Boltonia

A recent addition to my front yard: boltonia 'Pink Beauty'. It's a native plant, so should do great.

Small September Harvests

Even this "bad" year, I've been able to pick this and that from the garden...

Tomatoes

Todays tomato harvest. The yellow cherry tomatoes are the sweetest.

Today I also planted 15 snowdrop bulbs under the boxwood tree in the front yard, one lemon grass plant in a pot (ladies at Merrifield said it needs to be brought in garage for winter), a hellebore near the back door and a fall crocus near draft junipers in the front.

Big plans for the backyard this fall. I'd like to rearrange the layout and better organize the vegetable beds. We'll see how fast it goes... all depends how much time I'll have, of course. This might be one of the projects that gets to a desired state only after a few years. And that's OK.

P.S. I recently discovered what the beautiful (albeit somewhat invasive) plants in my yard are: Perilla aka Shiso.

Corn

Every spring I plant some corn because when I ask my kids what to grow, they say "corn". However, when it comes in, they are away with grandparents.

It's not the best looking corn (some parts of the ears do not get properly pollenated), but is delicious. I will boil it and then freeze the kennels so the kids get to taste it.

Summer...

Such long time between the posts! The summer has been very hot and my garden is not doing as well as I wish it would. I missed the peak of green bean harvest because I was on a trip for two weeks. Squirrels are picking my tomatoes. Beets did not grow much. Seedlings from the tomatoes that I started from seed grew very lush, but did not bear a single fruit. Even hot peppers are not producing as much as last year. I've done a lot of weeding, though. And a few other things have been doing well. Like my parsley... it's abundant.

There have been small harvests...

 and some native flowers are doing great even in this heat...

 as well as this surprise appearance... not sure what this flower is and when had I purchased it.

 I get a few cucumbers every week...

and three beans from a single pod that survived rabbit plague last year (and that were seeded in a special pot and kept in front of the house) produced 85 beans that I will plant next spring.

Paddle Cactus

The cactus we inherited with our house is blooming now.

Each bloom lasts only one day. What a show!

And the radish winner is...

Not that there ever was a contest. But I'm glad that this year I tried two varieties of radishes instead of usual one. Cherry Belle variety that looked so good in a picture on the seed packet grew slow, then quickly went to seed with relatively small number of edible radishes in between.

This French Breakfast radish featured below on the other hand is still going strong despite heat we've been having. It also tastes milder and grows larger. Come next spring, I'll be looking for this seed again.

Strawberries

This is this year's largest strawberry harvest. They are cute and picked right from the bed, still a bit warm from the sun.

I have about a dozen strawberry plants and they produce several handfuls of berries over a course of few weeks. It's more than other years when deer and rabbits ate strawberry leaves and fruit. This spring I put a small chicken wire fence around them and it has helped.

Still, I think this is the last spring for strawberries in my garden. As much as I like the idea of growing my own berries, none of the plants I have bear fruit that is sweet and they all are small. Perhaps I should investigate other retailers and try a new variety. But with the room for my garden being so limited, this might be one plant that I will give up in the future.

Bad Egg

I found this intact egg in my garden yesterday; it's probably a bad one cleared from a nest.

It's smaller than robin's egg, and its turquoise color is deeper, darker. I could not find on the web who it belongs to; will update this post if I do.

Spring Bouquet

Peonies have spread a lot this past year in my garden and this spring there are many blooms. It's such a lush flower.

Last Sunday I made three bouquets with peonies, climbing rose, clematis, dianthus, lavender, catmint, bachelor's buttons, Siberian iris and lamb's ear: one for us and two for my son's Sunday school teachers.

First Salad

Earlier this week I made the first salad with ingredients from my garden: radishes, baby lettuce, dill and shallot leaves. The later is basically green onions, but without white part; just pick a few from the plant, not all.

 Chop it all up, add some salt and sour cream. Now that's the taste of spring.

First Radishes

They are just a tad bigger than garbanzo beans... never less I plucked them from my garden and they taste good!

Mini-oasis

Irises around a utility pole near my neighbors' house are in full bloom.

There are quite a few mini-gardens like this one around here. I wonder if they were created because of practical reasons (who wants to mow and weedwack that narrow strip between a sidewalk and street and around utility poles?) or because a gardener just had to have one more patch of soil where to put in even more plants. It's probably a little bit of both.

Lazy Weekend

While on Sunday I watched a very busy robin build a nest in neighbor's maple (here's a very blurry picture)...

... and a catbird also building a nest in a bush under one of our windows, I had a lazy weekend myself when it came to the garden.

It's fresh and green right now and plants are starting to grow very fast.

Spinach is big enough for the first salad.

Chives are blooming.

And the first clematis flower has opened. It's almost iridescent, this picture really does not do it justice.

 Variegated iris will open any day.

Azaleas are blooming

Pretty!

Pretty Weeds

Bluebells. I have so many of those in my garden. I have to treat them like weeds. They are beautiful, though, especially at this time.

Life is good

Yesterday was perfect day to stay home off work and be outside gardening. These are the seeds I planted: beet, two kinds of string beans and lima beans. I remember reading somewhere that lima beans do not do well in our climate, but will try them anyhow. (But it's true that oftentimes shops and nurseries will sell seeds and plants that are not compatible with the local climate or they are on display long after their seeding window is closed.)

 This is how my veggie patch looks these days. The brick walkway is moving along little by little.

 I also planted some of my gladiolas and then repotted little tomato seedlings. I'm keeping seven from the whole bunch to see what comes out of them. This is another experiment that I'm not expecting much as an outcome. But it's fun to try.

 In the pot to the left are yellow bell pepper seedlings. These need to grow a bit more. In the pot to the right is salmon-color begonia; it's waking up from winter slumber.

The first three pots have amaryllis post blooming. I took them outside today and put under a shady bush. Soon I will plant them in the garden where they will stay until fall frosts. After that, I'll bring them back inside, put their bulbs in pots and wait for the blooms... probably coming out February or March. To the right is coleus, also saved from last summer, soon to be planted outside.

Around the garden, lots of plants are blooming and scenting the yard with a lovely aroma. There's my lilac

 and lone yellow tulip I do not recall planting

 and late-blooming, ghost-white daffodil.

Transporting Transplants

I wanted to give a small hydrangea plant to my friend Lisa. It had self-propageted from a low branch. To get it to her, I dug it out, shook off most of the dirt. I also got a bunch of old newspapers. 

 First, lay the plant down and wrap a newspaper around the roots.

 Use as many newspapers as needed, every time making the wrapping a bit snugger.

 Use additional newspaper to wrap branches and leaves.

After all done, the plant fit in a plastic newspaper bag.

I found out, though, that Lisa is out of town for a week and I had to give hydrangea to someone else. You could store plants wrapped like this for a few days, but really the rule of thumb is to put a plant in a new spot as soon as possible.

Stray Puppies

A few weeks ago I dropped my son at baseball practice and told him I'll be in a nearby Home Depot until it's time to pick him up. "Don't buy any plants,"he said. Well, I had no intention to. But when I wandered in the houseplants section, I saw these two cactuses scattered around with no pots. I just had to save them.

Tomato Sprouts

Something is sprouting in on of the terra cotta pots... I believe these are tomato seedlings (based on the tiny little "fuzz" on the stems) that I saved last year from a store-bought fruit. I did not follow any special fermenting process that I later learned is necessary for tomato seeds, so this is a happy surprise. That is IF these are indeed tomatoes. Nothing has sprouted in the other pot... but I still thing it's sweet pepper that is not coming up.