Friday, June 29, 2012


Oh-oh! My Oregano flowered and I didn't get any dried!  Is it okay to dry after it flowers??


What a mess trying to pick the raspberrys!  The bushes looked so small when I trimmed them back in the spring that it is hard to imagine them filling in like this!  Love the raspberrys tho!  Where can I plant more!


Borage flowers and more borage flowers!  I will have to make sure they don't reseed all over the gardens!  Need the room for other veggies.  The cucumbers beside them look rather sad.  I had the sugar peas planted on the other side of them and so they didn't get enough sun and looked pathetic when the sugar peas were pulled out.  Maybe one or two will make it and more will need to be replanted.  I think my Wonderful Gardener will make me a cover to keep the beetles off the beans for next year, and I will plant bush beans.  Then I can use the two trellises one for cucumbers and one for sugar peas and switch back and forth every other year.  A gardener is always planning!


This was newly planted with two cucumber hills and one patty pan squash hill and a tiny bit of Prizehead lettuce.  It rained last night and today so hopefully they are off to a good start.



This butternut squash is going somewhere!  I probably don't have the room to grow butternut but I love it and can't resist!


The pole beans are climbing the trellis.  As you can see the beetles lunched on them.


This Hybiscus was planted last fall.  Hoping that it will grow more and bloom this year!


I just thought the Cleome growing where it is not suppose to be was just gorgeous after the rain!  Couldn't resist taking a picture!!



The carrots are coming but not there yet.  I pulled this one today to put in the cole slaw that I made up.  Thanks for visiting!





Monday, June 25, 2012

Raspberrys, Onion, Cabbage, Pea Pods, Bee Balm, Dish Cloth & Picnic


My Wonderful Gardener has been picking raspberrys from our little patch.  This is today's harvest.  We love our raspberrys, and I am trying to figure out where I can put another patch!


My onions need to grow a little more.  I am out of boughten onions now and will use this one from my garden that I pulled out yesterday!!


I was not successful at growing cabbage!  See how the cabbage butterflies shredded it?  I can't be bothered dusting it with powders and my natural remedys didn't work.  I put thyme around them, and it didn't help.  I put netting over them but didn't quite cover to the bottom all the way around so they were able to get underneath.  I won't grow them next year because I feel my space that I can grow things in can be put to better use.  The next picture shows what I savaged from one of them!


This is what was left after I took off the butterfly shredded leaves!!!  It will be made into cole slaw.


The pea pods were pulled out and brought into the house.  I sat on a chair and cut them up so they would decompose in my compost spot faster!!!  Does anyone else ever do that? lol



This redish colored flower is what I call Bee Balm or Monarda.  Am I correct about that?  The color does not seem to show up well where I have it.


I finished knitting another dish cloth.  I think the yellow will look really cheery and look like sunshine!


Our daughter, Sue and her husband, Craig brought us a picnic supper last night!  Sloppy Joes, Corn on the cob, Baked beans, Potato salad, Chips and dip and Watermelon.  Yum, yum, yum!!!!! After eating we played a game of Scrabble.  Our brains had not worked so hard in years!!  Girls against the guys and the guys won.  We had fun!



 



Thursday, June 21, 2012

Vacation, Peas, Sunflower, Borage, Cleome, Pak Choi, Potatoes, Cherry Tomato, Mess


We are back from our vacation.  Here is the cabin we stayed in.  It was called Bird's Nest and is in Oak Beach Resort in Michigan.


This is the way one wall inside was decorated.


The water was about 10 feet from the cabin door.



My Wonderful Gardener picked these peas today.  I was surprised to get these but think this is the last of them. 


Here is my one lonely sunflower!!!!!


Too much Borage but it is flowering and the bees love it.


This is suppose to be the path through the two trellises.  Some Cleome reseeded here, and we didn't have the heart to pull it out!  It is shorter than what I had planted last year but still pretty.


My Pak Choi really went to seed while we were gone.  I noticed this afternoon that the beetles have arrived also and have started eating everything.  Ugh!



I am so happy with how big the potato plants are getting!  My mouth is watering already!


Some pretty dill along the back fence.


The first cucumbers I planted are getting too much shade from the sugar peas so I planted some in this white box.


The Butternut squash is growing well in this container now.  I did plant radishes in with them.


Yippee!!!  Can you see the little tomatoes and the blossoms on this Cherry Tomato plant?  Some of the leaves were sun scalded and I thought the sun was too bright for them.  I took a piece of cardboard and used clothespins to clip across the top to give it some shade.  It seems to be doing well now.


My expanded flower/raspberry bed looks a little like a jungle now.  Some of the plants have blocked the path through to the raspberrys but I so enjoy seeing all the pretty colors.  Hope you have enjoyed looking at it too.









Friday, June 15, 2012

Beet Harvest, Canned Beets, Peas, Honey, Towel


I harvested these beets from my 4x4 square foot bed.  I plan to go on vacation to celebrate our 52nd anniversary so am posting my harvest today.


I canned six pints of pickled beets.  They were messy and a lot of work!  Do I want to do this next year????  I do love pickled beets tho!


More peas!!!  I will definitely be growing those next year!  They have been so good, and we have enjoyed eating fresh peas.



We buy local honey from a couple around the corner a bit from us.  I use it in my granola and my one cookie recipe.


I like to hang towels from my kitchen cupboard doors.  A penpal friend made this one for me.  I think maybe I was suppose to take it down after Christmas but I love it so decided to leave it up all year.  Everyone have a wonderful gardening week-end!




Monday, June 11, 2012

Lettuce, Peas, Wheelbarrow, Clematis, Flowers


It is Harvest Monday and we picked lettuces, pak choi, shelling peas and sugar peas.  Lettuces are in the bowl for tonight along with some boughten head lettuce and some sugar peas.  There is much more lettuce in the garden but wanted to use up some of the head lettuce. Celery will be added later, and I need to search the garden to see if perhaps I could find a stray raddish!


The peas are shelled and ready for tonight.  We may get just a few more but I think they are about done and will be pulled out soon and added to the compost pile.  We sure have enjoyed eating them this year!


And these are the sugar peas waiting for me!  I think there are a few more of them out there yet.  I think the beets looked like they are ready to pull some of them.  I am hoping to make some pickled beets this week.



My little wheelbarrow looks so cheery with the marigolds planted in it back by the grape vine. 


We had planned to plant this clematis by the pergola but when we went to do it we discovered that we had a drain there we had forgotten about.  So we located it back by the fence and bought a white trellis for it to climb.  The trellis is hard to see in the picture, but it is starting to go up it.  I have read that clematis like sun but their roots like to be kept cold so put the stone in front.


My Wonderful Gardener thought it would be pretty to take a pictue of the bright pink flowers in front of the white.  They need to be closer in front of the white tho so will have to do some rearranging next year!  The little yellow button flowers on the right are on the gray santolina bush.







Sunday, June 10, 2012

Color, Petunias, Caterpillar, Speedwell, Painting, Piano, Carrots


When I stepped outdoors this morning before church the yard was ablaze with color!  What a treat to see all the pretty flowers blooming! When we drove by the bank thermometer at 12:45p.m. it said 99 degrees!  I don't think it is quite that hot but pretty warm!  We have been watering a lot and with this hot weather it looks like we will have to keep it up for awhile!


Here is a close up of the petunias in the cart.  They were pretty tall when we bought them so thought they would get leggy fast but so far they are beautiful!  All the little white clover in the lawn is blooming also.  We are not good lawn people! lol Bob overheard a farmer in the store asking to buy clover.  We have a good crop of it without trying!



This caterpillar was on one of my dill plants.  Is this a good thing?  I don't think it is a tomato hornworm as didn't see any horns, and it is not near my tomato plants.



A low height speedwell that I bought last year.  It looks more pinkish in the flower bed.


My Wonderful Gardener is a handyman too!  He is sprucing up the percola with white paint.



I love my piano and have had a lot of enjoyment playing it.  The piano tuner was here this week and tuned it.  We bought it new when we moved here, and I have had the same piano tuner come every year.



This is the wooden pot new this year.  That is a marigold in the front, The eggplant that has come back after I accidentally cut the main stem off behind the marigold and lettuce planted behind that.  Lemon Thyme will go in here to stay this fall for next year. 



The lavender blooming away!



The Borage is starting to bloom.  I think one of these plants will be enough for me next year!



The carrots look like they are doing well.  I have tried to do better at thinning them this year so hoping they will produce some yummy carrots.  Enjoy your flowers and gardens!!!!









Progress in the Courtyard!

  It was so nice to look out my bedroom window this morning and see the Clematis blooming instead of a pile of snow.  It is a rainy day agai...