Category Archives: Vegetables

Got Wildlife?

Springtime flowers in the woods, with white and purple flowers
Some of my favorite native spring flowers are in bloom this month: great white trillium, wild ginger, trout lily, jacob’s ladder, wild blue phlox, cut-leaved toothwort, spring beauty, virginia bluebells, and bloodroot

We’ve been having lovely weather lately: warm, sunny days in the 70s. Cool evenings. Low humidity. The garden is awake and thriving, and I’ve been spending lots of time outside working on projects and just trying to soak up all the joys of the season. The pollinators and other insects are emerging, and watching the carpenter bees happily buzz around while we’ve been out spreading leaf compost and planting has really given me a mental boost.

There’s a lot of activity in the garden: the creeping phlox are blooming, as are the candytuft, broad-leaved phlox, and our flowering dogwood tree. The maidenhair and ostrich ferns are also waking up.

April in Ohio is officially Native Plant Month, and watching all the native wildflowers come alive again is one of my favorite parts of the entire year. We’ve included quite a few native wildflowers in our own garden to enjoy: bloodroot, wild geranium, dutchman’s breeches, jack-in-the-pulpits, rue anemone, wild ginger, trout lilies, woodland phlox, spring beauty, great white trillium, and common blue violets. Spring ephemerals are perennial flowers, mostly found in woodlands. They like life in the shade, sprouting up in early spring before the leaves on the trees branch out, shading the ground where these flowers grow. Spring ephemerals bloom for a very short window of time, in some cases like bloodroot, just for a single day. They provide very important nectar and pollen sources for the pollinators which are emerging from their winter shelters. Many native plants aren’t yet in bloom, and without our spring ephemerals, these important members of our ecosystems wouldn’t have the food and resources they need to stay alive.

I’ve been checking out the wooded trails at the local park a few times a week, because new flowers emerge daily, and it’s such a treat to watch them all in this short window of time. Back in our own garden, I’ve been regaling the husband with the play-by-play as each of our own spring ephemerals sprout, and the neighbors probably wonder who the heck I am, outside in my pajamas, hovering over tiny flowers with my camera, cooing at the ground about 55 times a day.

I can’t seem to get enough of the garden lately. In the evenings, I’ve been painting a few of my favorite native plants, like these big bluestem, prairie dock, purple giant hyssop, echinacea, st. john’s wort, and creeping phlox.

Warm weather has brought with it a list of the usual springtime gardening chores. Unlike my pile of laundry, I don’t tend to avoid these. After a few months away while winter did its thing, I’ve been more than ready to get my hands back in the soil. We ordered a pallet of leaf compost and have mulching all the beds with it. As the mulch goes in, I’ve been slowly cleaning up the beds from last year. Once the temps are above 50 degrees for at least a week, the insects that overwinter in last years plant stems are awake, and it’s ok to cut them back. Our plant debris goes into a large pile under the deck to slowly compost and provide habitat to birds and other insects.

Our new fence was installed a few weeks ago, a long overdue process. On one side of the house, our neighbors also have a fence, so we didn’t put a fence back on that side. Now, there’s about 8″ of extra growing space. In that space, there were a few invasive species that somehow grew up between the fences. We spent a satisfying afternoon ripping out a callery pear tree (now illegal to sell or buy in Ohio, finally!), some multiflora rose, and a thicket of amur bush honeysuckle. We’ve moved a few plants around and I’ve already hit up my favorite native plant nursery in Central Ohio, Scioto Gardens, for some great native shrubs and plants to replace the riffraff that used to be there. An arrowwood viburnum, black and red chokeberries, and allegheny serviceberry will all be providing habitat and food to the local birds and insects. I also grabbed some purple prairie clover, wild ginger, lady ferns, hardy aster, spring beauty, and more dutchman’s breeches to pepper into other spots in the garden.

L’hôtel à Insectes bug hotel is officially open for business! The hottest residence in town, this hotel features all locally sourced materials, from silken strands of northern sea oats to freshly trimmed poke berry stalks. A private stone entrance leads to the check in desk, where you’ll choose your room. Whether you’re looking for locust twigs, oak blocks, egg cartons, or goldenrod stems, we offer something for everyone. Come stay with us today!

Food-wise, the produce sections of the garden are also steaming ahead. The basement greenhouse is packed with plants that I’ll very soon be hardening off and planting. (Just a reminder to check your last frost date before planting any tender annuals, like peppers, tomatoes, or flowers like dahlias, unless you plan to cover them on frosty evenings!). Outside, the coldframe is also hopping. We’ve been harvesting lettuce and spinach, and the nasturtiums, chives, and native plants I have growing from seed are also coming along well. Our asparagus patch started sprouting this week, and the garlic, onions, leeks, potatoes, and carrots I’ve planted are also looking well so far. I’ve also started making some sweet potato slips, that I probably should have started months ago, but just about everything else is on track for a nice harvest.

Another project I’ve been meaning to work on for ages now finally was tackled today. I made a bug hotel! We had an old box that some wine came in, which I used for the frame. I stuffed it full of recycled materials from the garden: twigs from last fall’s locust tree trim, dried grasses from the latest northern sea oats display, hollow stems and dried flowers from the pokeberry plant, and some other odds and ends I found while wandering around the garden. The husband also drilled a few holes in some oak boards we’ve had in the garage from a past project for the bees to enjoy. I am so pleased with the way everything turned out. As I was carrying it out to its spot in the garden, I found a stinkbug on the kitchen window, so I escorted him into the hotel to be the first customer. Hopefully he left a nice review.

It’s starting to rain, but before I go check on the hotel again (maybe someone new found it already!), I wanted to share a list of a few small things you can do in your own gardens to help encourage more beneficial wildlife this gardening season:

Wishing you all a lovely season, as our gardens wake up and start to grow. Happy gardening!

May June be Fruitful

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The snow peas have been enjoying all of our rain showers.

It feels like this gardening season just started, but somehow, we’re already a week into June. I’ve been harvesting strawberries each day (this years crop has been very delicious so far), and yesterday, I collected the garlic scapes. I’m excited to pull the bulbs in a couple weeks here, but the scapes have so much flavor. I don’t know where these awesome things were hiding my whole life, but since I started growing my own garlic, I’m hooked. I’ve also started harvesting the first of this years herb crop: some thyme, bay leaves, basil, chives, and chamomile. Hopefully the next few months bring just as much delicious food from the garden!

Out in the raised beds, the seedlings I started seem to (mostly) be doing well. The peas are flowering and I had to add on to the trellis I built for them, as they grew taller than expected. The peppers are looking good. We’re going to have a bumper crop of potatoes. The cut flower garden is coming in strong. However, the tomatoes are looking… really sad. We’ve had a lot more rain than they really enjoy, and it’s been very warm, very fast, since I planted them out. I’m hoping they bounce back here and we are able to harvest enough for my portion of the family salsa crop.

Up on the deck, the jungle is faring much better. Out lemon tree is flowering again. I have my fingers crossed that the local pollinator population works its magic and we end up with some fruit. Our cantaloupe are also flowering, and the burst of cucumber beetles I saw in the yard has already been taken care of by the birds, leaving the cantaloupe alone. I started the green beans and black-eyed peas in pots this past week, and in typical legume-fashion, they’ve already sprouted up.

This years strawberries have been very sweet!

Out in the rest of the yard, my beloved peonies and clematis are about finished flowering. The daisies, canadian anemones, blue flag irises, ohio spiderwort, coral honeysuckle, nepeta, lavender, roses, asiatic lilies, and day lilies are all flowering this week. Our milkweed should be starting here shortly, and I am really exited to see the swamp milkweed again! It’s name absolutely doesn’t do this amazing plant any favors, but it’s my favorite native plant. Not only does it support monarch caterpillars, but the plant blooms with gorgeous little pink and white flowers for a few weeks each year at the end of spring. The flowers are, hands down, my favorite smelling thing in the garden. They smell very sweet, without the perfume-scent of roses or lilacs. And in addition to supporting our endangered monarchs, bees and other pollinators flock to this beauty. I can’t recommend it enough for gardeners in the Midwest. In a container or out in a bed, swamp milkweed is a GEM.

Now that the bulk of the planting for the year is wrapped up, I still have to finish a few landscaping projects around the yard. The Great Pond Area Widening Project has been put on a slight hold, due to a lot of rainy days, followed by a string of days that have just been too blazing hot. I’m hoping to get the rest of the sod pulled out this week, so I can mulch the area and shift a bit of planting around to fill in the new space. I’ve been seeing a lot of bees on the spiderwort that lives there, as well as a few dragonflies and damselflies. It’s a pleasant way to spend some time, just pausing for a bit to watching all the pond residents buzz around the flowers.

Hope that you’ve had a chance to stop and enjoy all of the plants and flowers growing near you. Happy gardening!

The bees have really been enjoying the Ohio Spiderwort flowers this spring.

Waning Moon, Waxing Autumn Love

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“Life starts over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald

It’s finally fall! We’ve had a deliciously cool start to the season, and I’ve been spending much more time outdoors to enjoy all the colors, sounds, and scents of fall. It’s been nice to just sit on the deck and watch the golden cottonwood leaves glitter and dance in the wind.

There’s still a lot going on in the garden, and I’ve seen more birds around this week. A group of blue jays have been playing in the back yard each morning. I watched them bury peanuts from the neighbors feeders in our raised beds, and they’ve been chasing each other around the fenceposts. The warblers have returned to the yard as well, driving the cats wild as they set up camp on the deck furniture, yelling and digging through the remaining potted plants for treats.

In the fall, our bay window becomes a little jungle, with space for the cats to nap under the tropical leaves.

Out in the yard, I cleaned out most of the raised beds. The druzba tomatoes had caught blight, a fungus that attacks during very damp conditions and causes leaves to brown and then rot. We had a summer full of pouring rains and humidity, and the tomatoes just couldn’t cope with it. I know that next year, I’ll be excited to grow them again, but I am feeling a little salty about the tomatoes at the moment. Not that it’s their fault, but they are just so particular about their growing conditions… it’s hard to get the formula right with climate change making our weather more extreme every year. Too little, or uneven watering? They catch blossom end rot (which I dealt with last year). Too much water (which is so often out of our control), they catch blight. Ugh.

Blight is pretty easy to spot on tomato leaves, starting with dark brown spots that eventually take over the entire leaf, killing the plant.

So, the blighted plants have been removed, and I made sure not to add them to the compost pile with everything else, as blight can overwinter in the soil and attack again. For the bed that was hit this year, I’ve made a note in my planner to plant something else there next year (not tomatoes), which should help the problem to disappear. We’ll see. I planted out some hairy vetch seeds in the beds. I have no expectations for them what-so-ever, but hopefully, the vetch will grow because it helps replace nutrients like nitrogen back into the soil.

I have marigolds growing next to where the tomatoes lived, and I’m letting them stay put over winter to give the birds and insects some food and housing material. I may harvest some of their seeds to grow again next year. In the final raised beds, the asparagus stays put, but I removed the bush beans. The last bed still has pole beans in it, that I’m letting dry so I can harvest the seeds to use next year. There’s still parsley growing in that bed, which is pretty tolerant of cold weather. I plan to let it stay there until next season.

I brought in our loofah vine to overwinter and found a cute little loofah, starting to grow!

Out in the rest of the beds, I’m letting things stay as is for now. The only clean up I’ll do will be to remove the slimy hosta leaves after we get a few hard frosts. All the rest of the perennials I’ll let be until the spring, when they will be cut back to the ground to regrow. And, on the deck, I’ve brought in all the tender plants, like my pineapples. A few plants, like the dahlias and cannas, I cut back to the soil level, and brought the entire pot inside to live in the garage this winter. Plants like this will die off in the cold, but they will be protected in the garage, where it stays a bit warmer and dark. Why plants like this are fine with these conditions is something I don’t understand yet, but next spring, I’ll haul the pots back outside and watch them start growing like nothing happened.

After removing the flowers, gently dig up the geraniums, shake out the dirt from the roots, and store them in a cool, dark spot where they will have a bit of air to keep from rotting, like in an open box.

Another plant that I’m over-wintering are my geraniums. I used to bring the entire pot in each fall, but they take up a lot of room. The other night, I saw a video from gardening guru, Susan Mulvihill, of Susan’s in the Garden on a different way to overwinter the plants. She is a master gardener out in Washington, and one of my go to resources for gardening advice. Anyway, Susan explained that to save your geraniums, you can cut off all the flowers, gently remove the plants from the dirt (with leaves still on), shake as much dirt off the roots as possible, and then store them in a box with some airflow in a garage or basement. I’m putting mine in a paper bag in the basement. Check on them about once a month to make sure nothing is rotting. The plants will look like they die off, but in the spring, you’ll see leaves start growing again. Plant magic! I’m hoping this not only saves me some space in the house, but also helps these geraniums to be less leggy-looking when they grow again next spring. I’ve had them for years now and they are getting a wee bit scraggly.

That’s all I have for the week. I may do some clean up in the pond and unplug the fountain this week, but that’s really about the last of the clean up I have to do until the springtime. Now it’s just sitting back, watching the leaves change color and fall, and enjoying these sunny, cool days. Happy gardening!

This mantis was so big, I spotted her from my perch on the couch. She was making her way around the lemon tree, perhaps in search of a snack.

And suddenly, rain!

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The reds and oranges of these coral honeysuckle, nasturtiums, marigolds, and zinnia just scream summertime, to me.

It’s a rainy morning today. Actually, it’s looking like the whole week may be pretty rainy. After the extreme heat and thunderstorms we had last week, things are pretty water-logged, but at least I don’t have to go out to water, or weed. By this time of year, my motivation to do much of anything in the garden has waned. In my defense, most of my energy outdoors is spent picking veggies and herbs now-a-days, and by the time I have everything washed, blanched, peeled, diced, dried, and into the freezer or pantry, I’m pretty spent. The green beans and paste tomatoes, especially, are really demanding this month. Whose idea was it to plant so many this year anyway?!?

Our hungry little monarch caterpillars are going to town on the milkweed as they finish growing.

Up on the deck, our monarch caterpillars are starting to move into the next phase of their little lives. Yesterday, two of them formed their chrysalises, and the remaining cats are very close to leveling up as well. They really mowed down the milkweed plant I had in the butterfly house with them (as expected), but it’s always such a wonder to watch them grow up as quickly as they do.

Some of the lettuce in the garden bolted in the heat, but I let it keep going so it would flower for the pollinators. Aren’t the dainty little flowers pretty?!

The plants on the deck seem to be enjoying the heat and humidity this year. We have a third pumpkin growing beneath a lounge chair, and the rest of the flowers and herbs are still looking happy. Our ‘ever-bearing’ strawberries have started producing fruit for the second time this year, and they are even tastier than the first batch back in June. The three pineapple plants I started this year are also looking well. It’s still wild to me that you can bring a pineapple home from the grocery store, pop off the top, peel back a few leaves, and then plant the thing to grow a new pineapple. The process takes a bit of time, but still, I’m growing pineapples in Ohio. That’s pretty awesome.

The wee, baby pumpkin, hiding under my lounge chair on the deck.

Out in the rest of the garden, the summer season is definitely not nearing its end, but things are starting to shift. The cottonwood trees won’t start turning gold for another month, but the late summer flowers are starting to take over. Our goldenrods, joe pye weed, and new england aster have finally reached their full height (which is taller than I am), and the aster is starting to flower. The blanketflowers and some of the smaller grasses, like little blue stem provide a gorgeous fiery red and orange contrast to the tall, green plants behind them. I love the effect of having these prairie plant gems around the garden, and each provide important resources to the pollinators which are out and about in the late summer season.

Carnivorous plants seem like something that belongs in the jungle someplace, but these pitcher plants are actually native to our area. I started growing this one in our pond and it’s been happily munching away on mosquitoes as it grows in the water.

In garden-adjacent news this week, I am finally applying to become a Master Gardener. This program is something I’ve been interested in since I first heard about it, but the timing never worked out quite right. This year, I’m going to go for it. The program starts over the winter, with 50 hours of coursework covering a variety of horticultural topics, like botany and plant pathology. I’m really excited to learn more about the science of plants, soil, and the critters around the garden. After the classes are finished, the real work begins, with 50 hours of service at different community garden locations around the county. Once I have my certificate and become official, there will be more volunteer opportunities and I’ll be able to inflict (or share, depending on the audience) my new-found knowledge with others.

A few days ago, one of the cooper’s hawks that lives in the woods behind our house stopped by onto the deck for a visit and dinner. The whole yard went eerily still as this big lady sent all the other birds into hiding.

I’m really looking forward to process, and to learning how to better serve the life growing in my own yard, as well as being able to help out in the gardens around the city. Gardening has become my favorite past time (when the heat index isn’t over 100 degrees), and I’m itching to learn more. Also, maybe if I’m distracted by the coursework this winter, I’ll have less downtime to plant too many seedlings. Anything could happen, right?

Hope that, if it’s summertime in your area right now, things are growing well. Happy gardening!

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

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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

Could It *Be* Any Hotter?

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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!

A Whole New World, Garden Edition

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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!