I harvested our second sugar pie pumpkin yesterday- isn’t she a beaut?
I feel like I begin every one of these posts complaining about the temperature, so to keep with tradition, I’m going to start things off with a weather whine. Friends, it’s hot out. Like, oppressively hot… the kind of heat that makes you break into an instant sweat when you leave you comfort of your air conditioning. The humidity has reached levels the local meteorologist refers to as “soupy.” I am not built for “soupy.” I’ve been racing outside to water the second my body is able to get moving each morning, but it’s already toasty out in the sunshine. I shouldn’t complain- I know the way that weather karma works. Every annoyed huff out of me now is going to equal that many more days of bitter cold next winter. Alas, here we are.
The yard has been full of these gentle carpenter bees. They are ridiculously cute!
I wasn’t able to get the weeding done that I wanted last week, but I did harvest quite a few veggies. We have two pumpkins sitting inside the pantry now. Every other day, I’ve been picking green beans to blanch and freeze. The tomatoes and peppers are also ripening quickly- we seem to have more to harvest each day. I managed to get the tomatoes tied up again last week. They have been growing like wild and needed a little more support. I have a few more leeks, potatoes, and carrots that I’ll probably pick this week. I’m hoping these last few carrots thicken up before the heat makes them bolt.
I couldn’t find any twine to tie up the tomato plants, but as a knitter, I do have yarn in abundance, which makes for a good substitute.
In Insect News, we’ve had a lot of wildlife activity in the garden. Our second black swallowtail butterfly hatched just this morning. I wanted to take her picture, but the second I opened the flap in our butterfly house, she took off. No paparazzi allowed!
The monarch caterpillars continue to grow. They are happily devouring the milkweed plant I have inside the butterfly house, and have tripled in size in just about a week. They have about a week more to grow before they will form their chrysalis’s. It really is wild to watch them grow so quickly. They look like different creatures every day.
The monarch caterpillars’ little antennae and stripes are much easier to spot now.
This morning, while out watering, I saw something really odd. On our pokeberry bush, there was a katydid, that was in the process of molting. I didn’t even know they did this, but a trip to Google informed me that katydid’s molt five separate times, shedding their exoskeletons just like our monarch caterpillars. They stop growing after that point, having developed wings to fly off and enjoy their little katydid lives. I’ve seen a handful of these well-camouflaged insects in our yard over the years, and I hope to spot even more as summer carries on.
An unexpected sight- a molting katydid in the garden.
That’s about all that I have for the week. We’re expecting some thunderstorms a few days, brewed up from all this hot weather and humidity. I desperately need to get some weeding done in our shade gardens and the compost pile needs to be flipped. Perhaps the mood will strike one of these mornings.
I also have some more herbs to harvest, and some bolted lettuce to add to the compost pile. We were able to enjoy quite a lot of it before the heat struck. There’s a bit more growing in the shade on the deck, and I’ll probably plant a few more pots in the shade next month so we can have fresh lettuce this fall. I’ve really become a total lettuce snob since I started growing it myself. It’s just so delicious straight out of the garden.
Hope you have a wonderful week in your garden!
This summer, the native plants are the star of the show: anise hyssop, obedient plants, maidenhair ferns, prairie blazing star, little bluestem, and pokeberries
Some of the pretty summertime native plants and wildflowers are in bloom this week: swamp milkweed, anise hyssop, queen anne’s lace, new england aster, coreopsis, black-eyed susans, joe pye weed, and cranesbill
Happy August, everyone! August is usually our hottest month here in Central Ohio, but it’s hard to imagine it getting much warmer and humid than it was in July. We finally had some rain the other day, and the thunderstorms cooled things off a bit. I sprang into action to weed, tie up veggies, and deadhead a few of the annuals. I know these nicer temps won’t last long.
The daily green bean haul is getting out of control!
We had some exciting news last week in the garden. A friend who also helps to raise monarch butterflies had a bumper crop this year, and needed some assistance. She gave us ten little eggs, which have now all hatched. They start life as the most wee little creatures, but seem to double in size just about every day.
Monarchs life cycles kind of happen like clockwork. The heat and humidity will slightly impact the speed at which they grow, but for the most part, it’s pretty easy to track how long each will take to move from an egg, to a butterfly. Once the eggs hatch, the monarch caterpillars start munching on milkweed leaves. Milkweed contains a toxin that is poisonous for most animals (and humans) to eat, but monarchs contain a special protein in their bodies that keeps them safe. The caterpillars only eat milkweed plants, and this is why it’s vitally important to provide them access to native milkweed species in your garden (if you live in an area where you have monarchs!).
A few of the newly-hatched monarch caterpillars. They are hard to spot when they are this small!
As the caterpillars dine on the milkweed leaves, they grow, and quickly! As they bulk up, they shed their outer layer every few days, by molting. They will do this five times, growing larger and larger. Their antennae become longer, and their white, black, and yellow stripes really come in brightly. They have pretty cute little black feet, too, all the way down their bodies. Once they’ve made it to their fifth instar, (their fifth molt) the caterpillars are ready to form a chrysalis.
The caterpillars can crawl quite a ways to find the spot they’d like to utilize for this next step. Since we keep ours in a mesh butterfly house, they typically crawl up to the top of the enclosure, and then they form a little silk net to hang from. They shed a final time, and then form their chrysalis, which looks lime green with gold rings. While in this stage, which usually takes a few weeks, the caterpillars actually liquify inside of the chrysalis and then transform into butterflies. The shell of the chrysalis is clear, so as the butterflies form, you can actually see them inside. When they are close to emerging, you’ll be able to see the pretty black, white, and orange colors, and you’ll know it’s just about time!
This past week finally saw some much-needed rain. The pokeberries, pumpkins, bay laurel, cornflowers, hardy hibiscus, and lettuce were definitely pleased!
Once the butterflies bust out of their shells, they hang from their feet and pump hemolymph (a substance like blood) into their wings to stretch them out and once their wings dry off, which takes a few hours, they are ready to fly away for a snack and to make more butterflies. It’s a fascinating process to watch and one that I feel lucky to enjoy every summer.
In addition to our pollinating friends, we’ve recently received quite a few visits from a far more wily critter: a racoon. Based on the number of vegetables and fruit this little trash panda has been consuming, I’m shocked that he’s even able to scale our 6′ privacy fence. Every few days, he waddles up onto the porch for a night of wild partying and debauchery. He seems to have developed a taste for our peppers, ginger, and strawberries, and he’s not at all impressed by my arrangement of the deck pots. After each of his visits, I have to right the deck pots, and move them back into position.
The poor pumpkin carnage
I’d taken all of this pretty well, up to this point. I like that my garden doesn’t just belong to me, and I enjoy sharing it will the local wildlife. However, last week, the little bandit took things a step too far! We have a few pumpkins growing in the little patch on the deck, and our little friend decided to partake of the smallest one. On the plus side, at least we know they must be tasty little pumpkins! I hope to get a picture of the raccoon at some point. He must have quite the bowling ball belly going on with all the treats he’s been enjoying this summer.
Our freshly-ripening pumpkin- keep off, little friend!
As summertime charges on up in our hemisphere, I hope your garden is looking well, and that you have some time this week to sit back and enjoy it all! Happy Gardening!
The garden is full of color, from goldenrod, to madder root, pokeberries, prairie blazing star, joe pye weed, and heuchera
Does anyone else feel like summer is completely flying by?! I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that it’s going to be August in just a few days. It certainly doesn’t feel like fall is anywhere on the horizon, though. It’s been very hot and humid out, and we haven’t had any real rain in the garden in quite a few days. While I water the veggies and some of the other annuals, it’s hot summer days like these that make me grateful for all of our native plants. They are designed to withstand all the temperatures that Ohio has to offer, as well as a lack of rainfall. Most native plants have extremely deep root systems, so they can weather just about anything Mother Nature throws their way.
Spotted this katydid while watering… they have some seriously good camouflage going on!
Some of my favorite native plants are in bloom right now: the tall, willowy joe pye weed, the deep purple stalks of prairie blazing star, with flowers like fireworks, fiery pink echinacea (coneflowers), and the sunny, bright yellow rudbeckia (black-eyed susan’s). We have quite a few of each of these plants peppered all over the yard, and I love the bursts of color they provide. These flowers draw in plenty of pollinators, too, and it’s a joy to watch all of the bees and insects humming around the garden all day.
There’s lots of cheery golden color in the yard this summer: black-eyed susan’s, nasturtiums, sunflowers, tickseed, and blanketflowers
And, luckily for me, all of these gorgeous pollinators are benefitting the rest of the garden in a huge way, by pollinating the rest of our flowers and vegetables. The veggie garden is blowing me away this year. I’ve grown veggies for a few years now, but feel like, finally, I’m starting to understand what I’m doing. Our tomatoes and peppers have never looked happier, and I’ve been harvesting oodles of each a few times a week. The red skin potatoes have also continued producing plenty of goodies.
The potato and green bean plants are sending us a bountiful harvest this year!
Our two bunches of green beans, the marrowfat bush beans, and green pole beans are also going wild. I check the plants every morning while watering, and have been filling my pockets with piles of each for the past few days. The other night, we grilled up some steaks, and enjoyed the first of the green beans (cooked up with the shallots I harvested a few weeks ago, and some bacon), as well as the first of the potatoes. Being able to pop out into the garden to grab the veggies I’ll be cooking for dinner is such a treat. I love that I’ve watched their entire growth, from seed, to mealtime, and it’s important to me that no pesticides were used on our food.
The other day, while stuffing my pockets full of beans, as one does, I discovered something a little… odd. At the bottom of our steps leading off the deck, there were two plants growing that I had not planted. After a little inspection, I discovered that they were tomato plants. I have no clue how these two plants got there- it must have been from seeds that made it into the compost we used in the springtime? That or the birds have grown must more aggressive in their gardening techniques…
Two of the Rogue Tomatoes
Then, while watering the compost bin, I noticed another tomato plant growing beside it as well. That plant is most assuredly from some seeds that made it into the compost pile. I could pull the plants out, but anything that is fighting that hard to grow where it will deserves to keep at it, in my opinion. I’m curious to see what varieties these tomatoes will be, something that I grew this year, or in year’s past?
Spotted this gorgeous dragonfly yesterday. It was very tough to photograph, but I *think* it’s an eastern pondhawk dragonfly, a native in our region.
It looks like this week will continue our hot, summer weather. I imagine I’ll be outside harvesting lots more veggies and herbs, stalking the local bug population for pictures, and making sure my collection of odd (for Ohio) plants like our banana and lemon trees have plenty of food and water. I’m hoping the skies open up at some point so the neighbors aren’t subjected to my alarming attempts at rain dancing. I have some weeding to do, but have been trying to put it off for a cooler day… at this point, I may be waiting until winter if I keep stalling for reasonable weather.
Hope it’s nice out where your garden lives, and that you are able to get outside to enjoy it this week! Happy gardening!
The deep red hardy hibiscus plant is in bloom again! I love it against the pink echinacea and light purple anise hyssop.
I was away from the garden for a bit, and when I returned, it felt like a whole new space. So many flowers were in bloom, and the near constant rain we had helped add a ton of growth to all the plants. The gardens are looking pretty jungle-ish now, all sprawling with lots of green leaves and summertime color.
The hostas, garden phlox, sunflowers, bergamot, cranesbill geraniums, blanket flowers, penstemon, zinnias, borage, cornflowers, day lilies, and coneflowers are still blooming their little heads off, and the blazing star, joe pye weed, jacob’s ladder, hardy hibiscus, and black-eyed susan’s are now also flowering. Mid-summer in the garden seems to be the time for bold, bright color. Even our amaryllis bulb is about to flower again! It lives in doors all winter, usually blooming a little after New Years’ Day, and I plant it out in the summertime to recharge. I can’t believe it’s about to flower for the second time this year. I must be doing something right!
Met this little grasshopper while watering the pumpkin patch.
With all the flowers blooming away happily, lots of pollinators have been visiting each day. The gardens are packed with happy bees, butterflies, moths, and other pollinators. The black swallowtail caterpillar I rescued from some carrots a few weeks ago made its chrysalis and hatched yesterday. She has gorgeous black wings, tipped with yellow, orange, and blue. I found a second caterpillar on the carrots over the weekend and escorted it into the butterfly enclosure to grow up safely as well. The monarchs should also be visiting the yard soon. I’m keeping an eye on all the milkweed plants for eggs and caterpillars. They always find their way here!
The newly-hatched Black Swallowtail Butterfly <3
In food news, it’s been a bumper crop for all of our herbs. I’m continuing to harvest chives, chamomile, mint, basil, oregano, parsley, dill, fennel, thyme, lavender, and rosemary every week. Some of the herbs are dried, and some I freeze. Many of the things I use most, like basil, I’ll probably bring indoors once it cools off this fall to keep growing. Being able to enjoy fresh herbs year-round is a treat.
Our sugar pie pumpkins are growing! I am SO excited!
When I left, the pumpkin plants were flowering and the vines were winding their way around the deck. They are now taking over the chaise lounge and grill, and we have three baby pumpkins growing! The pumpkins are already about 5″ tall, and still green. I am day-dreaming about the pumpkin pies the husband will be making us to enjoy this fall and through the winter. It seems a bit odd to be thinking about fall crops when it’s in the 90s outside, but at least something enjoys this hot summer weather we’re having!
Somewhere under the green beans lives a trellis. These pole beans are growing wild in the heat and rain! The lettuce growing next to the beans is also a bit unruly. We can’t eat the stuff quickly enough!
Out in the raised beds, I picked our first tomato this weekend! It was one of the san marzano paste tomatoes. The sweet italian pepper plants have also been going wild- I’m pulling off peppers a few times a week now, and dicing and freezing them for use in the family salsa we make up and can each fall. This weekend, I also harvested our garlic, which is now drying in the pantry. The lettuce we have is growing larger than I’ve ever had lettuce grow before- it’s absolutely delicious, and has made for some excellent salads.
The jacob’s ladder flower is in bloom! She lives in the shade, by the wildlife pond. I love her dainty, pale purple flowers.
I also pulled up our first carrots and a leek. The rest could use a little more growing time to bulk up, but the first ones look quite tasty and will be used in some salads this week. It was really nice at the grocery store, just breezing through the produce section- everything I’d normally buy, we have growing in the garden!
Harvest Day! I pulled up the garlic, a tomato, some peppers, red potatoes, a few wee carrots, and a leek. Yum!
Finally, I harvested the first of our red potatoes this week. That was really exciting. It’s my first year growing potatoes, and wow, I will definitely be doing that again next year. What an easy, no maintenance crop. I popped the starters in a grow bag about four months ago, and that was it. I didn’t water them much, no fertilizer, no pruning or trellising… nothing to it, just some dirt and sunshine! To harvest, I just dumped out the bag on a mat, and grabbed my spuds. The first bag had a nice little bounty, and I have three more bags to go through this week. I washed them off, and set them in the pantry to store. Can’t wait to try them out!
The black-eyed susan’s are always so cheery, and the bees love them!
This week looks to be another hot one, but things are drying out a bit. I have some weeding and pruning to do to tame the jungle a bit. I may fertilize the tomatoes and peppers again here and I’d like to do a little clean-up around the pond (the creeping charlie is starting to creep a little too much). It may be about time to harvest the bulk of the basil for some pesto-making as well. That, or I’ll just sit down next to the anise hyssop and bergamot to listen to the bees for awhile.
Hope your week is enjoyable and relaxing. Happy gardening!
The zinnias, blazing star, cranesbill geraniums, hostas, and garden phlox are putting on a real show!
The deck is really looking extra colorful lately, since the zinnias, german chamomile, calendula, and lantanas are in bloom.
It’s almost July, which doesn’t seem possible. I started this blog in January, when the gardens were sleepy and cold. Things couldn’t look, or feel, more different outside right now. The summer heat and humidity continues, and the garden is full of life. The yard is a blaze of color, with bees and other insects working hard. The bees seem to take a break in the midday heat, but in the mornings and evenings, they are pollinating away, bouncing around from flower to flower. I’ve spent some time this past week just sitting in the grass watching them. It’s fascinating and peaceful observing them “at the office.”
The bees are really enjoying the echinacea this summer.
We had a few days with nice, cool weather earlier last week. The husband helped me dig out the rest of the sod for our final project of the season: the new pollinator bed in the front yard. Once the lawn was out, I planted up all the flowers and grasses that I’d been growing on the back porch and mulched the space up. I am pretty pleased with the final results. There’s little bluestem, prairie dropseed, prairie blazing star, prairie smoke, nepeta, two types of thyme, candytuft, and some daisies. The space will have color and interest all year long, and provide shelter and food for the local pollinators. Most of the plants I put in are native to our area, and everything in there is a perennial, so the bed will continue to grow and thrive without much of any work from me.
I plan to add a little rock border, and then the new bed will be all set. Sayonara, sod!
In the back yard, all of our crops are filling in nicely. The lettuce is about finished for the season (it just gets too hot here in the summertime, and it bolts), but the other veggies seem to be enjoying summertime. Our peppers, tomatoes, carrots, beans, pumpkins, leeks, potatoes, parsnips, and garlic seem to be growing well. Actually, I was able to harvest a few garlic scapes this weekend, which I am really excited to eat. All of the herbs are looking nice, too. I’ve been harvesting parsley, chives, oregano, mint, and basil every week, and each are still growing strong.
Found this little lady cruising around in the kitchen, so I escorted her outside.
Out in the wildlife pond, the cheap little solar fountain I’d bought decided to stop working. I replaced it with a bubbler under the water, and so far, I’m liking that even better. It really moves the water around, and hopefully the sound will attract more birds to the space. There’s lots of spiders around now, probably enjoying the bugs that pop by for a drink. I saw some really pretty green orchard spiders, hanging under their webs. Spiders kind of give me the heebie jeebies, but I respect their work ethic, and, as someone who also likes to weave, I am pretty enamored with their gorgeous webs.
The new little bubbler, gurgling about under the sticks and stumps.
I’ve been keeping an eye out each day for some of my favorite butterflies, the black swallowtails. I’d seen a few flying around, but hadn’t found any eggs yet. This morning, while watering the veggies, I happened to spot a tiny little black swallowtail caterpillar! I quickly escorted it into our mesh butterfly house on the deck, with some dill to eat. The butterfly house lives outside, and the caterpillars I move into it are protected from predators. They grow up fairly quickly, especially in warm weather. I’ll track this ones progress as it grows up and then forms a chrysalis before transforming into a butterfly. The whole process usually only takes a few weeks, and is definitely the highlight of my summer.
This black swallowtail caterpillar will grow into a much larger caterpillar, with green and yellow stripes, before forming its chrysalis.
It’s ironic- the garden looks great and so much is in bloom right now, but there’s very little work to be done, for me, at least. The plants and flowers have grown to keep weeds out (mostly), and I don’t have any more planting to do at the moment (though I’m sure I’ll come up with something). It’s warm and sunny, but I can relax. And, actually, that’s kind of the point. I do really enjoy the planting and the work- I’m a process person. However, being able to slow down for a bit to watch the flowers grow, and all the birds, insects and critters that I share the yard with, is a real treat. Hopefully you are able to take some time out this week to sit back as well. Happy gardening!
The swamp milkweed is in bloom: my absolute favorite smelling flower. It’s light and sweet and an absolute pollinator magnet.
We’ve officially made it to summertime here in the Northern Hemisphere. While I love and adore all of the flowers this time of year, and watching the bees and other pollinators buzzing around the yard, summer is not my most favorite season. The heat and humidity make me cranky, and the planting is about wrapped up for the season, so my excuses to buy more flowers are harder to come by.
Luckily, I managed to squeak in a pit stop by the garden center last week to grab a few stray goodies for the new hellstrip bed out in the front yard, and for a corner out back that needed a little something. I grabbed a hollyhock for some height, and a few more verbena, anise hyssop, nepeta, and thyme for the pollinators to enjoy. The bees found the hyssop and thyme before the plants even made it into the ground, so I would say my selections were a success!
Some of my recent acquisitions: nepeta, growflow lemonade thyme, verbena, and anise hyssop
Out front, digging continues on the new hellstrip bed. I think the project is going to be a little smaller than I’d originally intended, at least, for now. A combination of rain showers, hot days, and arthritis joined forces to keep me from getting out there to dig things out last month like I’d planned. The husband helped me rip out most of the sod last week, and tomorrow, once the heat breaks, we plan to finish the bed. I have lots of plants waiting to go in: the little bluestem, prairie dropseed, prairie blazing star, and some thyme that I grew from seed, as well as the aforementioned plants I nabbed last week, and some creeping thyme and prairie smoke that I picked up awhile ago. Those poor plants need to get into the ground already!
The rest of the garden seems to be thriving. We’ve had a lot more in bloom since my last post. The hostas opened up, the borage and milkweed are all blooming (and smelling heavenly, I might add), the nasturtiums, bee balm, anise hyssop, verbena, and echinacea (coneflowers) are all blooming like wild, and the lanceleaf coreopsis, tickseed, cranesbill, marigolds, blanketflowers, and creek sedge continue to flower away. That’s not nearly everything in bloom at the moment, but it’s a nice highlight of what’s going on today.
I harvested our shallots last week! They are inside now, drying, but I’m dreaming of enjoying them in some beef burgundy. Mmm…
The bachelors button flowers that I grew from seed look to be about ready to start flowering this week, as do the zinnias. It’s amazing how much they’ve taken off in the past week or so. I feel like they all put on about a foot of growth. Out in the raised beds, the bush beans and climbing beans are all Hulking Out. The climbers have runners taking over their trellis. I would say we may see some beans growing here before too long. The tomatoes are still recovering from the over-watering they received the other week when it stormed, but most of the plants have fruit growing already. And, our pepper plants are stuffed full of flowers and peppers already. I’m so excited to see what they taste like- I’ve never grown Sweet Italian Peppers before.
Baby peppers!
Since I can’t seem to help myself, I started some hopi sunflower and loofah seeds the other week. The loofah seed hulls are notoriously tough, so I soaked them for about a week and clipped the outsides of the seeds with nail trimmers. Once they started to sprout, I planted them in a pot on the deck. They seem extremely happy in the heat and sunshine, and are growing quickly. I’ll have to get a support in the pot for them here to make sure they have something to climb, and to eventually, hold up the loofahs that will grow. I am probably more excited than any one person ought to be to ditch the plastic mesh poufs I use in the shower for some homegrown loofah sponges.
Everything else on the deck has been flowering and growing away happily. I’ve been harvesting basil weekly, and am enjoying the weird (for Ohio) plants that I started this year, the pineapple, ginger, banana tree, and lemon tree that I nabbed last season. The deck crops are also thriving, and we’ll be harvesting potatoes here in a month (ish). The sugar pie pumpkin seeds I planted took off immediately, and I’m slowly winding the vines up the railing along the deck. We had planned to do some work on the deck this summer, but with wood prices being so high (when you can find the materials at all), I think that project will be one to deal with next year. So, the pumpkins, madder root, and pokeberries can hide the wonky deck railing for another season. If you can’t fix it, hide it. That’s the expression, right?
Butterfly weed, coreopsis, swamp milkweed, verbena, cranesbill, and hostas
Before I sign off for the week, I wanted to put a PSA out there for everyone with bird feeders and bird baths. An illness has hit our local bird populations in Ohio, and, I’d assume, surrounding states. It’s seriously harming the birds, damaging their eyesight and ability to fly. The US Geological Survey reports that blue jays, starlings, robins, and grackles seem to be the most impacted, but the disease may be harming other birds, as well. Scientists aren’t yet sure what this disease is, but we’re all being advised to take down our bird feeders to keep the disease from spreading. Additionally, make sure to clean our your bird baths with a solution of 10% bleach to 9 parts water, while wearing gloves. If you happen to see any sick birds, contact your nearest wildlife rehab center. In Central Ohio, that would be the Ohio Wildlife Center at 614-793-9453. Hopefully we can all help keep this awful disease from spreading and it goes away soon.
Have a nice week! I give you permission to sit back and enjoy these first few days of summer, instead of crawling around your beds, weeding. Happy gardening!
So, I realize that there’s about a five degree temperature range that I consider acceptable for summer weather, but really. Things have gone a bit out of control around these parts. Upper 80s with humidity levels the local meteorologists refer to as “soupy”??? To top that off, it’s been a week of mostly rain showers. May was dryer than average, but Mother Nature seems to be trying to make up for it now. The tomatoes are yellowing from all the excess showers, and while the tropical annuals on the deck seem overjoyed, I’d rather have a nice tomato harvest later this summer, thank you very much.
The echinacea (coneflowers) are just starting to bloom. Loving spying on them in the morning sunshine!
In between storms, I’ve spotted a few new visitors to the yard. We had a pair of mallard ducks scoping things out one morning. The must have a nest nearby, because I hear them squawking at passers-by most days. There was also an adorable little black cat, rolling around in the catmint and batting at the floating fountain in the wildlife pond.
The dragonflies and damselflies have also been out and about, enjoying the flowers and smaller bugs. They seem determined to avoid the pond, (at least, when I’m out trying to find them swimming), but I see them all over the plants each day. I’m surely tempting fate, but I’ve yet to get a single mosquito bite yet this year, and I’m crediting this their presence.
Papa Mallard, taking flight to get away from the weird lady in her pjs taking pictures
Plant-wise, things are kicking into high gear for summer time. The cone flowers, marigolds, blanket flowers, cranesbill, nepeta, heuchera, penstemon, lavender, speedwell, salvia, buttercups, lamb’s ear, and day lilies are all blooming wildly, and the hostas, zinnias, and milkweed should be ready to flower here in the next few days. Normally at this time of year, I’ve had a bit of a slump, flower-wise. The spring flowers are all spent, and the summer plants aren’t yet in bloom. But this year, I think with our hot weather and some more planting, there’s a lot in bloom for all the pollinators and spectators (me and that black cat) to enjoy.
Edible-plant-wise, things are trucking along well. I planted the last of the beans, which have sprouted and are growing huge leaves. The lettuces are about finished for the season, but the herbs are really bushing out. I harvested a bunch of basil and chives to dry this week. The nasturtiums have tripled in size… which reminds me, I need to add a support structure to that pot for them… and the peppers are flowering and growing as well. We should start to see some baby peppers here soon! The pumpkin seeds I planted the other week are taking over their container. I thinned them out again, so the ones that are left will have plenty of room to grow. I also thinned our carrots, fennel, and leeks.
The asiatic lilies are always pretty striking in bloom!
So, for the most part, things are looking well out in the yard. But, that hasn’t always the case. I’m sure we’ve all had some gardening blunders, it’s how one learns, after all. I thought I would share a few of these… mishaps… the scenes that I don’t post on Instagram, and the stories I tend to keep to myself when trying to appear wise in the ways of the garden.
Most of my mistakes in the garden can be boiled down to a lack of impatience, not doing my research ahead of time, and/or trying to fight nature. In the majority of these situations, a simple trip to Google could have saved me a lot of headache. Knowing when to plant what, where things like to live, and how to water them seems pretty basic, after all, it’s advice I often share here. But, I haven’t always heeded these plant edicts. Some things, we just need to learn by doing.
The damselflies have been zooming all over the garden this week
I’ll start with a few situations where not doing my research ahead of time came around to bite me. A few years ago, I was assembling a little pot on the deck. I wanted to add something to the pot that would spill over the edge, and found just the thing, an annual (I thought), called Creeping Jenny. After the season had ended, I dumped the pot of annuals onto one of the empty raised beds, where I figured things would break down over the winter. The Creeping Jenny survived. If anything, the winter weather only seemed to make it stronger. I decided (why, oh why, Past Sara?!?!) to plant up That Which Cannot Be Killed as a ground cover in a few spots in the yard. Turns out, Creeping Jenny is a perennial in our area, and a beast of a perennial, at that. The groundcover spreads like wild, and is, to the best of my ability, impossible to kill. I rip out bunches of the stuff every time I weed the yard, but this stuff lives to take over. It’s even managed to hop the stone border wall, and is now growing in the grass in a few places.
Another time I wish I’d done some simple research ahead of time was last year, when I planted my first garlic. It was late September, and garlic bulbs were all over the garden center. I grabbed a few, excited at the prospect of my first harvest this spring. Last year, we had a particularly hot end to summer and start to fall. Temps stayed scorching hot, but in went my garlic. A few garden friends I’d spoken to mentioned that they hadn’t planted theirs, but I didn’t think the jumpstart would hurt anything. Apparently, it did. None of my garlic, which was still looking perky over the start of winter, made it to springtime.
The bees have been all over the penstemon lately, zooming up into the flowers to collect pollen.
My next garden blunder can be attributed to my lack of patience, especially when it comes to waiting for the last frost date to pass before planting. A few years ago, I was assembling another planter for the deck, and I fell in love with a group of dahlias. It was still April, a few weeks from our last frost date, but the day was warm, so I went ahead and planted up the flowers. Within a week, we had a frost, and the dahlias were… displeased. They didn’t die off completely, but they looked quite sickly all season and I didn’t get to enjoy many flowers. Just waiting a few weeks would have made all the difference. Plants that don’t enjoy the cold will not enjoy the cold even if you’re impatient and stubbornly plant them out too early!
I didn’t quite learn from that mistake and planted out my tomatoes and peppers a bit too early last year. Last Frost Dates are a guide aimed to help gardeners, not something set in place to invoke my oppositional defiance, but I was so sure that things would be ok last year, so in went the veggies. No surprise, we had not just a frost, but a deep freeze, for a few days. I spent hours outside, covering up annuals and veggies with blankets and cursing myself for not just waiting.
There’s so much in bloom! We have coral bells, geraniums, blanketflowers, salvia, penstemon, cilantro, lavender, marigolds, cranesbill, speedwell, ohio spiderwort, and calendula flowering.
The last of my gardening mishaps (that I’m owning up to, anyway!) all have to do with some foolhardy attempts at fighting nature. Traditionally for humans, when we try to best nature, things don’t go terribly well. She’s going to do her own thing, and plans go much more smoothly when we learn to accept that. My first major run in with this philosophy took place about three years ago. I was planting tomatoes for the first time, and I wanted them to live in a particular location in the garden: a corner spot, with full sunshine. These crops love sun, so I figured that I had this one in the bag. I went to dig the holes for my plants, and I can still imagine the smile I must had had on my face, imagining the late-summer BLT’s.
As my shovel made impact with the ground, it was stopped, rather bluntly, by what felt like concrete. I had the husband come out for the hole-digging assist, not realizing that that corner of the yard was made up of straight clay soil. I don’t know if you’ve experienced gardening with clay, but it’s not ideal. Clay basically turns into an impenetrable fortress when it’s dry, which for our climate, is most of the summer. It’s tough, and many plants don’t enjoy living in it. I knew this, but I stubbornly forged ahead. I was so heavily relying on my knowledge that tomatoes liked sunshine, that I decided to ignore their watering needs, and the fact that their roots would not enjoy the clay at all. True to form, the tomatoes were extremely unhappy. They didn’t grow well, and I had no tomato harvest that year. I’ve since learned my lesson and am now using raised beds, where I can amend the soil content.
The best-dressed bug in the garden is definitely the candy-striped leaf hopper.
Another time I tried fighting nature, to no avail, involved the same spot in that garden. A few years ago, we lost our beloved cat, Miss Pickles. I wanted to plant a tree in her memory, and so I picked out a little dogwood. I managed to get it into that corner spot, in the awful clay. I knew dogwoods only liked some sun, but that spot really is in full sunlight most of the day. In went the tree, anyway. It seemed like a nice location, visually, for a tree, so I figured things would work themselves out. (I know, I’m rolling my eyes at Past Me, too). The tree stayed there for about two years, before I finally had mercy and moved the thing into a shadier location, with loamier soil. It lives by the compost bin and finally flowers every spring. It’s grown a lot, and is so much happier in its new space. I’ve since added a slew of native prairie plants to that sunny corner which the tomatoes and the dogwood hated, since they grow just fine in clay soil.
We all make mistakes when planting, and sometimes, plans go awry. But, hopefully, like me, you’ve learned what works and doesn’t in your garden, and why. (Even if it took a few rounds of discovery). With just a bit of research and planning ahead of time, you’ll save yourself time, money, and effort. And isn’t it worth it, for a happy garden? Hope you have a great week!
A recent garden acquisition: coral honeysuckle, a native climber and hummingbird magnet
We’re still a few weeks out from the official start to summer, but it feels like it’s already here. It’s been in the upper 80s most of the week, and humid. My annual Complaining That It’s Too Hot Outside portion of the year is definitely in full stride. In my defense, what is the point of weather that belongs in the Tropics without the benefit of that ocean view?
It’s been storming on and off, and the plants were treated to almost an inch of rain in the past few days, much to their delight. I haven’t had to water, so I am also pleased. Behind our house, in the woods, the Brood X cicadas are singing away, a sound that we usually don’t hear until August. Apparently, this group spent the past 17 years underground, only to pop up now. They only live for a few weeks after they emerge, but they make the most of their time, partying away looking for a mate, before they bite the dust. I found it interesting to learn that they don’t actually eat anything once above ground. The birds sure are enjoying their company, though. Cicadas are, apparently, fine dining, in addition to being very loud company.
Hey there, pretty lady.
Back in our yard, the crops are all coming along well. The pumpkin seeds I planted the other week are beefing up quickly. I’ve thinned them out twice already, but I may pull up a few more of the seedlings to make sure the remaining sprouts have plenty of room to grow in their little spot on the deck. The pepper plants and beans are enjoying the heat and bushing out. Our tomatoes are also doing well. I’m planning to give everything some fertilizer this week, just to make sure we end up with as many great veggies as possible.
The bay laurel, peppers, sugar pie pumpkins, tomatoes, and potatoes are all enjoying the summer weather.
Over the weekend, on Saturday, I learned that it was National Prairie Day. As a kid, I remember many trips out to the park, where we’d walk through the trails in the prairies. I always preferred the woods. The tall grasses didn’t offer any shade, and I just didn’t notice the same magic that always seems to be lurking deep within the trees.
As time has passed, however, I’ve really grown to appreciate all that prairies have to offer. Much of the Midwest, where I’ve lived all my life, used to be covered in prairie. These areas were vital to the ecosystem, supporting thousands of species. Now, nearly 99% of those prairies have been destroyed, due to farming and other development. Many of the native plants and the wildlife that require them to survive have been lost, and we know those species that are still here, like the monarch butterflies, are struggling.
Some of our prairie plants: little bluestem, aster, butterfly weed, prairie blazing star, goldenrod, big bluestem, joe pye weed, and swamp milkweed.
The plants that once lived in these prairies are pretty fascinating, and adding them back into your own garden can go a long way towards helping provide spaces for wildlife. Many of these perennial plants are extremely hardy. You won’t have to replace them every few years after a hard winter. They thrive in the summer heat, and the bitter winter cold. Their roots grow extremely deep, unlike the grass in our lawns, and many of the other plants and bushes we add to our gardens. These deep roots help make the plants very drought tolerant. Even a few months after planting, I’ve never had to water my natives, like the milkweed, goldenrod, or aster.
Many of these prairie natives provide absolutely stunning color and shape to a garden, and they are rarely attacked by harmful insects. In fact, since planting more natives in our yard, I’ve noticed a severe decline in pests on our other plants. I don’t use any pesticides in the garden, and I absolutely attribute any success I’ve had growing veggies to their native plant neighbors. The natives draw in beneficial insects, which lure in more predators like dragonflies and birds that eat up the aphids and japanese beetles that used to devour my tomatoes and rose bushes. Planting native plants helps fit the, often missing, piece back into the ecosystem.
The summer storms always bring in really pretty sunsets!
For the past few years, I’ve been adding more and more native plants to our garden, with excellent results. Many of the prairie plants I have won’t bloom until later in the summer, but they are definitely bulking up now. I can’t wait to see this years joe pye weed and prairie blazingstar in bloom! We also grow a few native species of milkweed plants, and they are getting ready to start flowering here soon. While the monarch butterflies won’t arrive until the end of summer, the bees will absolutely be hopping all over the milkweek flowers. They smell absolutely amazing.
If you’re looking for something new for your yard, or even if you’re just interested in learning more, there’s lots of great resources out there. I highly recommend starting with the Native Plants Finder website or The Audubon Society‘s native plant database. Both sites allow you to type in your zip code, and you’ll find a wealth of information about what to plant.
Hope you have a great week in the garden!
The golds of summer are in bloom! Our daisies, day lilies, tickseed, stonecrop, and buttercups are flowering.
Flower Collage: petunias, flag iris, penstemon, tickseed, elderberries, clematis, blanketflowers, peony, maidenhair fern, silvermound, brunerra, and daisies
Somehow, it’s already June. It really feels like this year is flying by us. Things are settling down in the garden, work wise. Most of my planting and projects have been wrapped up, and now it’s time to just sit back and watch things grow. I still have some sod to rip up in the front yard, but as the days warm up, my motivation is definitely waning. When I can lounge on the deck eating our fresh strawberries, it’s hard to think about doing much else.
Omnomnom
We had a nice, long Memorial Weekend. Our friends came to visit and some “seedy” exchanges took place. The husband split some perennials for our friends to take back to their garden, and I unloaded a few of the prairie blazing star and little blue stem seedlings that I’d grown. We also exchanged a few seeds. I recently nabbed some loofah plant seeds to share, and my friend gave me a few marrowfat bush bean seeds to try out. They are an heirloom variety that became popular in the mid 1800s for their bacon-like flavor. I’m in!
Now that more plants are blooming and summer is basically upon us (aside from this past Saturday, where it stayed in the 40s and 50s all day), we’re seeing more interesting visitors to the yard. I spotted a hummingbird on some of the nepeta plants last week, and the pond seems to be drawing in some dragonflies. A common whitetail dragonfly was zooming around the yard while I was watering the tomatoes a few days ago, hopefully on the prowl for mosquitoes.
Flag Iris in bloom
Speaking of the pond, I nabbed a new little solar-powered fountain just to make sure the water had a little movement. Hopefully, the sound of running water lures even more birds and critters in, and helps keep the water from becoming a mosquito-making factory. The plants around the water are all doing well so far, and over the weekend, our flag irises started to bloom. They are a gorgeous, deep purple, and really pop against all the green foliage of the other plants in the space.
That’s about all I have for this week. I’ve really been enjoying the late spring flower show in the garden. Our peonies are still blooming and as everything fills around the yard, I’ve had to weed less and less. Looking forward to seeing what blooms next! Happy gardening!
When you’re allergic to most things that grow outdoors, and you really like to garden, it makes life… interesting. This is especially true for me in late May, when people start mowing their laws twice a week, and the cottonwood trees go wild, raining little pollen-y poofs of snow down upon everything. Cottonwood is my nemesis. I tend to get hives when I hang out to long in the grass, and whenever I garden without gloves on, but cottonwood goes for an air assault approach. As Colonel Klink would say, “There can be no escape!”
I head out each morning to water. The cottonwoods behind our house stand tall, looking all innocent. Then, suddenly, a gust of wind will hit and I’ll narrow my eyes to find tiny little cottonwood seed clouds, drifting over my arms and face. Apparently, a single tree can release 25 million seeds. I feel like they’ve certainly caused me to go through 25 million tissues.
One of the cottonwoods behind our house, along with it’s fluffy seeds and leaves. There’s an invasive bush honeysuckle that’s swarming the bottom of the tree.
The husband suggested I do a little research about the trees, theorizing that they must be good for something. And, they really are. I learned that cottonwoods grow all over the US, being hardy in zones 2-9. They are the fastest growing trees in North America. Young cottonwoods can put on six feet of growth per year, and mature trees reach well over 100 feet tall. The trees drop seeds each spring, on clouds of cottony shields that float on the wind, but only female trees produce these.
Cottonwoods also provide quite a service to the environment. They grow up tall, so quickly, enjoying a variety of soil conditions. Their height and size allows them to give off a lot of shade, which is especially helpful in areas that aren’t heavily wooded. Beavers and deer dine on them, and cottonwoods in the northern states provide homes for migratory songbirds like warblers. Several species of butterflies and moths even require cottonwoods as host plants for their survival.
Azaleas, giving me less to sneeze about than these cottonwoods.
While the wood of cottonwood trees is fairly soft, and isn’t often used for woodworking, cottonwoods are used to make pallets and pulp for paper. Native American tribes along waterways used cottonwoods to build canoes. The soft wood allowed for easy carving for these boats, and the trees became a valued resource. Medicinally, salves and balms were developed from the leaves and buds of cottonwoods. Their sticky sap was also utilized as a glue.
So, from my drowsy, antihistamine haze, I now have a bit more appreciation for these trees. They really are pretty. Their leaves are lighter on the bottom than the top, and they look sort of magical, blowing in the wind. They are one of the first trees to turn color in the fall, a beautiful golden yellow. I collect a few each autumn and do a little eco dyeing, printing them on fabric and clothes.
Aside from sneezing a lot, the past week was pretty busy in the garden. It was really hot out, and we didn’t end up with any rain. Out in the flower beds, I try to grow things that don’t require a lot of watering (ie: native plants), but the veggies out in the new raised beds still require a daily watering. The poor tomatoes went from days in the 40s to days in the 90s, almost overnight. So, they’ve really needed the daily watering. I like to go out in the morning, before it gets way too hot and as I water, I get to see what’s new in the yard.
Peonies!
Our first strawberries, pole bean sprouts, and tomatoes
Despite the heat wave we’re having, with temps 10-15 degrees above normal, the garden is looking really nice. My beloved peonies are starting to bloom, and the first bed we put in, along the back of the yard, is full of life, with bees enjoying the nepeta, salvia, daisies, irises, roses, clematis, and creeping phlox.
I put in the last of this years seeds. The parsnips went in the last available space along some of the tomatoes. And, I put in our pole beans. They started sprouting a few days after I’d put them in. I planted a few more than we’ll need, in case the bunnies find them again this year. Buns seem to really have a thing for green bean sprouts! The tomatoes I planted seem happy in their new beds. I have a few green tomatoes already, and look forward to harvesting the first one once they ripen.
Out in the rest of the yard, I was excited to see some new volunteer plants blooming this week: swamp roses. The name leaves something to be desired, but these native roses are really pretty. They grow in most of the eastern US, and ours popped up between our fence and the neighbors fence. I have no idea how they found their way there, but the branches are now dangling over the fences, and we have pretty light-pink roses in bloom. The bees are enamored, and I am, too.
Swamp roses, pokeweed, red maple, and goldenrod
We have a few other plants like the swamp roses, that popped up without my having had anything to do with it. There’s a few bunches of goldenrod, a beautiful native plant that grows tall, and blooms with gorgeous yellow flowers in the last summer and early fall. Goldenrod is a very important plant for pollinators, as it’s one of the last things in bloom in this area. We also have some pokeweed, growing under the deck. This guy popped up for the first time last year, and I was thrilled to see the leaves again this year. Pokeweed is another native, with beautiful dark berries that birds love. They also make a really pretty dye, but wear gloves when harvesting them if you don’t want to explain to everyone why your hands are purple for a week! Finally, we’ve had a few volunteer trees pop up in the yard. I’ve moved a few of them, but one, a red maple, is enjoying life next to the compost pile right now. I’ll eventually have to move it away from the house, but this little sapling is growing like mad, and who can resist such beautiful green-red leaves?
Rhododendron in the shade garden
The week ahead will be filled with lots of weeding and a bit more digging. The new pollinator bed in the front yard hellstrip is about 1/8 of the way finished. Ripping out sod is hard enough to talk myself into, but with the added heat last week, I didn’t get very far along. We’ll see what I get up to this week. Also, over the weekend, my parents split some perennials for me, and these new hostas, day lilies, and buttercups need to be planted. There’s never a shortage of work in the yard! Happy gardening!
