Pictures taken by me, of my yard, just as a reminder of what happens when nobody sends me photos for Sunday morning…
So: What’s going on in your gardens, this week?
Our front yard, where the grass desperately needs mowing. It’s too early in the summer for the daylilies to be so exuberant…
… since the first tomatoes haven’t quite ripened (this is an Isis Candy)
Hemerocallis ‘Cameron Quantz’ (unlike most daylilies, these are actually mildly fragrant)
Hemerocallis ‘Jaune Tom’
SiubhanDuinne
Nice flowers. Is Percival the lion?
Mustang Bobby
We’ve had enough rain in South Florida the last couple of weeks that I can practically hear my lawn growing. I’m hoping my vanda orchid takes the hint and blooms again.
raven
In 28 years in Georgia I have never seen it rain like this. We drove over to the ATL to buy butterbeans yesterday and the guy at the stand said produce prices are about to soar because they had 13 inches last week in South GA. So far the garden is going great guns since we have a good slope but root rot may get to be a problem.
Here’s a great sign from a local neighborhood garden “around here”!
JPL
Anne, Thank you for posting your pictures. This is the time of year that if you live in the Atlanta area, you can expect high electric and water bills. Since we have experienced cooler temperatures and frequent rain storms, those bills haven’t appeared yet. I’ve been enjoying tomatoes and squash from the garden but the beans and peppers are slow to produce.
JPL
@raven: Yesterday afternoon the sun came out for ten minutes and then it was followed by a downpour. That pattern repeated itself over and over. Today I’m grilling outside even if I need an umbrella to do it.
Cliff in NH
sun sugar was my first, I’ve got lots more on the way
flickr.com/photos/64725711@N07/9150179402/
kale and beans are doing good, the scarlet runner started blooming and the first hummingbirds showed up in the last few days.
Kathi
Yeah, the day lilies but I’ve got sunflowers coming up volunteer from a bird feeder and one of them is well over 10′ high already and blooming its head(s) off. The native hibiscus is about to bloom as well.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cliff in NH: You know things are messed up when NH tomatoes are ripening before Ozark tomatoes…. Couldn’t put them in till after May 15 cause of frost, and has been so cool ever since that they just won’t ripen. 70’s and 80’s the past week and a half. Gonna hit low 90’s Monday and tuesday, then back to the 80’s. I love the cool weather but geez, tomatoes please.
OzarkHillbilly
Otherwise, the eggplants are producing wonderfully, I picked my first beans (wax, the Italian rose are not far behind) and will be picking the last of the lettuce today as it is all beginning to bolt. Sweet pappers seem to be recovering somewhat from whatever blight got into them so I am yet hopeful, and the cayenne, jalapeno and serrano are all doing well and producing.
My JeffCo buddy swung by yesterday and he and his wife and I sealed the deal on the tomatoes for fresh eggs deal. Which is good. I have 54 tomato plants. It’s not my fault! I swear! I just wanted plenty of romas for canning and then I kept finding various heirlooms that I just HAD to try and…
It got so bad I was begging people to stop me before I planted again.
Betty Cracker
Our first round of tomatoes are done, and the seeds for round two are sprouting. Peppers are still coming in. The mister has made lots of hot sauce, and my mom made pepper jelly, which is good on bagels and cream cheese. I believe the mister is also propagating squash for the 2nd round.
HeartlandLiberal
Following pictures taken Saturday. First three are from north to south, three sections of the 1,860 sq ft vegetable garden. Last shot is the strawberry bed. I weeded and cleaned it up three weeks ago, the weeds are trying to overwhelm it again, so that cleanup is on my schedule. But the plants are recovering from being thinned and the bed cleaned out, and starting a second round of blooms, so we hope to get another round. We got 11 pounds of berries on the first round, and threw away at least three or more pounds, conditions have been so wet berries were rotting on the vine touching the ground, even though the bed is designed to be raised above ground level a couple of inches, with a drainage trough around it.
Friday and Saturday I picked green beans, two varieties. Two of the three rows yielded a brown grocery bag packed full to the brim. One more row will be ready in a few days, a third variety that is maturing a little slower. All bush varieties, so I did not have to make trellis supports, just planted three long rows. The north end looks decimated, because remaining lettuces are going to seed, all the sugar snap vines have been cleared from the plastic fencing you see, and half the cabbages have been harvested.
Note how overcast it is. It has rained almost everyday for past two to three weeks, and chance of rain is in forecast for entire next seven days.
Not you can see all but one of the motion detector water scarecrows that keep the deer from ravaging the garden.
edgeinfotech.com/images-shared/Garden20130706-1-1024.jpg
edgeinfotech.com/images-shared/Garden20130706-2-1024.jpg
edgeinfotech.com/images-shared/Garden20130706-3-1024.jpg
edgeinfotech.com/images-shared/Garden20130706-4-1024.jpg
Punchy
While not technically a food garden, I planted a shit ton of sunflower seeds and I’ll be dammed if at least 75% haven’t sprouted already. Suck. On. That. Fisher/David/GiantSeeds.
Yes, very small victories for this peach thumb.
Cliff in NH
@OzarkHillbilly:
I have to get updated pics up, but I wrapped my plants with some frost guard stuff, and it worked well
flickr.com/photos/64725711@N07/8735544740/in/set-72157632697556359/
bemused
I’ve felt blessed that we have never had deer take even a nibble out of anything in our flower or veggie beds in almost 40 years even though they are definitely around, we’ll see them in our yard occasionally and some neighbors have had deer issues. I was stunned a few days ago to see that the leaves on strawberry plants in one bed were eaten with deer tracks near by. Why, oh why, now?!
Karla
In, southern MN, this week I got my first strawberries from the plants I put in on May 1 – Northeasters, new to me and tasty. The borage plants I started from seed to attract pollinators are just forming buds, a bit behind the flowering strawberries, so I mistimed that. I also planted them a little too close, resulting in the leaves shading them a little too much. Today I plan to remove the excess leaves and use them as mulch; hopefully they’ll keep the quackgrass I’m removing today from coming back.
JPL
John McCain will be on Face The Nation discussing with Bob Schieffer the olden days when they were relevant.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cliff in NH: Yeah, coulda shoulda woulda…. I think I will do that with at least a quarter of the plants next year tho not all of them. Originally I was only going to plant at most 40 but my eyes were bigger than our collective stomachs. Eventually I will have a richness of tomatoey goodness to share and can.
We all have our crosses to bear.
Oh, one thing I forgot. My JeffCo friends keyed me into a pick-your-own blueberry patch about half way between us and I went out there on Wednesday and picked 9 lbs. I resisted picking more ’cause the wife was leery of having too much. 9 lbs translated into 6 half pints preserves, 2 qt bags frozen and 6 pt bags frozen (foodsavered, love that thing). So this week I am going back to get at least another 10 lbs. before the season ends.
Maude
@JPL:
About 1850 or so.
I have the Wave Petunia in the kitchen. It’s way too hot for it outside.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: That could be a post from 1992.
WereBear
I’m back home after a week without Internet.
Well, mostly. I was looking after my MIL at the cabin, which doesn’t have internet, but I came home once a day to make sure husband and cats stayed alive. That was when I could “reload” my email (with Gmail offline) and my writing (I used Scribble from the Chrome Web Store) and it went pretty well.
Since I was supposed to be On Vacation, I also got to read several books from my Kindle app on Chromebook; you simply need to Pin the books and they are there, internet or not.
However, I did break down and finally activate the 3G modem; this Chromebook model came with 100 MB a month of free access. Certainly not up to web surfing, but I was able to add a book from the Amazon Kindle store and pay some bills. Obviously, the cabin is not THAT remote…
WaterGIrl
This week I ate my first zucchini, jalapeño peppers, and a tomato from my garden. I did tomatoes in pots last year, but other than that, this is my first year for my vegetable garden. I planted tomatoes, tons of hot peppers, black beauty watermelons, cucumbers, and blue hubbard squash.
I planted the blue hubbard squash after it was recommended by someone here last year, and I also planted dill with all my squash plants, as recommended in a sunday morning chat.
If you haven’t tried SunGold tomatoes, you are missing out on orange cherry tomatoes that are so sweet they are like candy. Every person who has eaten my SunGold tomatoes has asked me to pick up a plant for them the following year.
waratah
@OzarkHillbilly: We loaded up at a blueberry farm in the Ozarks while traveling in our camping trailor. They were the best blueberry’s I have eaten. The owners had printed sheets with recipes for muffins and blueberry sauce that was great for anything.
becca
Tomatoes are coming fast. Eggplant is flourishing, but all the squash gave up the ghost. Again. Seems to be a common plaint from Memphis gardens, at least in my neck of the hood. Blossom drop and end-rot. Maybe I’ll grow squash for the blossoms. I hear they’re good battered and deep-fried. Early rains delayed planting for most, so corn will be late to the table.
But the natives in my side yard are exploding, along with dozens of zinnias and sunflowers. I added blue pin cushion and brown-eyed Susan to the mix of cone flower, orange cosmos and purple butterfly bush.
Cultivating flowers is relatively new to me, but I am so glad I started. A creative release every time a flower blooms, even if I’m only the midwife.
ruemara
I do miss gardening so much. Not sure if I’m clicking on these posts to live vicariously or torture myself. I’m hoping to trade some labour time for my friends’ garden produce. You’d think since it’s summer, food wouldn’t be so expensive or there’d be more mildly bruised stuff, but noooooo. Everyone has reported good, strong plants so this seems to be a fantastic summer for local gardeners. Berries abound.
And if Werebear is around, I found that the cats are thrilled with the turkey feather I found outside when the local ladies went past with the summer teen pullets. Do you think it would be safe if I went to their nesting area and gathered a bunch more so they can have a new feather once they are done stalking and destroying this one? Should I nuke them in a microwave first to remove bacteria?
tybee
@raven:
send me the rain.
it’s rained everywhere around here but not on de island, mon.
Not Sure
@raven: Upstate NY here. We’ve already exceeded the average monthly rainfall for July, and we’re barely a week in.
jnfr
I’m getting a few Sun Gold tomatoes already, with dozens more ripening. The bigger tomatoes aren’t ready yet.
Peppers and eggplants growing but also not harvest size. Something is chewing on my zinnias, which annoys me. Otherwise, it’s hot and muggy, with random afternoon monsoons here along the CO Front Range.
SectionH
@becca: You can also stuff squash blossoms with goat cheese or other soft cheese and pan fry them.
It’s a nice damp morning here, like yesterday. A welcome return to normal after a couple of weeks of sunshine stabbing my eyeballs at 7am. It’ll still be too hot to garden by 11 or noon, but that’s also normal this time of year.
We’ve had some corn but it’s been a disappointment. I put it down to our crap soil. Mr. S says “can’t be, it’s been amended.” Weelllll, maybe down 5 inches. Then you hit the crap again, and hard pan not too much deeper. It was an early bed, and not double or triple dug like the newer ones.
But the tomatoes are doing fine, and we seem to have at least slowed the squirrel depredations down. There are once again ripening San Marzanos on the plants, not half-eaten on the ground. And the little, fat – Very Fat – buggers don’t seem to have found the tomatoes in the raised bed or the City Pickers yet.
Mr. S’s peppers are doing well. We lost the culinary sage to drought – it’s in the first raised bed we did and the irrigation isn’t right yet – but the two medicinal native sages are doing great.
becca
@SectionH: thnx- everything is improved with cheese, innit? Except maybe blood flow.
WereBear
YES! and Yes! Have fun.
aldorossi
We planted tomatoes in March here in Los Angeles, and we’ve been picking them for a month now. After 3 really crap years (literally no fruit last year), we’re going crazy this year. The wife says its warmer this season, although I think it’s the 4 yards of composted cow/goat/horse manure we hauled up from the farm animal rescue ranch down in Long Beach. It’s amazing what good soil does for healthy plants. We don’t use any pesticides whatsoever, and I have not seen a single horn-worm on any of our plants this year…Vines are 6′ high and growing, and for all the fruit we’ve harvested there are bushels of green fruit still working. We put up 8 quarts of pasta sauce last week (shakshouka for breakfast today), and this morning we’re running 3lbs of tomatoes through a vegetable juicer to reduce down to paste.
Mmmmmm….