Garden and other bits

My Favorite Mister, (DH) made these older garden trugs into an elevated garden so I was able to transplant the seeds started by moi, cough, cough, sputter, sputter.... into them and we don't have to worry about the furry friends that live in our gardens harvesting these before we do. It's producing wonderfully.

 Gazing toward the above ground pool we have a small selection of flowers and plants that we "over wintered" here in the 45 parallel and/or acquired some fresh ones at the local nurseries while keeping Co-Vid 19 protocol.

The view towards the right shows where the hot tub, umbrellas and more gardens continue.   Both DH and I can't be in the sun so shading is our best only option.  Thus early mornings in the gardens are timely.

Don't mind all those bags of mulch please, they are waiting for us between the heat/sun, humidity and rain, we'll get to them.   We're a 1/4 of the way done, only 75 bags more to go.  We hit a terrific price and took advantage.   This patio area we constructed ourselves around 20 years ago.  Actually it was on Labor Day weekend or should I say   L* A* B* O* R*     D* A* Y*   week-  bust!  Exhausting work but worth it and it's lasted beautifully.   Now the cedar deck, don't look too closely as that'll be another chore that needs repair when we can afford it and decide the best plan of attack.


The following are some of the lilies that are shining throughout the "island garden" .

Be still my heart!

       

     

     

"Honeysuckle Grotto" is the photo just above on the left with the cobalt garden seat, where I'll sip my tea and rest a spell after I've pulled at least 100 weeds then resume.  After I get an area weeded out, then the mulch is applied.  

So far the lilacs, peonies, daffodils, hyacinths, poppies, some tulips, Missouri Primroses, coral bells, Lady's Mantle, etc...    have shown their glory.  Currently it's lilies with hints of the daisy styled flowers like- ruddebeckia, daisies, along with bee balm and cone flowers and such  coming out shortly.  

    

The fruit trees look good so far.  Crispin' Apple, plum and 2 pear trees all have a small bit of fruit coming.   The kiwi vine on the arbor left a bit to be desired this year and had a late start with our weather/winter  though it still provides some shade for after noon reading in the hammock chair- A birthday gift from 5 years or so, I'll actually snooze a bit and not loose my page!  lol

And the lower raised bed garden with vine plants (squashes and cucumbers) , potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos, raspberries....  Would you believe we couldn't find any squash seeds when the garden was planted but finally found some a couple of weeks afterwards so I used the seed starting module in the Aero garden to get them farther along.  Not sure what I think of it yet as some things did wicked good and others not so.  Could be the the germination factor of the seed packages as their dates were good but some pods from the company came up with nothing too.  But I'll share more about that on another post regarding those experiments.


Then our higher raised bed garden which is easier to maintain (harvest and weed).

Suffice to say there is a list of never ending chores to complete and much to repair for these 2 acres of land, but I am extremely thankful.   Besides the weeding and mulching, I need to string up some deterrent for the deer where our blueberry bushes are.  Crossing fingers that some holographic -reflective tape will be enough to scare/keep them away.   I witnessed them last year scraping all berries with leaves off the bushes and still had too much going on to fix it then. 
Especially with the grocery distributions going a bit hay wire this corona virus year, the "price gouging" that seems evident to us and just knowing that we'll be producing more of our own food and with putting them up (as Grandma used to say) to last through out the year.

TTFN,
Jane



Editing this info paraphrased from an article about day lilies - scientific name,  Hemerocallis: in the Lake Champlain Weekly Vol 21, Issue 1 written by  Dr. Dr. Leonard Perry, Horticulture Professor Emeritus at UVM

• More than 38,000 registered varieties with 15,00 +/- in production
• Inside center is called the "Throat"
• Zone between the throat and flower color is different then it's called eyed or banded
• If the edges of the flower are a different color then it's called "picotee"
• The midrib may be a different color or spotted  or "dusted" over by another color
• The difference of appearance and description is typically inferred by their petals formations, ie: rounded, triangular, star shaped, ruffled or doubled if there are more than the 3 petals and 3 colored sepals (false petals that look like the petals)
• Lilies arise from bulbs and flowers from a main stalk while day lilies (origins in Asia) have thick storage roots with the later having their own scientific family Hemerocallidaceae
• Some of the best single color cultivars for Northern Gardens are:  Frances Fay, Mary Todd, Stella de Oro (all yellow varieties); Barbara Mitchell, Fairy Tale (pink colored); Bess Ross, Apple Tart, Red Rum (red);Gentle Shepherd, Guardian Angel (near white); Prairie Blue Eyes (lavender); Bertie Ferris, Ruffled Apricot (orange); 
• Multicolored varieties are: Custard Candy (peach w/yellow throat and red eye zone and ruffled edge); Fooled Me (golden w/ red eye and ruffled edge); both being popular newer bi-color cultivars in our region
• There are three seasons: early, mid-season and late

Longest Day of the year!

With the Summer solstice being today, I am grateful and so happy to let you know that our strawberry and vegetable gardens are done and IN! Phew!

With all the rain we had, most of our outside work was put on hold. Knowing that we needed to have dirt delivered by a small tandem dump truck for the raised bed and the strawberry garden, we had to wait for the earth to dry out a bit for the delivery so the truck wouldn't sink out of sight. When that happened we purchased 4 cubic yards of dirt, built the beds and then started filling them in. Check it out.


I remember when we were younger and in better health, these chores would have been done lickity split! But between DH's heart condition and my back and asthma, it takes us much longer. Oh well, the golden years.



I still think that the cross bar on the poles halfway up (they are for the irrigation-drip watering system we installed which I'll show more later) is off but DH put a level on it and says it's spot on. Must be the raised bed that is really off, but DH with the help of our son put that up. DH and I haukled in soil to fill it, something I surely shouldn't have done since with my back issues, I was laid up 2 days after doing it. We still need to trim the ends of that cross piece as well but I figure that can wait till all the living chores are planted and done and then we can come back and finish those little details.


The Strawberry garden is coming along nicely.


Check out this photo with how many berries are on just one plant and this was made within this past month amidst all the rain.


Of Course there are many other areas of the yard that we have been working at and more work is still needed. To the right of the new swingset acquired for the youngest grandchildren we had an "island" garden in the midst of part of our back yard. Since our property line goes back to the island in the River, we still have much more property behind this photo including the wooded area.



The brown in the photo's foreground is where we had to reseed the grass after the septic repairs.
The ground that is all brown in the distance is where we are having a weed problem with mugwort. Uuurgh! that is so invasive! We actually cut down everything and even used a "wooded stock" herbicide that is used for poison ivy and such. Yet the weed persists. I may go back with a pair of scissors, snip eahc weed individually and give it an IV injection of the poison to see if that will work. (This was a last ditch suggestion from our local Coop. Extension.)


This next photo shows a picture showing the backside of our pool area. You can see the new garden structures on the right of the above ground pool and to the left is the flower garden that surrounds the garage.

I still have the flower gardens to weed, a bit more plants to bed, use the weed cloth barrier besides a heavy layer of newsprint underneath that and lastly mulch over the top.

Notice all that green, TIZ WEEDZ!


With My Mom here, she and I have started working on the flower bed in between all the other happenings. DH's Doctors appointments, rehab, graduations, trips, BBQ, etc, you get the drift, way to busy around here.



See all those bags of mulch I was able to purchase at 50% off. Hopefully, I'll be able to report that those chores will be done and soon. Now that the days are becoming shorter, I guess I'll have to work faster. LOL

Jane

PS: I did check out the Kiwi vines on the arbor and I think we are going to have 2 kiwis this year! Check out these blossoms.



There also is another section of the island garden that needs attention, but I'll show more another day. I have saturated you with enough photos for one day. Hopefully my blogging will come back to a steadier flow after this seasonal rush is done. I hope to start getting to some stitching too. I really am having withdrawals from my quilting and stitching stuff. J.