranch also has huge potlucks and events where people get together outside and visit while eating/celebrating. In Arizona everything is opened and people are given the chose of wearing or not wearing a masks. Most people ( about 80%) choose not to wear masks. I hope you have a beautiful Christmas and things start getting better for the whole world. Even a tiny tree on the kitchen table with little twinkle lights is something to brighten up a room.
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I have my fairy lights up on the wall, all through the year. They make my nights cosy. But with me still setting in to where I now live, means I don’t have these up yet. Hope to soon though.
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fairy lights, so tiny…love those. It will eventually get back to being everything being a home. Moving to someplace new can be so stressful and being in new surroundings always takes time to get used to. I bet it will look really cozy for the holidays even with a few small items out here and there. When I was a kid we used to add a few small decorations on one window in our room. People out walking could see them and that was always nice for my sister and I.
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Creating delicious, healthy recipes is much easier when you’re armed with a few secret ingredients. One such ingredient is pesto, and it’s a staple in our kitchen. It smells and tastes like summer, and fresh herbs and can take many dishes to the next level. Happy Fall 🙂 Aiva xx
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That is such a pretty way to describe it. Happy Fall to you and yours as well.
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Thankyou for a fantastic post. The gardens are beautiful, the lovebirds are adorable. I enjoyed watching the video of making the pumpkins.
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That is so sweet, so happy you liked it. Those love birds are so cute. I love it when they are flying above and have all their colors showing in their wings. Like we are in some tropical jungle here in the desert.
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The downside to living where the seasons change is how it affects the sinuses of those who live here. Every time the temp drops by 20 degrees my daughter spikes a fever and starts to cough for two days. But then again we do get the pretty colors (which were not as pretty this year) and spring is pretty awesome too.
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Allergies are horrible. We deal with that here too but in the Spring, which is my all time favorite time of the year. That is so sad that you didn’t get bright Fall this year. I remember your photos from last year’s Fall and they were so pretty.
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I found a few bright trees this week and am going to try to photograph them but it really has been a mostly dud year this year.
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Well, whatever trees you find, I know your photos will be gorgeous.
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Thank you!
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Love the plants
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Aren’t they the best. So nice being out there and taking care of little plants.
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Yes I agree
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