From commentor WoodyNYC:
For years I’ve been working on a patch of land behind our summer shack in the Catskills, trying to make a low maintenance semi-deerproof rock garden. It’s all about rocks up there. A central feature is a bunch of rocks with thyme growing between them, and right now the thyme is blooming.
Another failure-to-photo week for me, so I stole WoodyNYC’s shots from Sunday’s comments. (Since I plant thyme in one or another part of my garden every May, only to have it die by July, I’m impressed!) As a partial excuse, we had 4 straight days of overcast-with-drizzle, which means my tomato plants are growing well & flowering prolifically but the miniscule fruits aren’t getting enough sun to swell up, much less ripen. The Sun Gold I was worried about last week came back and is looking good, but the Gold Nugget decided to wither & die — I like low-acid tomatoes, but I have to admit I have about a 40% fail rate with the yellow varieties.
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When it comes to flowers, the early daylilies (hemerocallis) are now flowering prolifically… as are the few pansies I planted this spring. Weird year, for sure.
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So… send me some jpgs, fellow gardeners… (Opie Jeanne, I’m looking at you, pleadingly)… and I hope to have more to share on Sunday, despite the holiday weekend.
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Meanwhile, how are things in your neighborhood tonight?
jeffreyw
I picked over a dozen hungry caterpillars off of a container tomato on the patio today. I thought it was looking a tad threadbare, but damn.
RoonieRoo
My sunflowers are producing their seedheads right now. I’m probably going to cut them this weekend and gather the seed.
My luffa are also taking off and starting to grab on to the fence. I hope to have a nice batch for the bath and kitchen by the fall.
cg
I had a bear near my garden tonight! A black bear, not big but not a cub, probably a yearling, who was after my sunflower seeds and probably after the remains of last Sunday’s fishing expedition that are buried in the compost pile.
Ok, so my garden’s barely up because of the extremely cool spring/summer but who else out there has a bear wandering near theirs???
RoonieRoo
A bear! Oh my. That makes me appreciate only having to battle voles.
jeffreyw
@cg: How about eight, count ’em, eight miniature bandit bears?
joeyess
@WoodyNYC That’s niiiiice.
TaMara (BHF)
If you are looking for something to do with all your fresh vegetables, how about some Creamy Gazpacho?
And for dessert? Sour Cream Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
cg
@jeffreyw and @ roonieroo I think voles may be more destructive than this little ol’ black bear and I’m sure those eight bandit bears are worse!
Again, I hardly have a garden to destruct at this point. At least the lettuce and turnips should do well this year.
Getting ready for company this weekend. Son and friends. Can’t wait.
gelfling545
I love thyme as an all-purpose filler around pretty much anything. I’ve had a few of the plants around my rosebushes for years & just trim them back occasionally. Some has intermingled with dianthus in the river rock surrounding the pond where they get no fertilizer & are rarely watered but seem happy nonetheless. I don’t get lovely great masses like in the pictures, though.
My sunflowers have been doing terribly & I couldn’t account for it until today when I found my dog digging among the seedlings. She NEVER digs, not in the 7 years I’ve had her but this year she likes the sunflower patch for some reason.
Linda Featheringill
Hi guys.
My garden is doing well. Lots of little green tomatoes and lots of little green peppers. The peas are beginning to blossom, although the plants seem a little small to me to be producing fruit. Still, they probably know what they’re doing.
Cucumbers are producing foliage but little else. On the other hand, seeds were sewn about 5 weeks ago and so I guess I’m rushing them. I would have liked to plant them earlier but we just didn’t have stuff.
I tried to start some stevia. Tried twice, with the same result: Nothing. I give up. I did send an email to Burpee asking them to consider offering already started plants next year. I received a nice reply about my request being directed to those who make such decisions. It would be very nice to have a couple of those plants.
Linda Featheringill
WoodyNYC:
Very nice, indeed.
jharp
cool picture woody.
I like the rocks a lot.
I make it a point to bring back rocks for the garden whenever possible.
Recently added 2 I gathered from atop Clingmans dome in the Smoky Mountains.
AAA Bonds
Countdown to the Rick Perry gay scandal starts tonight!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57381.html
Yutsano
This is not my garden per se, but blackberry flowers everywhere. Methinks they might ripen some time around early September at this rate. Damn it’s been cold here.
Mnemosyne
I’m learning to hand-spin wool into yarn, so at least I’ll have something to trade when the apocalypse comes and I need to cadge some food from those of you with green thumbs.
opie jeanne
The thyme in WoodyNYC’s garden looks beautiful.
Our peonies are going nuts here just outside Seattle, and the strawberries are starting to turn red. We planted thyme from seeds as well as some small plants we picked up at the nursery and they are all doing well. The tomatoes are not setting any new fruit at all, just blooming and meh. We have two tiny zucchini on one plant, and lots of flowers that start to set fruit and then it dies. The peas are finally starting to bloom, as are the potatoes but we don’t think summer is coming to us this year.
Yutsano
Zucchini blossoms!! OMG delicious beyond belief! If you think that is going to keep happening right as they just start to wilt snip them and fry them, like this. NOM NOM NOM!!
opie jeanne
Yutsano, I know! And those on the site are beautiful.
We will resort to that if we don’t start getting better results; for now we’re trying to get some fruit from the derned things.
We have this big septic mound on the property and my husband scalped a big circle on top of it when he mowed. Looks like a crop circle right now; we’ll plant our pumpkins in the circle next week.
Steeplejack
jharp:
I’ve been up Clingman’s Dome. Nothing else to add to that. Carry on.
opie jeanne
Good night all. Tomorrow the sun will come out, we’ve been promised this by our meteorological overlords.
tag
wow its sooo cute
Mark D
Damn … that’s just beautiful, Woody! Picture-postcard level.
Very, very well done.
keestadoll
Odd weather here has caused my garden to go into fits of anxiety so I’m spending lots of time reassuring them that they are all OK and to just calm down and go with it. Today’s project is removing hundreds of rocks in a planting section near my driveway to put in a Ceanthus (wild lilac)and convincing my sons that adding to our brush burn pile will be BIG LOTS OF SUPER FUN to set ablaze this fall.
WoodyNYC
Thanks everybody and thank you Anne, I am honored by your comments. I now feel that all that work with the pick and long bar have not been in vain.
Heading up today for a long long weekend and hopefully I will see some tomatoes in the vegetable garden. I’ve given up on eggplant forever though, the season is too late and every year some bugs show up that turn the leaves into green doilies.
Felinious Wench
How could I have missed the garden chats?
Our Houston drought continues. I have to dump a pitcher of water over some of my plants every night.
However, the roses are gorgeous.
Michele Quarton
Love the way the rocks and flagstones are displayed and placement of the thyme. I am envious. I have way to much shade for the thyme, I use moss. I live on a rock ridge west of Philly.
Maude
WoodyNYC
That is truly beautiful. Well done.
Here in NJ, thyme can die in the heat.
WyldPirate
cc