June 29, 2023

It's a beautiful day out today, and I hope to get out and do some more weeding in the flower gardens. 

We were gone a week and with the rain we got just before we left meant the weeds had taken over, especially the last two rows of corn which were completely hidden. We are getting a few peas now and I pulled all the spinach and lettuce because it was going to bolt soon. What we couldn't eat I put in the freezer. Our lettuce didn't come up very well at all, and the first photo is about a third of the spinach. 

We haven't had very many hot days, and a decent amount of rain, a little over 2" this month, had made weeding easy and everything, including weeds, grow. Our grapes seem to be doing well, we are out of both juice and jam. 

 

May 3, 2023

 Spring has been a slow starter this year.  We've had plenty of cold springs of late, but as soon as we get a bit more green or a few 'soft' days, we start hoping the cold is gone and warm and growing days are right around the corner. Hope springs eternal. We had some hot days in April, but more often we've had chill and wind. A lot of wind. Several days with 30+mph wind made it unpleasant to want to be out working in gardens or at all. 

Yesterday was a very pleasant day, with 57 degree temps and little wind. I even felt warm digging out a few weeds and planting seeds. I planted moss ross by the mailbox and some more in our little corner plot at the front of the house, along with some snapdragon seeds.  I'm not sure I'll have much luck with growing things from seeds, except zinnas which a harvested myself. The alyssum I planted under the flag pole are tiny things just starting to come up.

Jim says that the peas are coming up as well.  

April 13, 2020

Saturday the 11th, was a beautiful, sunny, non-windy, almost hot day.  

Jim worked in the garden all day planting early vegetables, 

carrots, beets, peas, lettuce, spinach and potatoes. 

We need to remember it takes 5# of seed potatoes for one row.

We didn't get some of the varieties of seed we usually get, the seeds were well picked over by the time we bought ours. 

I spent my almost hour cleaning up and weeding my flower beds.  I work until I start getting tired and then take my cart full of vegetation to the compost pile. 

I also picked a lot of daffodils since a freezing cold snap was expected.

Today we woke up to a 17 degree morning.  

I haven't looked out to see what has survived.  

Here are some before photos.

My pile of daffys

And in pint jars.  My favorite flowers.

May 19, 2019

Yesterday Jim finished planting the garden.  More corn, plus beans, okra, butternut squash, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash and carrots.  I'm disappointed the spinach isn't all coming up, and one row of potatoes is stubbornly refusing to appear.
Jim planted some more tomatoes, Better boy and Rutgers.
Jim also planted a cherry tomato plant in a pot on the deck.
We got a bunch of Roma tomatoes from a friend that has a green house to start her own.  They look a lot better than the pitiful specimens we tried to grow in our not so sunny house.

I've made it around to all the flower garden, weeding and getting rid of last winter's trash.  Now, to start again. I've been doing 45 minutes to an hour outside and it really wears me out.  I'm going to have to remember again that I don't have the strength and energy I used to whether I like the idea or not!

We are done eating our asparagus.  We ate our last mess today.  We've really enjoyed having it.  It is so much nicer than any from the store. Now we'll let it grow into fronds and wait until next year.
It was chilly the end of this week after having two days in the 80s in the middle.

August 18, 2017

I'm not doing a very good job of chronicling the garden for this year.

We worked really hard on the place before Lynette's wedding and it has never looked so good.  Jim watered some of our weedier 'back yard', that has never been 'lawn' and mowed it.  The garden has never been so weed free (until after the wedding).

The flower gardens which were under my care were kept weeding and starting the first of July we covered them with a thick mulch of dark brown wood chips (two large pickup loads) with some Preen involved.

Our corn is all in the freezer and our tummies, and Jim has mowed the stalks down. Lorene and Aaron came again to help

The cucumbers are going gangbusters and I don't need anymore pickles, I have too many leftover from last year. 

The summer squash is nearly done; the plants are all dying. 

I can't get too much enthused about any more garden.  

I'm okay with more beans and we are eating okra.

I've pulled up half of the cucumbers, I think I need to pull up some more. 

One big day's picking.

Our first canteloupe.  Jim said it didn't taste as good as store bought. Who knows, it could be soil, temperature, water, seed, that makes the difference.

This is one of Lynette's wedding gifts.  We got to enjoy the flowers while they were gallivanting in Maine.  I LOVE this vase.  I would like to have one this shape. 

August 1, 2017

Because of the wedding, I haven't been posting what has been going on around here.  We've been too busy.  Jim has watered all over the place except the pasture, done extra mowing, and extra weeding and the place is beautiful.  I've worked hard in the flower garden and put on extra thick mulch.  They are gorgeous.  We planted our garden late, but I've put a couple gallons of beans in the freezer, made 20 quarts of pickles, 5 of which are dills, the rest Caddie pickles. We have now, in two days, put 81 quarts of corn in the freezer, half of which is going to Lorene's family.  We have one more batch to do.  We've rather let the squash go to baseball bat size or more like heavy club size, but there is only so much one can do in a wedding summer!

Corn, 39 dozen ears in two days.

April 19, 2017

The beets, onions, spinach and peas are up in the garden.  The potatoes are planted, yukon gold. Jim put the pea trellis up this year before the peas were planted so we should have better luck with them.  Saturday my mom was here and we did a quick clean up of the dead mum plants.  An hour's work seems to be all I can do right now, I'm tired out by then.  I've done some weeding and hope to do more.  Yesterday was a beautiful day.  Just right for temperature, wind and sunshine.  Today is chilly and damp and windy.

The tomato plants are nearly dead.

The Horrible Weed

I was listening to Anne of Green Gables this afternoon while I was crocheting and I heard this from Chapter 9: 

"the only flowers there were myriads of delicate 'June bells,' those shyest and sweetest of woodland blooms."

So, I searched for 'June bells' to see what sort of flowers they may have been.

I don't know if these are the ones Lucy Maud Montgomery was talking about, but I was horrified to see that the first photos I found are of the plant we call 'that horrible weed.'

They are beautiful, tall plants with lavender bells. I was enchanted with them when I saw them at a friend's and asked for a root. That was one of the biggest gardening mistakes we've ever made. They bloom very nicely in their place for a few years and then they explode exponentially and you can't get rid of them.

Normal weed killers don't touch them.The best way to get rid of them is to dig over the bed and take out every piece of root.

One commenter on the website I found said much the same thing.

"Digging is effective if you can dig, but you must carefully sift out every cubic inch of dirt and get EVERY SINGLE ROOT THREAD. i dug out to about 12 inches and got every single turnip and root thread. No regrowth after 4 years."

The have beautiful names:

Creeping Bellflower, Rampion Bellflower, June Bells

Campanula rapunculoides

And beautiful flowers.  

Until you're trying to get rid of them.

We are spraying with glyphosate (round-up), but the little sprouts come laughing up out of the ground as soon as the first leaves die.  We are digging, but a few are sneaking their way up anyway.  Those tubers they are connected to just don't want to give up.

Here are some choice comments from others who have made the unfortunate choice to plant these in their yards.  

"In North America, this is an insidious weed, one whose true nature takes several years to reveal itself.  I would never plant this is any situation, nor would I give it to my worst enemy."

"I bought this plant at a nursery. It was pretty, but it is a monster in disguise."

"This pretty-yet-evil plant sat quietly in my zone 3 garden for about 5 years while secretly organizing an underground army which it released this spring." 

"This is a horrible plant. I have tried and tried to get rid of it.  Goutweed was easy in comparison.  Please do not plant it.  You will regret it."

"No knowledgeable gardener would ever intentionally grow this species, nor pass it along to anyone else."

More information:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/475/

June 24, 2015

I haven't been keeping up this spring.  It has been a chilly wet one, and planting has been late.

Our garden is all in, corn, tomatoes, peppers (started from seed), beans, peas, beets, onions, potatoes (reds and Yukon gold), okra, cucumbers, and zucchini, yellow, and butternut squashes.  

Everything is up and doing well. 

Since this blog is primarily about the outside of the house I've included some "outside the house" photos as well.

Sunset in April

A nice selection of blooming plants on May 24th.

I have wanted for years to go put flowers on Jim's folks graves for Memorial Day, but if with didn't already have plans, it was raining.  It was cloudy this year, but we didn't get rained on. 

I planted these in April.  Too bad I only remember where I planted one of them.  

I do a lot of that these days.

First garden harvest.  We had three batches about this size this year.  Finally!!, these plants have been there for 20 years.   

Mother's Day.  

Three kids, three gifts. 

We had a rather bold rabbit come up on the porch. When he wanted a nibble of our pepper plants, we shooed him off.  

Seeds from Lynette planted in May.  They aren't doing very well.  Only one batch is coming up.

They are in the top terrace garden. 

We planted these in a barrel.

June 

Jim's favorite 

Foggy Morning in June 

We allow visitors to our garden. 

Our first beets. 

I've been trying to put in at least 15 minutes a day weeding in our flower garden.  It's gotten out of control the last few years, and even though we cleaned it up for the graduation, some of that was a "cover-up".  This wet, cool spring cam my desire to get out for a long tme.

Blue Flax 

A lovely pre-made set is doing well, thanks to a friend who thought of me after my ear surgery. 

This is how the rest of our deck flowers are looking right now. 

And while this is not on the deck, it is a very impressive mushroom specimen.

The thing is over 8" across.

It's huge!!

There was one there last year.

What is also huge is this hollyhock.  

I've never had one grow this tall. 

June 20, 2012

After days and days of over 30 mph gusting hot, dry winds, the weather has decided to give us a break with a very cool day in the low 60's with rain.  It is almost chilly inside, but my gardener/sister-in-law is giving my flower garden a good once over in this much nicer working outside weather. I should go out to look, but I am resting.

May 12, 2012

It was chilly and cloudy today. The high temperature was in the low 60's, but in spite of that, Jim tilled the whole garden, weeding the potatoes and peas, and finished planting the garden except the winter squash, which we will wait on for a bit, to reduce the bug damage.
So, we now have beans, three more rows of sweet corn, for a total of 8, okra, cucumbers (the ones we started from seed and transplanted didn't make it), summer squash, and a yellow tomato added to the earlier planting.
I think if we try the cucumbers from seed again, we need to cover the seedlings when we put them in the garden.
A few days ago we had frost.  Not a killing frost, but enough to burn my coffee trees in my mini garden.  They aren't supposed to see 40 degrees.  That was disappointing, it spoils the looks of the garden, and it was so nice before.  I'll wait awhile to see how they grow before I attempt any pruning.

July 20.2011

I'm trying to get an hour's worth of weeding in the flower garden every dry morning.  It's been so hot and humid, I've been out at 7.  Of course, I let the weeds get about a foot tall before I started.  So much for "doing better this year.  

I'm working on the side of the shop, too.  We have a bush there that is spawning two babies.  I put a columbine next to that, weeding around them, dropped some larkspur seeds, and blazing star and penstemon,  This is the north side, and I've blocked out the space with old 2x4's for now.  The west edge has a Stella d' oro lily at the corner, going strong, with some iris.  But there is a black walnut tree in the middle, and lots of brome grass.  I've finally got some holly hocks going, and I've dumped the other seed there, too.  (west side)  I think I will have to wait until next year and spray the grass early.  

I want to get some skinny tomato cages for the holly hock, delphinium, and something else, evening primrose?

Also, those taller frames that you can put flower pots on and display work well for spreading tall flowers.

Jim is just now watering the corn.  This week is the first we've had to water anything, we've had so much rain.  I planted some peas where the other ones only produced three on a new package.  They were a casualty from the cold, I imagine. We are eating green beans now, and zucchini.  The second planting of cucumbers is not coming up either.