Summer Blooms & Country Gardens

Last Sunday, Ashley and I were able to sow beans, corn, cushaw and cucumbers. I will need to water this garden again tomorrow because it has been a dry week! 

This past Friday, I transplanted peppers, tomatoes and basil in the big garden bed where I dumped my compost. I haven't been able to water this for days so I'm worried what these plants will look like when I'm able to water tomorrow. 

These peppers and tomatoes were very small, so  yesterday I got some jalapeno and California Wonder pepper plants that will hopefully fill in the gaps of pepper harvest this summer. 

I also got a wild looking cactus that I had only ever seen at the Marie Selby garden in Sarasota Florida. I will post those vacation pictures on this blog soon!

It is becoming warmer and warmer by the day, so this morning, I brought my houseplants outside on the porch and watered these babies. I actually may keep these houseplants from now on outside.

This week, wild rose bushes have been blooming and perfuming the air, so I had to pick a couple of branches for a bouquet.

Also yesterday, I took some lovely country photos of gardens. Ashley and I went out of state and hung out with family, played horse shoes, piddled around the gardens, went out to eat, had a lovely fire, and ambushed a high school graduation as we drove through a crowd on a golf cart drinking beers.

Mid May Veggie Garden

I have to start out with some flower pictures first. Then I'll show you what is growing on in the gardens this week. 

Iris flowers to me, are the sign of May and they always grow around Mother's Day. So I call them Mothets day flowers. Although I bought some cut Lillies for my mom on Mother's day last week.

This past Monday, Ashley and I went down to the creek and had a little fire while we relaxed and enjoyed nature. Here are some wild flowers and such by the creek...

After Monday this week, I mowed, weeded, and sowed seeds around the garden. It was a weedy mess last week, and now that I have weeded, my plants can finally breathe! I applied some of my own compost around the vegetable plants as well.

The garden bed here, I cleaned yesterday. In addition to weeding, I applied my entire compost pile that I have been making for the last 6 months. 

My hope for this garden bed is to plant squash, corn and beans.  

The next garden bed here is full of yarrow and turnip plants flowering so I won't have many weeds to grub out. Yarrow is supposed to put nitrogen back into the soil, so I see this wild perennial as a plus in my garden. I started with a couple of these plants that I pulled from a field, and now it is a fully functioning patch on its own. 

Similarly, the next garden beds are basically my cilantro patches. There is probably 40 or more cilantro plants clustered in these 2 garden beds. I have inter planted spinach, arugula, peppers, lettuce, radish, and much more here. Now, the key is to keeping these beds watered, fertilized with compost, and protected from critters (which are all challenges as a gardener. 

The remaining garden beds have been weeded and I planted carrots and various things around the established patches of strawberries and radishes growing. I was able to pull up some beautiful radishes this week...

The garden beds here still look like a mess but it's really only because it's a bad picture. I have to keep the netting on every single bed to keep my cats out and to keep birds out. My cats want to scratch in the soil to use it for their personal litter box and the birds like to peck the soil to eat the seeds I've sowed. 

As you can see, the netting I lay on the garden beds doesn't lay totally flat as I have mature radish and kale plants flowering. I have many more vegetable seeds to plant here. 

In front of my garden, the blueberry plants are doing great! There's lots of blueberries on all of the bushes but my fear is birds pecking the fruits. I have used netting in the past to protect them but I'm using that same netting now for these garden beds. It is frustrating!

At my other garden, I have to till more so I can plant beans and corn as well. In my other garden, I have potatoes and peas growing. I have planted melons and squash seed but I haven't been up theret this week yet to check on this other garden.

I'll keep you posted!

 

 

Starting the summer garden

Happy Mother's Day! Here is a beautiful Iris to all the Mother's out there...

My grandma has been perfecting her little flower garden amongst this tree. It's looking better and better...

On this day after some drinks and food on our family get together today, I investigated the gardens. 

It seems to have been cold and rainy this past week here at the food forest gardens. 

I was in away on vacation this past week so I didn't get to check on the gardens till now. It also seems that the weeds have taken over! 

I have sowed lots of different seed of greens, herbs, melons, and squash.

Here, I have tilled a long patch with rows of different plants. The potatoes are up at least 10 inches from the ground in severalpatches, I have several rows of peas growing. I have separated each row with sticks.

This is the winter broccoli and kale patch. These plants are flowering now, but amongst them I have carrots, onions and radishes growing. 

I caught a sluggish munching on these radishes today...

At the other garden, not much has taken off besides the plants that have reseed themselves such as this lettuce. I had asparagus finally come up! Some have bolted to seed though. 

I believe this week should be dry, and perhaps a break from the rain--but, probably not the cold. Hopefully, I can finish some much needed weeding and mowing.