Garden Update

Well, well, it has been a while since I indulged in a garden update. (This will be rather "picture heavy.") I must say I have not been in the garden much and most of it is a mess. What is blooming and growing is only the stuff that can stand neglect and the dry summer we've been having. Having said all that, I will dwell on the positive here.

My glads did extremely well. Most were around four feet tall, and I thought they were doing so well: strong and erect. Then we had the first rainstorm...and indeed a lot of them were flat on the ground. They were converted into a very lovely bouquet in a vase, though, and the rest kept right on doing great.

The arum italicum have shed all their leaves and are into the next stage:They put up these stalks with green berry-like seeds which slowly turn to red. They have been multiplying nicely on their own (I only moved three of them I thought, but have had more than that in volunteers) but I need to move them somewhere where they'll have a little more space on their own and a little less sun.

I put in some dahlias this spring as well. The one has smaller yellow blooms (up to 3") and although there are quite a few of them, they are nothing special. The one beside it has bigger blooms (at least 4") and just keeps on pumping them out. The red and orange combinations are so pretty.

Tom brought some new garden residents for me. I am really enjoying Gertrude and Antonio's company:
But if you're not careful Antonio will give you very suspicious looks. It takes a while for him to warm up to you. Gertrude tries to keep him in line, but you know how that goes...
Our vegetables are also only doing as well as they can with neglect. We have quite a few volunteer tomatoes in the front that are now making fruit; none of it is ripe yet. It is also the variety that Troy didn't like so I'm not really sure why I'm letting them get on, but I guess if I can let the crabgrass grow, I may as well let the tomatoes grow too.

Focusing on the positive, I picked five pounds of potatoes from Troy's plants the other day. They were de-de-de-DE-lish! Mmm mMM. Yukon golds; so so good.

And I guess the corn is coming along. I love the red tassel, but I have to say it keeps catching my eye when I pass a window and it is very distracting. Troy planted regular sweet corn and popping corn, but I do not know which this is. [ETA: Troy didn't plant any sweet corn; only popping corn. Apparently he told me this, but I forgot.]Now the mystery volunteer. These huge yellow flowers have also been catching my eye through the window. When I finally went to see what it was, I saw a melon (or squash?) plant bravely putting out flowers and fruit. We certainly didn't plant it and assume it came from seeds in the compost. If you can identify the fruit, please let me know!! I'd like to know what I might be eating!
[That's a bee diving into the flower head first.]

All for now...and it's quite enough.

-christina

Garden Update

Time for a garden update. After the first two, we didn't get any more crocuses. Those two are going to have to multiply a lot if that's what I have to count on to get more in the next few years. I might have to break down and buy some, but I think other things will have priority. (Like what am I going to do along the road? hmmm....)

But in the meantime, I went around and snapped a few pics of everything blooming and budding tonight. We have exactly two daffodils in bloom. This is so much later than everything in town. I'm guessing that missing the warmer late afternoon sun is responsible. One of the dafs, however, is very fancy (lower left). I don't remember planting it, and I was very cavalier about them as they were coming up. (I'm afraid I'm not very tender with dafs.) But now that I see how fancy they are, I'm going to have to take more care! The problem is that they were planted right beside the spot that the gopher used to tunnel under the porch. So there's a mound of dirt to move but they are growing right through it. I will just have to wait...

Let's see...on the right side you see a tulip that is this close to popping open. Those are the ones on the south side of the south porch. They're a little ahead of the rest. And you see the buds and leaves developing on both crab apple trees. The rest of the trees still look like dead sticks. I've got my fingers crossed for them. And finally there is the first of the sunflowers volunteering under the bird feeder (one of the few seedlings I recognize now--we had chipmunks planting them in all my beds last summer). They come up like weeds, but as long as I thin them down to healthy levels they look great. Who couldn't use more sunflowers?!

Wendy, the irises you gave me are coming up great, up to 4" tall by now. No pictures b/c it would be a boring picture right now. Judy, the irises you gave me are coming up too, but they're only about 2.5 inches tall. Not that this is a competition or anything...I'm sure they're just different types of irises.... In either case a big thank you to both of you! Especially since you helped plant them!

I still have to plant the ground cover I'm going to try on the hill (some Irish Moss and Red Sedum), and the bulb catalog got me again so I have more plants coming including rhubarb.

Troy got his seeds this week so he has tomatoes and some other vegetables started in pots which are now sitting all around the living room. He also got some free zinnia seeds so I will find room for them later too. He just put the potatoes out tonight along the west wall, outside the kitchen. Grass wouldn't grow there anyway, so I guess we can try this. I know, you're still wondering who actually plants potatoes when they're like 10 cents a pound...well we must prepare for the end of life as we know it, you know...

Well, enough for now. For those of you with gardens, this is all old hat, and for those of you without I'm sure this is ho hum.

Either way, enjoy the quickening of spring!
christina