From commentor Kathi C:
Bought this little, old house three years ago with a huge yard for the dogs but absolutely no flower beds! Making progress, as you can see. Next year I plan to twist the son’s neck until he builds me a raised bed for veggies close to the house because I’m getting tired of feeding the groundhogs who live under the shed next to the existing in-ground veggie bed.
Here in the Boston area, I’m just glad I persuaded the Spousal Unit to settle for pre-potted daylilies (Seawrights will also dig plants straight from the field rows if buyers will settle for bare-root). Even though the Heat Dome of Sweaty Gasping Death didn’t creep this far east until mid-week, just keeping ahead of the watering is tiring me out…
__
What’s it like in your gardens this week?
Martin
Getting better. Regrading the lawn is coming along better than expected, the irrigation system is working again so the plants are happy. Got a bunch of other projects to plow through including planting a new tree in the back corner and then I cut down the ornamental plum in the front yard that’s been attacked by termites, rip out the entire front lawn and garden along with the roots from the plum, amend the unbelievably potent clay that we have here (you can literally grab a handful of dirt out of the yard and make a bowl out of it) plant a new tree (not sure what kind yet), little picket fence, and a brand new semi-shade garden to replace about half the lawn, and replant the other half of the lawn with something less water hungry. I’ve got to keep some lawn in the front (association) but I’m hoping to cut it to 1/3 the current amount of lawn, and have that third use half as much water.
Hal
Dan Simmons writes a book sure to be on Hermain Cain’s bookshelf:
And my fave part:
different church-lady
Groundhogs: do you have a cat?
I had a groundhog living under my tool shed, and nothing could deter her.
Then I got my first cat. I was emptying his litter box one day and something clicked in my head.
The dirty litter was dumped into the groundhog’s den hole.
I never saw her again after that.
Report: somehow I’ve got echinacea where I don’t remember planting it. My big problem right now is all the flowerbeds are overcrowded — such a change from when I started 5 years ago and everything was barren. Tomatoes are a bit behind, but very healthy, seemingly forgetting entirely about their brief bout of leaf spot.
Gracie
MANY tomatoes: Abraham Lincoln, Ozark Pink, Tropic varieties. Cherry toms: Dr. Carolyn, best flavor of any cherry tomato variety I’ve tried.
Jalapeno peppers, potatoes, and pole beans are also abundant right now for us.
For ornamentals, our native grasses (mostly Panicums, some taller than myself this time of year) are showing their panicles and have such lovely movement in the breeze right now, foliage plants like Amsonia, and flowering shrubs that look good all year like Fothergillas, all doing well in this blistering heat. The alliums and lillies we planted this spring are also doing well.
Kathi C’s garden is so pretty! Orange flowers always make me happy.
PeakVT
The front garden is looking okay, so I’ve been concentrating on growing things in the basement for the past couple of weeks.
Martin
Uh, that’s illegal in 53 states, give or take about 3 states.
Martin
Holy hell. Talk about wingnut porn. Someone knows their audience.
Gretchen
Kathi – gorgeious lilies. Every time I try to grow lilies the rabbits eat the down to nubs. Any ideas on how to prevent that?
And @3 – I may have to get my daughter to bring over some old cat litter. I’ve had groundhogs actually liviing inside the fence in the vegetable garden.
Paula
We just re-landscaped our front yard! Yellow day lilies, knock out rose bushes, some kind of purple flowers, maiden grass, Russian sage, dwarf dogwood, lilac, and two river birch! Sooooo happy!
Back yard though, needs some attention. I planted two red-whip dogwood bushes and they are monsters! They have to go! Hello chainsaw and pick and shovel!
I want a tree that won’t get fat, but it can get tall. Any ideas? Full sun. I live in zone 4/5. We have a long hard freeze.
Linda Featheringill
Heat is hurting my garden. I think it killed my peas and maybe a cucumber or two. Other stuff is doing okay, though. Good thing because I just can’t get out there and try to do anything for the garden. I have been watering between sundown and dark.
Heat also turned my neighbors’ lawn brown. Actually, they look sort of dead. This grass just isn’t used to that kind of heat. My lawn on the other hand, is about 2 to 3 inches tall because I just couldn’t get the energy to mow for a couple of weeks. And it looks fine.
I did notice that the weeds are wilting, though.
Insects really like my plate of water by the garden. I saw some wild bees there today! These are the first I’ve seen all years.
I was planning on starting my fall/winter garden this week but no way that’s going to happen. Maybe next week.
Lovely flowers up at the top.
ETA: The heat has been hard on all the animals in my life, too, including the humans. Oy.
Arclite
That garden needs more fruits and veggies since that’s how you’ll be feeding yourself after Aug 2.
fleeting expletive
“Mansquitos” on SyFy, y’all. I gardenned earnestly for a couple of years, but this year, with all this heat, I don’t go out unless I have to. And I Don’t Have To, very often.
Cliff in NH
I’m getting tomatoes and lots of blooms, the plants are starting to take off!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/5961011089/in/photostream
Yutsano
Still waiting for this thing called “summer” And still wondering if I’ll get paid in two weeks.
Martin
Good point. Nobody’s cracked open their Survival Seeds yet?
Oh, right. They aren’t for this:
It’s for insider armageddon, not teatard armageddon.
PeakVT
@Martin: I can assure that you can’t catch a buzz off of sawdust, no matter how much you inhale. Coughing it up can make you woozy, though.
SBJules
beautiful flower gardens. In So. Cal. we were quite warm last week, but now it is tempered with morning fog again. The dahlias are stunning right now. Easy for me to say with no picture :)
Joel
With the *very* extended spring, peas are doing excellently in Seattle.
GregB
I noticed the lilacs I had transplanted earlier and that had been looking hearty were beginning to wilt under the heavy sun, so I gave them a good soaking and they seem to have rallied.
Gave up on watering the lawn and he crabgrass has begun to march in.
The fenced in garden is growing quickly. I will have some cucumbers by this weekend. The tomatoes are growing fast and furious and the plants are getting close to 6 feet tall and the flowers are telling me there is going to be a bumper crop.
Already made some pesto with some of the basil that is growing quite heartily and it was good. Starting to see some lil bush beans too.
Yippee.
FlipYrWhig
I guess one of the signs of society’s imminent decline was when they started making church bells out of banana skins.
PeakVT
NASA is announcing the landing site for the Curiosity rover tomorrow at 10 AM.
Yutsano
@PeakVT: They forgot to pick one up already. The Martians are starting to complain about litter.
Martin
Gonna have to disagree with you on that. I’ve got a Powermatic table saw in the garage and it’s very heavily used, along with all of its powertool friends. It really all depends on what you run through it.
Spend a day cutting/drilling melamine. Not as rapidly potent as sanding PVC, but it’ll get you there. I spent a day working with lyptus and that forced me to sit down for a few hours – though I may have just been sick that day. And we’ve got the whole realm of solvents and finishes to add into the mix.
opie jeanne
Today in my garden, just outside of Seattle, the clematis started to open:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snowwhite/5963469368/in/photostream
Other than that, we’ve been eating the sugar snap peas and the Ball zucchini and lettuce and beets, all of it delicious. Just have to be careful to remove all of the livestock when cleaning the lettuce. The tomatillos are setting fruit, but we only have 6 tomatoes on two of the dozen plants.
We have at least one rabbit who is not eating our lettuce at all, or anything I truly care about as far as I can tell. It gnawed on a couple of tulips when they were first emerging so I used some Deer Off! and it decided the liatris tasted better. He hasn’t eaten anything but the leaves so it looks like they’ll all bloom when it gets warm enough. I am amused, so long as we are not overrun by his friends and family. There are also a couple of moles but the property is large enough that I think we can be friends. If they were gophers it would be another matter altogether.
opie jeanne
Kathi C’s garden is quite nice. I love the day lilies
burnspbesq
Not garden related, but can someone help me understand the logic of the following statement made by McConnell on the floor of the Senate on Thursday?
“”So if you’re concerned about the size of our debt, then raising taxes is a sure way to ensure that nothing gets done about it.”
Yutsano
@burnspbesq:
Simple:
“Our promise to Grover Norquist, a man with no elected position and no accountability whatsoever, is more important than our oaths to our office and to uphold the Constitution. So suck it hippies.”
Cliff in NH
Thread needs some Pizza:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/5963564080/in/photostream
stuckinred
Ours is doing ok but, as noted, the chief gardener sprained her ankle last week. She had done pretty well at staying off of it all week. I was washing dishes after dinner and, poof, she was gone. An hour and half later she came back in after watering away (and doing who knows what else)!
currants
Raised bed gardens, overflowing, too hot/no time to do anything about it. I planted too many tomatoes/peppers/eggplants in too small a space–last year I thought the problem was the arrangement, so some of them just weren’t getting enough sun. Oh, and that I was growing heirlooms, which got to be almost 8 ft tall, so I thought I’d put too much compost in. But no, same problem this year–and lots of tomatoes but so heavy they’re bending the vines. Next year I’m not going to start my tomatoes in the attic, I’m going to try ordering the heirlooms that are grafted onto hybrid root stock.
Otherwise, we harvested garlic last week, and the kale, scallions, celery root, parsnips, beets, carrots, arugula, radishes, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, and leeks are taking over the joint (what’s left when the nightshades are done with it). In the herb garden, I’m trying to grow melon (hoping for my first success), and there’s winter squash (acorn and butternut) in the wildflower bed.
It’s daunting. Next year I’ll try to be more circumspect. But all that space looks so EMPTY in May!
stuckinred
currants
Our tomato cages are made of concrete wire mesh. They sell sheet and rolls at the big boxes.
JPL
stuckinred, Can’t keep a good woman down..
stuckinred
JPL
She’s a pack mule fo sho!
BruceFromOhio
That whole “Up is down, slavery is freedom” thing perfected back in 2004 is still running on its own momentum. The poor bastards are stuck in a loop from which there is, evidently, no escape.
The chief landscaper (MrsFromOhio) got tired of waiting for her lazy, distracted assistant landscaper (c’est moi, true) to dig out the borders of the flower beds, and took it upon herself to get some hired help. The kid put me to shame in one afternoon of digging, and now everything looks pretty sweet. Our stretch of Ohio has been getting just enough rain to keep everything green, though the only thing still active in the lawn is the clover. Tomatoes are rioting, there’s enough basil to run an Italian restaurant, and the heat hasn’t yet killed off the pretty stuff that has names, but I’ll be damned if I know them.
And we’ve had more bees, monarch butterflies and hummingbirds this year than usual, a welcome sign. Probably due to all the pretty stuff.
Somewhat garden-related: the farms west of us have bumper crops of corn and soybeans, and the storms off the lake come at just the right times to keep the land from going dry. With the drought/floods elsewhere pushing crop yields down and commodities up, there’s some agri-folk sitting pretty for a change. The local corn and peaches this year have been outstanding.
Kirbster
Daylilies are just about the perfect perennial in my book. They come in a practically infinite variety of colors and sizes, and once established, they’re very low maintenance. Rabbits and deer leave them alone, another big plus.
I’m overwhelmed with zucchini in the vegetable garden.
currants
stuckinred – July 22, 2011 | 6:14 am · Link
Thanks! I have decent cages, I think I tried to get too much into one bed. 4’x 8′ bed, 16 tomato plants (9 varieties), 8 eggplants (3 varieties), 8 peppers (4 varieties). Too much, yes?
Kathi
No pix of the veggie bed but I’ve been picking tomatoes for a week or so and had my first cuke for dinner last night.
R-Jud
Lavender is finally starting to flower, so I’m enjoying that scent as it wafts through my office along with the fragrance from the wall ‘o’ sweetpeas. Harvested my second crop of chantenay carrots yesterday and have just enjoyed some juice made from them and what is probably my last bunch of raspberries for the year.
I am finally seeing fruit on my tomatoes. We’ll see if it ripens; it’s rare for the temps to crest above 70 at the moment, and that may not do it. They had phone booth-sized greenhouses on sale at my local B&Q. I’m tempted.
There is borage all over the goddamn place, but the bees are happy, so I’ll hold off on ripping most of it out… for now.
harlana
I dunno, but this guy doesn’t look terribly repentant or particularly humbled.
Feast your eyes, ladies.
stuckinred
currants
Sounds like it. . .successive approximation!
jibeaux
Zeus’ butthole. Sweet jebus, it’s hot.
And I’ve had green tomatoes for what feels like 412 consecutive days. Fucking. Ripen.
Mark D
Absolutely gorgeous gardens, Kathi!! Just wonderful. Love how you’ve layered the plants so well.
Over here in KC, it’s so hot I’ve wrapped white towels around our maters and herbs so the radiant heat from the deck stops cooking them.
What I find odd is that a few hostas have some sort of rot around the base that’s turning them mushy, even though we’ve been careful about watering (and only do so in the a.m. as to prevent such rot). Meanwhile, the rest are turning yellow, yet still flowered, so not sure what to think about that.
It’s given us a very large sad, and we’d LOVE to know what the hell is going on.
Gravie
Kathi, I love the colors you’ve put together in your garden. So vibrant and intense!