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Saturday, May 2, 2009

Garden Update

A quick tour of some of our gardens:

Larry planted tomatoes this week, 75 plants that included several varieties: Early Girl, Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter, Amish Paste, Yellow Pear, Mr. Stripey, Lemon boy, Delicious and Siberian. He left a row for peppers, which I'd like to hold off on for a few more days to let them grow a bit more.


The early garden is thriving: in this garden are onions, beets, peas, leeks, radishes, stonehead and savoy cabbages, celery (far at the top), spinach, chard, carrots (barely up), and Romaine lettuce. Half-runner beans are just coming up at the far left. Those are grapevines up against the building in the rear.

Corn, more beans (Royal Burgundy), and the potatoes are in a different, larger garden. We still have one small area and one more garden to plant: squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, pole beans, and Indian corn will go in there. I will also plant a row of flowers--and some ornamental cotton--in front of the tomato garden.

This is a "volunteer" flower bed. Seeds and plants left from last year seem to have it pretty well taken care of--mostly cosmos, parsley, and honesty (also called money plant). I may need to enlarge it because I have a lot of plants in the greenhouse that need to go somewhere.
The herb garden is out of control. Here you can see from bottom center, thyme, feverfew,purple sage,lemon balm gone amuck, bee balm also mucking about, lemon thyme, and in the back but not visible baby's breath, copper fennel (which is seeding itself everywhere), rosemary, and chives. Somehow I've got to conquer this mess and make room for more herbs--like dill, basil, etc. Once the spent daffodils are out, there will be space. There WILL be space. (I have to convince myself.)
I got a nice surprise the other day when I noticed a bright spot of pink by the bird feeder. I'd planted this clematis two years ago. It struggled along and I'd forgotten it was there. Now it's in beautiful bloom. I found the second one I planted too, doing well although no blooms yet.

12 comments:

  1. How I envy you your gardens - and a husband that gardens! I am a Master Gardener and a former gardening entrepeneur. Unfortunately all that time in the sun has caused my Lupus to worsen. But, yesterday was a good day. The skies were cloudy and overcast, so I got 2 truckloads of mulch spread.
    So, since I can't garden as much as I would like to, I really enjoy seeing what others are doing. Thanks for the pictures.

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  2. I see you have a fine crop of rocks in the garden near the grapevines. We West Virginians can always count on a bumper crop of those, regardless of the weather. Reminds me of home!

    Yes, spring is here at last. You made me homesick with this post.

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  3. Wow! Good luck keeping up with it all--it looks gorgeous. And Happy May Day weekend to you and yours!

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  4. WOW are you going to have tomatoes! What a wonderful canning crop you'll net! Happy May Day! Sorry I haven't been able to check in as much with getting ready for the move!

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  5. your gardens are coming along great. I hope we don't have a frost. My clematis haven't bloomed yet, but my poppies have!

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  6. Carol, I remember when my asthma and allergies were so bad I could do little in the gardens myself, so I understand a little of how you feel. It must be so frustrating. I bet you wait for those overcast days when you can get out for a little while.

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  7. That little garden always has a good crop of rocks, Matthew. But it's very rich dirt, and easy to plow because the rocks are fairly small now. I remember when we first planted it--the rocks were much bigger then and the ground was full of roots. It was hard work. Now we've removed most of the big rocks, I suppose, because only small ones surface in the spring. We're lucky not to have the kind of rock the eastern side of the state has--ours are not nearly as plentiful or as large, and our soil is very deep.

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  8. Thank you, Susan! Things jumped up several inches while I was gone the past two rainy days. Everything looks lovely, thanks to Larry's hard work.

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  9. Phill, I hope your move is going smoothly. I've been thinking of you and trying to keep up with your blog. It's an adventure for sure!

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  10. your poppies are ahead of mine, Janet. Mine don't show any sign of bloom yet. Course, the dog dug around them pretty ferociously during the winter so that might have set them back.

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  11. Oh oh oh I am so jealous of this big garden and your herbs! I don't have a green thumb! The clematis is GORGEOUS and don't you love it when something so beautiful pops up and surprises you?
    BW

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  12. I do, BW! Like your little yellow flower, this one was a wonderful surprise.

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