Wild Rose

On my way to work this morning I spied this beautiful blooming wild rose.

Bumblebees

May garden

Hello neighbor!

Flower bed on right side near garage.

Front yard

Front

Lambs ear and thyme

Flower bed around dogwood

Left side

Shady side yard

Side yard

I have a blooming lily-of-the-valley!

Veggie garden

Parsley, red flower (?), iris

Vegetable and flower garden in backyard

Radishes and lettuce

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.

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.

Weird big crawly thing

I found this huge caterpillar under oaks last weekend. Ugly looking thing!
After a quick research, looks like it might have been imperial moth caterpillar.
I'll be keeping an eye out for that moth--it must be enormous!

Black & Yellow

Last night I found two yellow and black critters in my garden:

Black and Yellow Argiope spider
and monarch butterfly caterpillar.
This made me think of two other black and yellow visitors that frequent our yard:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly

and golden finch.

There's something very satisfying in realizing that our yard is a habitat for variety of creatures...

When one thing leads to another

One recent evening over beers and casual conversation I mentioned that we have lots of hot peppers and someone suggested to pickle them. I embraced the idea and decided to try out pickling this weekend. I did not have any canning jars, so I went to a local hardware store to buy some. There I noticed they had broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seedlings for sale, so I bought them.
To make some room for my new plants, I pulled out a wilting zucchini, a few cucumber plants past their prime and corn that no longer produce. I dug up potatoes I planted in spring, then picked more hot peppers and sweet banana peppers, one green bell pepper that I accidentally pushed over and a small ear of corn. There is also that yellow thing... I'm not sure what it is... might be something between a squash and a decorative pumpkin. One thing is for sure - I did not seed anything that looked alike the outcome.
While weeding in the garden, I noticed a few other things. Near parsley plants I found this black swallowtail butterfly caterpillar. Welcome, friend! (Sorry for the fuzzy picture, I could not get my camera to focus.)
My first yellow bell pepper is ripening.
Winter squash has produced a single fruit. I hope there will be more.
In the afternoon I was catching shots of a golden finch on my sunflowers.
And right then a hummingbird flew right next to me to check out crown-of-thorns on the deck where I was standing.

Good day. I still need to pickle those peppers, though.

Red Onions and Shallots

The ground was too wet yesterday to dig up onions and shallots. And I have been taught in Latvia not to dig up onions in wet weather, but on a sunny day and then let them dry outside in the sun. Today was a perfect day for onion harvest--not a cloud in the sky and low humidity.

To the left are red onions. My father-in-law bought seed onions in March at some farm. To the right are random shallots. I got a few three years ago at our grocery store and they have done well. I will keep about a third from each to plant early next spring. I store them in brown paper bag in a cabinet under a stovetop. I've been told that onions and the likes should be kept in fairly warm and definitely dry place; if storage is too cold, an onion will put all it's energy into creating a big bloom, but will not create a new bulb.
There are a few beets also... a bit on a small size. I wrap beets in foil and roast them in oven for about 45 minutes, but these small ones do not take that long.

I also cut couple of dill seed heads. I'll sow part of these seeds later this summer for fresh dill in fall and the rest will have to wait until next spring.

In another corner, zinnias are blooming. I have only two colors this year--orange and purple. The orange ones are my favorite.

Spearmint is blooming, too. Small insects are buzzing around.
A small butterfly on blazing star.
And one of my hen-and-chicks also is blooming.
This one's the first for my garden.