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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Garden Update


Finally, I can show you a few garden updates. Above is the newest flowerbed, and this year it seems to be coming into its own. It's a mix of perennials and annuals, and a lot of the flowers here came from my sisters' gardens. Ignore that pigweed in front of it! I'm letting that grow until tomorrow, when I'll harvest it for greens. I know it's a weed but my goodness it's delicious. I don't mind it being in the gardens for a bit in the spring.

The garden I think of as the Spring garden is doing better since Larry dug a drainage ditch. I loosened the soil along each row of plants with a shovel because the heavy rains in May had packed the earth. It's thriving now, even the forlorn onions in the very back. A little TLC brought them along. The tiny plants in the center row are celery; behind them is peppers and snow peas, and to the right is regular peas and carrots. We've had peas for dinner twice--they are so good. We've had a few carrots too, as I tried to weed out my enthusiastic planting.

The mulberry tree continues to produce even after the heavy feeding by the Cedar Waxwings two weeks ago. I think even the birds are tired of them! It's nice, though, to stop and pick a handful as we pass by.


I caught this bumblebee in mid-flight as I was preparing to photograph this lemon lily.

The walk up from where Larry parks his truck. This garden at its lower end is infested with bindweed, making it a real struggle to maintain. The shade of the maple at the top is another challenge, but wormwood and coneflower don't seem to mind.

The cardinal in this shot was a surprise--I wanted to capture the sunlight through the trees. This long flowerbed used to be really poor but years of mulch have improved the soil so much that it's a rich garden now. I think my camera was a little on a slant for this one!

This one is still in progress. I realized that I should have pruned the lavender after it was too late so it will have to wait a bit, after the blooms are finished. I have baby lavenders I'm nursing along and hope to plant here. The planter is a combination of the base of a bird bath and a pot I got at the Rockport auction. I almost gave the flowerpot to my sister Julie, but couldn't quite part with it! I think it will be lovely when the Wave petunias in it really get going. The rose is a floribunda and blooms all summer. I love that I can look out my kitchen window and see it.


Volunteer daylilies and annual hollyhocks rub shoulders along the wall by the root cellar. This is a catchall garden--I fling weeded stuff up there, and dump dirt, etc when I'm cleaning out the gardens so it's always interesting to see what survives. There is a peony in there, and I think some iris and once a chrysanthemum surprised me.

This little garden, along the other side of the walk up from Larry's parking place, was almost destroyed by bindweed. I had given up on it, but decided to make one more try this year. It was a tussle, believe me, but it is mostly cleaned up. The bindweed is still there, however, and I doubt I will ever eradicate it---see it coming up in the Southernwood? I stuck a few petunias and coneflowers in there, along with a few yellow pear tomato plants and I know I will be working all summer to keep that aggravating weed at bay.


No more vegetable garden pics this time around--I'll try to take some soon. The tomatoes are all staked now thanks to Larry's hard work, and even the late garden--the one we wait until June to plow because of its heavy clay soil--is planted. Everything is finally caught up. It's been a difficult year for planting, but now we can slow down a bit and hopefully start harvesting a little more of our work.

11 comments:

  1. Thanks Susie, even though I've never been to your house, it was a nice walk through your gardens and yard! I absolutely love the garden "trash" that is sprinkled in with the flowers. I'm jealous of all the big gardens, makes me want a bigger yard, but the rain this year makes it hard to keep up with the little gardens I have. By the way, your pepper plants are thriving in my vegy garden, along with the tomato plant. Thanks so much for the tour and walk. Miss you!!!

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  2. Liz, we've got to get you up here somehow. You'd be right at home :) I'm glad the plants are doing well. I've got so many left over and I hate to toss them but we're done planting and there's no room for more. I guess the chickens will get them :(

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  3. Your gardens are beautiful....Lisa

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  4. The gardens look as lovely in your pictures as they did last week! I agree with Liz...it's nice to walk through the garden with you. Love you, tm

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  5. Even a novice gardener like me knows there's a lot of work gone into those gardens over the years. Your Uncle Ted would have been very impresssed.

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  6. Thank you, Lisa. They're country gardens for sure, a mishmash of what I've planted and what has decided it wants to grow there.

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  7. John, I think our gardening blood certainly came from our English side since Dad's family were fishermen and townspeople as far as I can tell. But Dad always loved to garden too--I think Mom rubbed off on him!

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  8. Theresa, when sisters come to visit that's a motivating factor! I have really enjoyed working in them this year, though--instead of pressure to get as much done as possible in whatever time I had, now I can take my time and putter. I prefer puttering :)

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  9. don't you just love spring and summer and gardens? Your place is lovely. I wasn't sure what "bindweed" was but thought I would recognize it when I enlarged the photo. I sure did! We have it, too, in Iowa. But I really, really don't know "Southernwood". Does it have another name?

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  10. Gardening, whether flower or vegetable is such rewarding work. I look forward to it every year. Just as you and Larry do.
    Exhaustion comes by the end of the day, but it makes me sleep so much better.
    The gardens and flower beds look great!

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  11. Nance, southernwood is a type of wormwood--I think they're both artemisias. Both are good moth repellents.

    Becky, you know it! and after this weekend's conference I am tired in mind too--but boy did I have fun! I was glad the gardens were in pretty good shape so I could leave with an easy mind. And while we were gone, many of the seeds I planted last week germinated. Joy!

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