June Garden Tour - Mom's Garden

Mom's Garden (formerly the Front Garden) is doing well with its transformation.  Here is a walk about with narrative.

Heading out the front door.  The black eyed susans are fully green.  Notice the dead branches?  The winter was very hard on shrubs and this butterfly bush didn't make it.  Hydrangeas died back to roots.

Looking towards the front door the liriope, Autumn Joy sedum and new lavender are a lovely contrast.  Two of the five new pink muhly grasses are visible there in the foreground on the left.

Zooming in on the lambs ear in bloom.

Lavender is lovely.  I even harvested some to dry.

Here's one of the butterfly bushes that did survive and grew from its roots. The orange flags wyou see there mark trees from Arbor Day Foundation.  I plant them here to see if they live then will move them to their final location in a year or more.  Did that with the crepe myrtles behind the wall.

This hydrangea is looking good only because of the treatment of a systemic insecticide.  I do need to spray it with Liquid Fence to keep the deer away.

These crepe myrtle had die back too this winter and need trimming at the base.

I've given up on annual flowers in these pots.  They need so much watering and then get eaten.  The creeping jenny wintered over and I added the fountain grass.  I like the color contrast.

The hydrangea will not have as many blooms as previous years but here is one forming.

The tour of the gardens will continue in future posts.  Stop back by.

Harvests in Early June

Bok choy.

spinach

snow peas and garlic scapes

more snow peas

lettuce

Painting Project Completed

Dan built the swing that sits on the edge of the glen maybe 8 years ago.  (Photo from early this spring.)Just in the last couple of weeks we were sitting on it and I proposed painting it to match the cladding on our windows

So I did this week.  I started it yesterday with sanding, priming and the first coat.  Couldn't put on the second coat because rain was in the forecast.  Second coat completed this afternoon.


Now my watercolor teacher said that with a color like this you need it repeated an odd number of times.  So I painted a birdhouse and the roofs on some small garden art birdhouses. 

Now I see that I had this color already on the deck in a pot.  Well, still an odd number of times: swing, birdhouse, pot, roof 1 and roof 2.

I'm liking the transformation and to top it off Dan says its more comfortable to sit on.

It's June in the Vegetable Garden

The month of June brings snow peas, lettuce, and garlic scapes - all of which I have been harvesting.

Below are the snow peas, happily flowering and forming the pods for me to pick.

Monday was planting day for peppers.  Here are two Jimmy Nardello peppers that I got as a thank you gift from Susan at Squash Blossom Farm in MN for supporting her Kickstarter campaign.  I also planted a hill of butternut squash in the far corner which I hope to train away from the peppers into the pathways.  We'll see if that works.  Along the edge of the bed on three sides I planted bush beans. I hope they are all compatible.

As I worked in the garden the bluebird fledglings were madly bothering their parents.  This was the only photo I captured that was in focus.

The six tomato I planted earlier are doing well.  On the left I added one tomato plant, Federle which came from Susan, too plus two eggplants I grew from seed.  I hope I have better luck growing the latter this year.  The bugs like those plants.  You can see the lettuce in front is growing well.

This bed got 4 peppers, 2 each of Cubanelle and Hot peppers.  It

is sharing the bed with lettuce too.

Garlic - can you see the scapes?

Blueberries are loaded.

Another view of tomato bed.

Two more small beds of tomato on the south side of the garden, one pictured here.  Each contains three tomato plants with Juliette plants in the center of each.

Close up of the snow peas.

I also planted two pots of cucumbers to grow on the fence, one pot of yellow squash, and one hill of zucchini currently sharing a bed with lettuce.  There is also one small bed of there pepper plants.  Now I need to get a bale of straw to mulch the beds.  That worked well for me last year.