Good morning, gardeners, and welcome to the Saturday Morning Garden Blog!
It may seem like wine drinking and solar eclipses have absolutely nothing in common. But when you think about it, both can lead to total black-outs under certain circumstances. This past weekend, hubby and i traveled through Oregon's wine country to taste the annual grape harvests and view a once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse. As one might expect, we also saw some spectacular gardens along the way. Since it's too early for wine (As George Carlin said, "What kind of wine goes with Captain Crunch?"), shall we grab a proper morning beverage and have a look around at some of the gardens of wine country?
One of my favorite things about staying in a Bed & Breakfast is having the opportunity to tour an "intimate" garden space. Even before we pulled into the driveway of our B&B, colorful hanging baskets made it clear that our hospitable innkeepers were also enthusiastic gardeners …
The backyard …
Roses and a sculpted ivy …
A peanut butter tree (the crushed up leaves really do smell like peanut butter!) …
And who wouldn't want to enjoy a glass of wine at twilight in the company of these potted figs?
Or beneath yet another gorgeous hanging basket …
Meanwhile, one of the wineries we visited had a flock of backyard chickens …
Don't be fooled by the seemingly placid photo. That black rooster had a bit of a nasty streak. He tried to peck my toes!
I'm sure a mathematician would have absolutely no problem calculating how many grape vines are growing in Oregon's wine country. Let's see - x number of vines per row …
... times x number of rows per acre …
Number's aren't really my thing, but i'm guessing it's somewhere in the ballpark of a metric fuck-ton. I admit it. I stole a grape. What an explosion of flavor …
As far as the eclipse itself is concerned, i was a bit taken aback by how emotional the moments of totality were. Even though hubby and i vowed to "experience" rather than photograph, hubby got some great spontaneous captures with his cell phone camera …
O.K., so NASA did a better job of it, but i'm guessing this image wasn't taken with a cell phone …
We could have brought home a small painting of the eclipse as a memento of our trip, but an elegant Pinot Noir seemed like a more satisfying purchase …
Suffice to say we have no regrets about our decision. Were you able to get a good view of the solar eclipse? And what's going on in your gardens?
PS: Here's the upcoming Saturday Morning Garden Blog hosting schedule. As always, if anyone would like to take a weekend, drop a note in the comment section (or send one of us a private message). We need more regular writers if we want to keep this series going, and new contributors are always welcome.
September 2nd — robctwo
September 9th — ColoTim
September 16th —
September 23rd —
September 30th — kishik