Back to earth

After yesterday's excitement, the rest of the garden seems rather blah. But there are pretty pictures of pretty flowers to show.

'Lucifer' crocosmia

Lemon yellow daylily of unknown origin

Volunteer sunflower

Blazing star

'Aphrodite' Rose of Sharon

'Black Beauty' zucchini

Those zucchini illustrate what happens when one turns one's back on the squash plants for a moment. I did a search on my blog for 'zucchini' and found lots of references for zuke recipes. Today it was zucchini and basil over pasta.

Harvest

I am not growing much food in the garden this year, but there are a few items I cling to. Besides the cukes and zukes, there are green beans as well. Despite the plethora of farmers markets around here, I still think fresh-picked from my own garden tastes best.

Zucchini blossom

Zucchini

Cucumber blossom

Cucumber

There are several beds devoted to dye plants. Initially, it pained me to nip off all the blossoms, but miraculously, the next day there are more! The hollyhocks are about done, though.

Cosmos sulphereous, dyers coreopsis, black hollyhock

I wait for the hollyhock blossoms to fall on the ground before harvesting them; if you pick them off the stalks, you just might end up with an angry Japanese beetle on your hands. The other day, I watered the hollyhock before picking up the fallen blossoms, and the buds bled blue. I'm excited about dyeing with them.

Fall planting

This past week, we had one of those horrible 90-degree days when the air is barely breathable. Just one. This morning, the weather felt almost autumn-like. A good reminder to get the fall garden planted.

In the past, before retirement (BR), I didn't always plant a fall crop of anything, as I was usually knee deep in tomatoes by now. Also, while gardening is always unpredictable, fall is more so. For one thing, most of what gets planted likes cool weather and August is usually anything but cool. Then, just as the temps start to moderate, frost may occur. So fall plantings are more of a crap shoot than spring or summer, but it's hard to resist an empty bed.

In the sixteen squares above, I planted roots - beet, rutabaga, turnip, carrot, radish - plus lettuce and spinach and kale and broccoli, all from seed. Since the pole beans were not able to complete with the corn and pumpkin, I also planted some of those in their own bed, as well as a short row of snap peas behind the endamame (which are languishing under pumpkin vines).

Speaking of pumpkin, the two varieties I planted continue their attempt to dominate the entire garden. I found this big boy in the tomato bed, a good 25 feet to the SSE of where the vines started.

Its smaller cousin breached the corn. I planted two varieties, both supposedly small, and now I am not sure which is which. I *think* the green ones are Rouge Vif d'Etamps while the orange ones are Burpee small(?!?) sugar.

Joining the pumpkin is butternut squash. While not quite as sprawling as the pumpkin, it too is doing its best to wander far and farther.

And, as far as squash is concerned, size *does* matter.

Just ask the zucchini.

We ate at Five Guys last night. I said I didn't care where we ate, as long as they did not serve zucchini. Or cucumbers (except as pickles).

Actually, I like zucchini and have been trying out all kinds of new and unusual dishes, courtesy of the Internet. More on that later. Right now it is time for my afternoon nap.

I lied

I found a cucumber underneath all the neighboring zucchini foliage and it's a big 'un!

I'm temporarily without my landline, which means no FIOS Internet. I am posting this using my T-Mobile phone as a hot spot. Works pretty well, which makes me wonder just how much I need FIOS, other than for streaming Netflix. Hmm.

Garden roundup for June

We had a little dry spell, but otherwise the rainfall has been plentiful, resulting in a burst of garden growth that is filling the raised beds and beyond. Despite the rodent damage (I fluctuate between blaming rabbits or woodchucks) and accompanying avian damage, there will be plenty to harvest (knock on wood).

Two of the three sisters, pumpkin and corn, are waiting for the germination of the pole beans. The corn is barely getting above the pumpkin, which is sprawling out of its bed. I've never had much luck with pumpkin or winter squash because of squash pests, but things look healthy so far (more knocking on wood). I don't know why I continue to plant marigolds - they always get overshadowed.

The potatoes are starting to bloom, which means they should be making potatoes. I was hoping to get more dirt into their beds but life intervenes. Maybe it's not too late?

There will be sauce. There are twelve Roma tomato plants in this bed (and four overshadowed marigolds). I'm dreaming of Eric's marinara (from Poor Man's Feast) and pizza sauce (from Preserving by the Pint).

So far, only male blossoms on the zucchini. A friend posted this recipe for zucchini chips that I am anxious to try. Soon, hopefully.

I was extremely pleased with the storage capability of last year's 'Big Daddy' onions, but tried some new varieties this year, including this 'Red Zeppelin'. It's pretty, if nothing else.

I'm still a newbie when it comes to growing raspberries. When I pruned and thinned them after last year's harvest, I thought I did an admirable job. Now the little bed is just bursting at the seams and the plants so loaded with fruit, they are bending under the weight. I'm a little concerned that the berries themselves will be small and seedy from the plants being too dense, but there definitely will be lots. Must protect them from the birds.

In the future, I will also have to protect the peas from the birds. Sparrows and finches ravaged the plants this year, presumably because their spring food supplies were scarce after last winter. I did not realize just how badly they were damaging the plants, especially the blossoms, so few pea pods developed. BUT the ones that did appear are wonderful.

I've been looking for a good pod pea and I think I have found it in this 'Green Arrow' variety.

Despite the rodent damage, my poor broccoli plants are trying to make heads. I am not holding out much hope that they will develop to any meaningful size, but I will be happy to be surprised.

I do not even remember ordering hops last year. The rhizomes simply appeared in the mail one day. I stuck them in a big pot because I did not know what else to do with them, and they grew. I forgot to move the pot into the garage last fall, so did not expect them to survive the winter, but they did. Someday I will find them a more permanent home. Meanwhile, I am not having much luck getting them to climb. This funky trellis, assembled with my SO's help, is the latest attempt.

The Meyer lemon tree continues to recover from my neglect. We recently added manure to the asparagus beds, and some manure tea is being used here and there, especially here. I want to keep this plant healthy.

I recently harvested scapes from the garlic, making a garlic scape pesto with some and putting the rest into a stir fry. One secret I learned to harvesting the scapes is to snap them off, sort of like trimming asparagus, to avoid the hard, unchewable parts.

It helps to have a garden cat guarding the garden.

Devil's Plague

That is another name for Queen Anne's lace, and I heartily agree. Woe to the gardener who lets it get a foothold. I spent a good part of Sunday trying to dig it out of the birds-bees-butterfly garden, but changed tactics after a little research. QAL is a biennial, so some recommend simply snipping off the flowers to prevent it from going to seed and spreading its evil everywhere. So that's what I did. I am sure I will have to repeat this task regularly until frost; all living creatures want to multiply.

While QAL reseeds itself, further research revealed that Canada thistle, while producing seed, actually spreads best via its pernicious root system. One newly discovered method of controlling it is by spreading Pseudomonas syringae pv. Tagetis, aka PST, a naturally occurring bacterium that appears to attack the thistle. Periodically, I have noticed sickly looking thistle plants. These are likely suffering from PST. We are encouraged to harvest these sicklies, throw them in the blender with water, add a surfactant, then spray thistles with it. Best done in June, it takes around a month to work. I don't mind resorting to Roundup when it comes to thistle, but often the thistle is growing cheek to jowl with my garden plants. Roundup does not know the difference, so PST is an alternative I may try.

A solution for controlling thistle was suggested by a co-worker: if the stalks are hollow, cut them off, then pour Roundup into the hollow stem. That way the poison goes to the roots of the bad weeds without risk of spraying the good plants. I have tried this before, but I'm not sure it was specifically Canada thistle. Must investigate.

Meanwhile, here is something I have been waiting for all summer:



Yes, zucchini. By August I should be thoroughly sick of it, but store-bought is just not the same.

Some people fry up the blossoms.



But then you would get less zucchini. Hmmm. Maybe I'll try that in August.

I just can't get enough of these daylilies.



Each one is just so luscious!

The coneflowers are coming on.



These are a favorite of gold finches. They impatiently visit the blooms daily, checking for ripe seeds.

Rudbeckia and bee balm.



The bees like bee balm, but not as much as they like mint. Oddly enough, mint does not produce viable seed. Like Canada thistle, it spreads by its roots. It too is running wild in my garden.

One of my experiments this year is growing lettuce in containers.



It's doing quite well, as it gets only afternoon sun. I placed it on the chair to keep it out of the reach of curious rabbits.

The first hibiscus:



Hummingbirds like these, along with mint, honeysuckle vine, crocosmia, and Rose of Sharon.



Sunday I watched one such hummer as he worked the 3B garden like a politician working a crowd, visiting each interest group in turn. Said hummer was NOT happy to see me, however.

Speaking of birds, there is quite the breakfast buffet every morning in the mulberry tree STILL, mostly robins and bluebirds. Also, I saw a monarch butterfly Sunday. Now that I have some milkweed started in the 3B garden, maybe they will actually lay some eggs.

This is a brass manifold I purchased from Lee Valley this year, as part of an irrigation system I never set up.



The rain has been sporadic, a half inch here and there, so I water a fair amount. With this manifold, I can dribble the tulip tree AND water the Topsy Turvys at the same time. Saves me a little time. Next year, when the garden beds are better defined, I definitely will have to set up the irrigation system and save myself a LOT of time.

What's that smell?

The privet hedge is in bloom. The aroma is almost too cloying to be enjoyable. The bees are loving it, though.

We have received quite a bit a rain this spring, at least an inch a week, I think. Another inch fell over the past day or two, and now the yard is starting to sprout mushrooms.



Gadzukes! That's not all that's sprouting.



Every year I am overrun with zucchini, but last year I did not plant any due to the renovations and I missed it. The stuff from the grocery store just does not taste the same.

Finally, a halfway decent pic of blossoms on the honeysuckle vine.



At A Way to Garden, they were discussing aphids on honeysuckles. So that is why the blossoms sometimes curl up and die. More come on, but maybe I should add an aphid shower to my yard regime.

The yarrow is starting to bloom.



But it looks like the pestimon has bit the dust. I will plant more someday because the hummingbirds really like it.

I have generations of rabbits in my backyard habitat.



The ones in this nest have since ventured out, but they are the equivalent of toddlers. They hide in the coneflower, and mama comes around to nurse them now and then. I tried to get a photo of the latter, but was too cautious because I did not want to disturb them.

This guy is a teenager, I bet.



He used to be quite skittish, but now he just watches me with that "What's YOUR problem?" look on his face.

Otherwise, I am harvesting radishes and scallions, mowing grass between showers, and losing the battle of the weeds. So what else is new?