Harvest Time

The past week has been wet and cool, with highs only reaching 70 degrees, and lots of thunderstorms. I decided to enclose the greenhouse again, just in case. Wheat farmers are none too happy about the rain, but it was a joy and great relief to me. I'm concentrating on sending it down south to where they really need it now.

The harvest includes some nice yellow potatoes, swiss chard, carrots, beans, onions and zucchini and lo and behold, a bit of lettuce that survived the heat. The fenced garden is much cooler, and better for crops like lettuce, I must remember that next year. Tomatoes in the greenhouse are still green. Having a bit of trouble with the soaker hose watering in the greenhouse. It seems to be bypassing the beans and a few others, leaving them thirsty, while flooding other areas. Very tricky business, watering. No wonder farmers flood their fields, it's the only way to ensure everything gets a good drink.

The sunflowers are about 5 ft. tall in the garden. A few volunteers came up elsewhere, but the deer beheaded them. They must be salivating over those ones behind the fence. I don't know if they'll have time to bloom, we only have a couple of weeks left before the first frost.

The chillier nights have turned some leaves already.

The Echinacea and Rudbeckia are becoming more cone like as summer winds down.

But some of the flowers still look fresh as a daisy:

Calendula

Poppy

Nasturtium

Prairie Mallow (I ordered this from Guerneys and it was supposed to be bright red).

Moje Hammarberg Rose and Heliopsis

This rose is "a more compact and flowerful version of Hansa" and has a strong spicy scent which is heavenly. It's a Rugosa grown on its own root, so it's practically indestructible. My favorite rose, so far. I also love the Heliopsis and picked up a couple more this year. It looks sunflowery but the deer leave it alone.

The hunting party. They followed me around as I took pictures.

Snoodly managed to catch a hummingbird on the bee balm one day, which is now done flowering and cut down. We'll have no more of that, Snoodly.

Safe, up in the hanging baskets.

Grasshoppers are one of Snoodly's favorite snacks, though he seems tired of them now. There are thousands of them. The plants move as you walk by.

The squirrels are getting fat on pine nuts. Another sign that winter approaches. This little lady was nibbling away until the cats approached me, then she became still as a statue. She knows who not to trust.

Beware the panther.

It's 69 degrees and cloudy at 11:45 am.

August

A good scratch.

Yes, the mosquitoes are still here. They like Rusty.

Late summer flowers

The new bed is done.

Had some time on my hands...

Rusty's checking out mom's old knot garden, which I planted with moss and herbs. Boy did that bring back memories. Mom, searching for the perfect little plants that were just the right scale...hunting down the best moss, collecting it wherever she went. Remember the little round ones she got from the wall at Whittington Court, T?

I have a lot of "steppables" and plenty of moss to play with. Mom would love all the mosses we have! She'd also love that little silvery thing, (Scabwort), in the center, it has tiny leaves and looks like it could be santolina or sage. I'm not worried about scale, I really like the texture of that hairy moss in the hearts, though it's far too coarse for mom's standards. It's fun to play with, if the transplants don't take, I won't mind starting over.
Next I need to clean out the Oxford garden and replant it with moss. I wonder how the rest of the little gardens are doing?

Veg News

The tomatoes will make it, fingers crossed!
Beans and zucchini are coming out of our ears, yay! Where's that little vegetarian now? She needs to hurry and get home to help us eat all this good green stuff. I harvested the first kohlrabi, it was nice and crisp, despite the hot weather.
The raspberries are growing tall, and have started to flower!
This is an exciting year, gardenwise; everything has fallen into place and works well, finally! The leaves we put on in the fall made a difference, but it also just comes down to time, in two respects. First, we've been here long enough to make it work and figure it out. And second, this summer, unlike other years where I leave for a few weeks, I've spent most of my time devoted to the garden: watering, weeding, fertilizing and covering the greenhouse every night. At this very moment I feel a pull to go out there and check on things. See ya later!

It's 86 degrees, 35% humidity, sunny with a breeze at 1:00 pm.

The 90s

Hot weather has arrived. Yesterday, July 22, was the first day I was outside without the constant buzz of mosquitoes. It is now possible to sit down outside in one place for more than 30 seconds! I was finally able to enjoy some time in the lawn chair, my favorite place. Happy day! This morning I sat on the porch and read a bit of the paper. The contents of the paper were disheartening, but sitting outside without getting bitten was lovely.

The Rudbeckia is blooming, along with the Monarda, Nasturtiums, roses, and lavender. All the wild color brings bees and butterflies and hummingbirds, and plenty of grasshoppers. Rusty and Snoodly are scaring all the birds away. They were trapped in the garage yesterday morning and a little flock of grouse came by, searching for seeds in the grass.

The harvest in the greenhouse includes beans and zucchini now. Carrots and onions are ready in the box, lettuce is done. Out in the fenced garden, arugula and lettuce are ready, and a few strawberries are on the new transplants. Everything is doing well out there now that the weather has warmed.

Slammy is on a trip and I miss her.
It's 80 degrees, with a light thunderstorm passing over at 12 pm.

So pritty

Hi y'all, Snoodly here, long time no see! I've grown, and I just keep gettin' better looking, don't you think? I've got the natural eye liner, cute little rose nose pad, and gorgeous green eyes. The markings on my forehead mean something in cat language, but I can't tell you what they say, 'cause then I'd have to kill you. Well, I'll see ya later, I gotta go catch some crickets.

Boom!
July is here! The weather is great, the mosquitoes are terrible, and the garden is bloomin'! We watched the fireworks at J's coaster, and Jr. took these Outstanding photos.

Most of the flowers are bigger and better this year, the garden has finally filled in and looks so much prettier! It's a mix of wild stuff and things planted from seed, bulb or small plants. It takes a few years for the tiny plants to get established, but all the waiting has finally paid off. The mosquitoes make me want to abandon all of this though, they are driving me crazy!

It will help to mow all the tall grass, if we could get a lawnmower.

Ox-eye daisies

Snapdragons. These are doing so well this year, the plants are much bigger and somehow survived the winter.

Yarrow and bachelor buttons

Coreopsis

Gaillardia. I love this flower! It was grown from seed last year, and this year it's big and beautiful.The wild version, blanket flower.

This is my new project, another flower bed. It's so much fun working in the dirt, I have been in no hurry to finish getting all the grass and rocks out in preparation. Honey has been niggling me, trying to hurry me up, but why? Is it that pile of topsoil waiting on the lawn that the cats are using as a cat box, or could it be that he can't stand to see a project go on and on unfinished, with no seeming progress taking place? I don't know. All I do know is that I love working out in the sun, playing with rocks and dirt.

The cats love it too, when Snoodly hears the rake he comes running over to play. Here's Rusty, taking a little nap in a cool spot.J and Jr. collected some nice big rocks and I got them in place today. Next job is putting on the topsoil, then planting, then I may put on a rock mulch.

We took the plastic off the greenhouse and replaced it with row cover fabric. It breathes better.

The beans are doing great, looks like they're nearly ready to harvest. We've been eating peas, lettuce and lots of herbs. The zucchini are almost ready, but the maters are very slow. Hurry up maters!

It's 77 in the greenhouse, clouds and sun at 6 pm.

The Goat House

Many thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, and to J, for turning the old coop de chicken into this beautiful new goat house. Everything used was recycled from the old coop and from other materials lying around the place. Staggering ingenuity went into building it, and the whole project only took about an hour! The eyesore full of junk has become a sweet little shed, where the goats will look out at us and say "feeeeeeeeeed meeeeeeee!" We'll probably put up a fence for an outside yard too, with a wee mountain for them to climb on.

Now, what kind of goats? Pygmies? Milkers? Cashmere? Time for some research...

The weather has been warm and sunny and summery this week. The mosquitos are biting, the crickets are chirping and the butterflies are flying around. I've seen two garter snakes in the garden. A couple of deer have been visiting at night, eating clover and birdseed. One nest box is occupied by western bluebirds, down by the garden.

The chives are blooming, and the blue flax, which only opens in the morning.

It's about 70 degrees, sunny and breezy at 10:30 am.

Koo Koo Ka Choo

May flower

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

Yesterday I built a little fence to block the view of the electrical box.  (Looking at this box from the kitchen window has been such a thorn in my side, there are so many things to consider when building a house!  I didn't even realize our view was being spoiled until it was too late).

Now, you may laugh at the crudity of this effort.  I'm not in the habit of building stuff.  This is a big step for me.  It's held together with twine.  Very low tech.  But J will make it sturdier with his power tool expertise.  Then I will try and grow something on it, that the deer don't like of course. This is on their smorgasbord route, and I'm sure they'd love it if I planted beans or sunflowers here.  They'd eat everything then knock down the fence to spite me.  What's that poisonous climbing bean called?  Castor?  I need some of those seeds.

I'm still trying to figure out where to plant some sunflowers.  Without a fence they'll get chomped for sure.  Maybe I should prepare a little field of them with an electric fence around it.  I've got electricity right there at the box...Heh heh, heh heh, zap!

It's warm today!  I prepared the fenced garden for planting raspberries and ?.  The race is on for growing as much as we can as quickly as possible before the end of the season come September. Or we could just lounge around in lawn chairs and go shop at the Farmer's Market... 

It's May!

Happy May everyone!  A busy time of year, too busy to keep up on the blog.  It's so nice to be outside again.  In comparison, it seems like a chore to sit at the computer desk.  But I need to keep track of all the progress that's been going on out there.  It's raining  today, so it's a good time to get up to date.

Early May was pretty windy.  We had a frightening thunder storm, it seemed to be sitting right over the house one night.  We've had very cold windy days, and some warmer sunny periods.  The clouds are always up there, puffy and white and so perfect in the blue sky.  When they cover the sun, the temperature goes down dramatically.

The grass likes this weather, I've already mowed a few times.  I just got some grass shears, so I can do the edging around the garden without a weed whacker.  Not that I ever used a weed whacker myself.  I use a manual push mower and grass shears and it's so much nicer than using those loud, dangerous machines.

The peas, radishes, and other stuff came up in the greenhouse.  I made a little climbing structure for the peas with twigs and twine.  I (bravely) planted the tomatoes out there about a week ago, and planted zucchini and bean seeds on Saturday May 9.  Ooooo, that's early.  I set out some flower transplants outside in the garden, most of them are perishing from the cold.  Better wait till June.

  I had to refill this birdfeeder once so far.  The bags are working, I'm glad to know.  Except, look who found it.  I don't mind, I like watching squirrels as much as birds.  There's also a nestbox in this tree and he was sitting by it while a bluebird and some other birds drove him off.

Rusty was looking with us out the window, making those weird noises and licking his chops.
The wildflowers are starting to bloom, here's the Arrowhead Balsamroot, nearly ready.  It's blooming around the neighborhood already.  It is colder here at our house, I knew it.

Here's one I don't know the name of, I'll have to get a library book.

This one has a hitchhiker.

The violets and some willows are also blooming.

Birds are waiting for better weather, I think, to start nesting.  We now have five boxes up but no takers.  Bluebirds and Tree Swallows come to look sometimes.  I hope Rusty hasn't scared them off.  The hummingbirds are back and they are at the feeder a lot, since there aren't many flowers out there.  We have some Towhee visitors frequently, I'm still trying to get a good picture.  The crows are coming around more, making their strange noises.  I don't know what they're after, though Snoodly thinks it's him.  A foggy morning and two crows on a branch outside your bedroom window is pretty spooky.  And noisy.  

It's raining and 49 degrees at 12:00 pm.