Canned

Look! I turned this:


Into this:


Woo-hoo! I rock!

The Vegetable Patch

Well, we finally have some tomatoes. Unfortunately, they aren't off any of the vines we planted this year. these are cherry tomatoes off of volunteers, cropping up from the seeds of tomatoes that dropped off last year's vines. they are growing up through the cracks in the stone patio. Note that you cannot see that patio.




Oh look! We might get a real tomato off this one! We had one already, but i caught a squirrel eating it for breakfast on my back deck. Oh, well.

Here is the boys' veggie and flower garden. Our pride and joy! Looks like we might get some pumpkins- but I'd be more sure if I saw any fruit actually setting. The vines look better than they have in a while, though- no borers yet this year, and the rain's been consistent.


Here are the boys' sunflowers. The packet was a mix, but this is the only variety that actually came up. They are small, but pretty.



Were getting some cut-and-come-again zinnias, too. I've already cut some, but here's the second flowering. I'll cut these in the morning. These zinnias do better if kept pruned.

This photo is dedicated to Maddy's mother-in-law: what a rose bush looks like if you have no time to dead-head it. "Scraggily" is a good word for it, I think. At least great-grandmother's roses smell lovely as always.
Looks like I'll have good holly for Christmas this year. I can already see the greens arrangements!!!

To the Dahlia Thief

Dear Idiot:

I am so glad you liked my dahlias enough to want to take one home. Next time, please just take the flowers, and leave the plant, instead of pulling it up completely. That way I can share blossoms with others who pass by my garden.

Thank you.

Garden in High Summer

The garden seems to be doing quite well this year. It helps that we've had nicely timed rains, so that my lax watering has gone unnoted by the plants. The tomato vines look fabulous. I even have a little box of herbs that are holding their own, even looking quite good.

I have decided I need more daylilies. They emerge from the green this time of year with a lovely burst of color, bringing out the textures behind. My yellow daylilies are scented, but on the right side of the garden, the perfume is overpowered by great-grandmother's rose. The front daylilies are also unnamed, I got them from my mom. She had bought one of those big collections- I think from White Flower Farm? some years ago, the kind where they send you a mish-mash of types they've decided not to market, so you can even name them if you wish. Late next month I should have some very dark, spidery-looking rebloomers from them, but for now I just have the sharp orange one and the rich apricot. Love them. If I find myself with some time this fall, I may even order a set for myself. I need more daylilies. Really.

The dahlias in the front are also looking splendid. I even have some mums blooming, which came back from last year. When we first moved in, we had a whole bank of them, and lots of black-eyed susans, but they're al gone now. I may reintroduce the susans. These new dahlias are smaller than the ones I planted when we moved in (those aren't blooming yet), but the intensity of the red is amazing. I use dahlias as annuals, and count it a bonus if they re-appear, which they tend to do in the front garden- the house protects things from frost.

We are also quite proud of our little vegetable patch! The boys planted sunflowers, zinnias, and pumpkins, and all seem to be growing fine at this point. it was put in a little late, so I don't know if we'll get any real results. I also lined some tomatoes down the side. We bought a lot of tomato plants this year. When I was young, the Perrygos all vied to have tomatoes by the Fourth of July, but we are not even close this year. Again, things got put in late.

Hopefully, though, I'll have pics of sunflowers and pumpkins in a month or two!

Garden work

I have begun the war against stinktree for the season. For those of you unfamiliar with stinktree, it is a tree-like weed that stinks to high heaven when you touch it or cut it. It looks something like a palm tree, and when they peek up through my lilacs, my garden starts looking like a tropical rainforest. I wage constant war against it.

When you look it up, you'll find it is also called the "tree of heaven". Before Isabel, there were three tree-sized ones in teh surrounding yards- and I mean tree-sized, and in 60 feet tall, and looked like trees. They were actually quite beautiful, but getting on and brittle, and one went over in the storm; the others were removed as precaution. My garden became beautifully sunny, but I miss the dappled shade and their winter silhouettes. The whole nature of my own garden was dramatically changed.

I went from dappled shade to sun. That meant that the weeds began to win. I now have more Virginia Creeper than I can deal with on my fence. If I let things be, I'd have a whole grove of mulberry to make jam. Why can't a few birds drop off some dogwood seeds or something useful back here? I won't even get into my ever-present ground ivy.

I could spend whole weeks just trying to clear out the weeds. Fortunately, I have a good pair of loppers, a lot of newspaper, and I intend on getting in a fresh supply of mulch very soon. It may be a never-ending battle, but I at least have some shortcuts.

Tomatoes: Planted!

The first plants have hit my little corner of veggie gardening: tomatoes are in and growing! Woo-hoo!

A new plot for vegetables

I am working on a new project: vegetables. With the price of food soaring, I wanted to give it a try; plus, the guys may like digging in the dirt (if it ever cools off enough to let us put anything in). It may seem a little late to be planting, but I haven't had a chance before, and we had to move the sandboat to make the space.

I have turned the small plot over by hand. Its only about 4 x 5, so hiring a tiller for such a mini-garden seems a little silly. So out came the shovel, and I did it the semi-old-fashioned way. I also have a garden weasel, and I'm using it to "till" stuff into the little plot, like leftover potting soil. I am still working on getting the grass all out- crabgrass is a real problem here. I don't want to kill it artificially, because I want to use the plot for plants, so out they have to be dug by hand.

It is very therapeutic. Even in the heat.