Dragon's Egg Hatching

 

   I went out for a stroll around the garden this morning. It looks like it rained overnight, leaving puddles in the driveway.  I appreciated the rain, as I didn't relish the prospect of watering everything by hand today.  It's sunny and mild now, about 19 degrees C at 9:00AM.  The magpies have returned; I can hear them clacking and chattering at each other from the property two doors down.  I think the family of young crows left the spot where they'd settled for several months.  They don't seem to be fans of the cheeky magpies.

   On my stroll, I happened upon the most wondrous thing: a dragon's egg about to hatch!   Maybe it wasn't actually a dragon's egg.  It sure looked like one, though.  It was a Frosted Salmon poppy starting to open.  The only thing that could have made it more magical would be if a damselfly lighted on it while I was taking the picture. 

 

Another one, at the back of the flower bed.

   The Ireland Creek Annie beans (dry/bush) are doing very well.  They are growing taller than expected, partially blocking the tomato plant at the back of the bed.  The bean flowers have started to open.

 

More dry bush beans, more flowers. 

 

   Monomakh's Hat.  Holy smokes.  So far, this variety is living up to the wonderful things I've ready about it. Productive, large tomatoes, not too tall (semi-determinate).  It's supposed to be relatively early for a large tomato, too (~70-75 DTM).  

 

 

   Finally!  Some Andean tomatoes (also called, "Cornue des Andes") are developing.  This variety is supposed to be fairly early (~75 DTM) and productive.  So far, it hasn't wowed.  Hopefully, it surges ahead in the next month and lives up to it's good reputation.  I've been counting on this as my paste tomato.

 

 

Clear Pink Early, coming along.

 

Sweet little volunteer pansies.

 

 

More Baby Tomatoes and Little Firebirds

 

   Japanese Black Trifele tomato (with two smaller ones behind it and to the left). 

 

 

   Indigo Pear Drops tomatoes.  You can already tell these will have purple/black shoulders.  This variety is apparently high in antioxidents (anthocyanins) similar to those found in blueberries.

 

Gold Harvest dry pea blooms

The Green Beauty snow pea blooms are just starting to open.

 

   When I saw the variegated leaves, I thought these were Alaska nasturtiums.  But the plant started to trail...and then orange flowers began to open.  Whoops!  It's not Alaska, but another variety called, "Little Firebirds".  I planted them late in the Spring but nothing emerged for almost two months.  I assumed they hadn't germinated and planted Alaska in their place.  It will be fun to watch this plant mature.  The colours of Little Firebirds flowers have been described on several websites as "deep burgundy, warm pumpkin, and rich coral".

 

   The Bonbon calendula are starting to bloom with gusto.  Most are a sunny orange, and some are yellow.

 

   One plant, though, is producing bicoloured flowers - a light, pinky/apricot on the tips of the petals and light orange near the center.  Very pretty!

 

Scapes, Blooms, and First Tomatoes

   The first tomatoes have appeared!  Clear Pink Early and Petitbec were the first to flower and have the most tomatoes developing so far.  EM-Champion, Japanese Black Trifele, and Reinhard's Chocolate Heart each have one little tomato.  I thought Andean, which is an early-midseason variety, would have more flowers than it does at this point, and that it would have started developing tomatoes.  Early Annie, which I have grown in past years, also seems to be lagging behind.

Clear Pink Early tomato

 

 

Petitbec tomato

 

Garlic scapes (the curlicues in the middle of the plants - click picture to enlarge) have begun to grow.

At last!  The Bonbon calendula has started to bloom...

 

...and the marigolds have, too.

   The Gold Harvest peas (dry peas) are putting out flowers.  They are soft pink and cream coloured, very delicate.

   Indoors, the orchid is in full bloom.  Pretty!  We're starting to think of this as the "Everlasting Orchid".  It was just starting to bloom when I returned to BC last September.  Those blooms lasted months.  In late Spring, they fell off the branch one-by-one, and a new branch formed while the original branch dried up.  Less than a month later, these orchids started blooming.  If these bloom last as long as the first ones did, we will have had almost a solid year with orchids on this plant.

The Midnight Snacker

   I took an early poke around the garden this morning, while it was still cool and quiet.  When I reached the back of the property, I spotted my dwarf kale, gnawed!

 

 

   I wondered if it might have been a rabbit.  I've only seen a rabbit in the yard twice over the years.  Looking around the garden, everything else - the trees, plots, and raised beds - seemed to be untouched.  It must have been a deer.  How polite that he or she limited their snacking to a single windowbox of kale.

   The next hour was spent puttering and hoeing and observing what had changed since last night (a Burpee's Butterbush squash is poking through, and the most recently planted rows of Calima beans are coming up, too).  I began hoeing weeds in the north garden, but stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this:

 

"He got my pepper plant!!  Bugger!"  

   Only the cat overheard, thankfully.  I couldn't believe my eyes.   We live right in town (albeit a town on the Alaska Highway, so I guess incidents with wildlife should never really come as unexpected).  We have never had problems with animals eating what we grow, unless you count grasshoppers or root maggots, depending on the year.  (Oh, or the summer the magpie family chewed the newly formed cabbage heads down to the ground and pulled out marigold petals to toss around the garden.  That was done for their own amusement, though, not for nourishment.)  Deer have never really come into town in the summertime, either.

   Another tour through the garden, looking more closely this time.  Sure enough, I spotted more kale had been chewed on and there were two deer tracks going through the rows of beans in the south garden.

  Fingers crossed that their taste for garden produce is restricted to kale and peppers, or I might have to start camping overnight in the yard!

 

Update - June 26 

   Camping, it is.  Just joking.  Maybe.  

   New discoveries this morning:  some snow peas, dry bush beans, and cabbage got eaten.  I don't know if The Midnight Snacker got them two nights ago or if he came back last night.

 

 

 

 

 Update - June 27

   This morning, we discovered that the tops of a few potato plants had been nibbled, an onion pulled out and left on the lawn, and a 2 foot stretch of dry soup bean plans chewed off.  Arrhg!

Bean Mix-Up, Tomato Flowers, and A Kindred Spirit

   

   It is a chilly, overcast, drizzly morning.  The kind of day that makes you want to turn up the thermostat but you resist doing so because, well, it's June.  I've donned a sweatshirt, a pair of winter socks, and have a throw around my shoulders.  The kettle is on for a cup of tea.  It feels like a day to focus on coziness.

   Yesterday was another matter: sunny, clear, and warm.  I took pictures early in the day and the sun was so bright, some of the pictures seem washed out.  I'll post them, anyway, as an update.

   The north garden.  The beans, dry peas, and White Scallop squash are mostly up.  Some zinnias just poked through, and wispy evidence of carrot seed germination has appeared.  Only one zucchini has sprouted, and I'm impatiently waiting for the others to catch up.

 

    

   EM-Champion tomatoes.  This variety is determinate and on the early side.  The first flower has opened on one of the plants.

 

   Some more determinate varieties of tomatoes, as well as 3 varieties of beans I'm trying to refresh/grow out.

Dwarf Beauty King tomatoes.  These look like they're going to be compact!

 

   Petitec (also called, "Doucet's Petit Bec") tomato.  A determinate heirloom that originated in Quebec.  I purchased the seeds from the PEI Seed Alliance.  It is early and the first variety to put out flowers (hard to see in the picture - click to enlarge).  I'm beginning to think I should have planted more of these.

   This bed is a bit of a mish-mash: Burpee's Butterbush squash (a small butternut variety), some Bonbon calendula (dwarf), a sunflower (Taiyo), and a volunteer asparagus that R. thought he dug up and moved with the other asparagus two years ago!

   Clear Pink Early tomato (determinate) in the bottom right corner, the cabbage bed in the middle, and Jacob's Cattle beans (dry/bush) in the bed beyond that.

 

   Clear Pink Early tomatoes, Ruckle (dry/bush), garlic, and carrots. This garlic came up as volunteers this Spring in the south garden.  We moved them to a raised bed to make room for pea planting in the garden.

   

   The onion and beet (Detroit Red) bed in the front, and a mix (by mistake) of Coco Jaune de Chine and Ruckle beans (both dry/bush) and Emalia tomatoes (determinate) in the bed beyond that.  Garlic patch to the left.

 

   The beds along the driveway.  Galeux D'Eysines squash (C. maxima) and a few sunflowers growing in the bed at the front.

 

Loulou loves to explore the garlic patch when we're working outside.

The potato patch.

 

   The cucumbers are just now coming up.  Two Early Annie tomatoes (determinate) and Loulou in the middle.  Water barrels to the left.

 

   One of the Monomakh's Hat tomato plants (indeterminate) has a flower.  It looks like these are going to be large tomatoes, indeed.

 

   There are a few spots in the bean beds and garlic patch where things didn't germinate.  Nasturtium seeds to the rescue!

The pea patch (south garden).

   

   One of the containers of VOLUNTEER garlic bulbils that R. found sprouted in the north garden when he was tilling.  They are robust and doing well.  These are in addition to the bulbils I deliberately planted in pots in the garden last autumn.  Abundance!

 

 

 

A spot of morning shade in the peas.

 

Speaking of shade, a spot to rest for us humans, too.

   Tomatoes (Andean and Reinhard's Chocolate Heart - indeterminates), beans (Ireland Creek Annie - dry/bush), chard, calendula, and lime mint on the south side.

   The Pineapple sage I overwintered (and moved/worked/tripped/cleaned around all winter) in the plant room did not enjoy the hardening off process this Spring.  I questioned whether it would bounce back when replanted, but it did - in partial shade, no less.

   

   Orangelo Thyme.  I bought the seeds on impulse, even though it was a splurge in terms of price.  When the packet said 25 seeds inside, it meant 25 seeds.  Tiny black pinpricks of seeds!  LOL!  Don't cough or sneeze while sowing!   I managed to get 6 to germinate and after much babying, they are doing well.  The scent is pleasant.  You can detect the light citrus and the overall scent strikes me as more mellow/softer than your average thyme.  Maybe because the seedlings are still relatively small and tender?  Time will tell.

 

   The sage came back beautifully after spending the winter in place.  Winters here, for better or worse, are not nearly as cold as they used to be.

 

 

   I did a trade last week with a woman I met through a social media gardening group.  I gave her some dry beans and tomato and herb transplants, and she gave me transplants of chives and lovage (lovage pictured below) and eggs from her hens.  She and her family live on a half section (320 acres) out of town.  Needless to say, she has a large garden, along with chickens (heritage varieties, I expect) and cattle.  The eggs were lovely and ranged in colour from light tan to olive green!  We hope to connect later in the season to do another trade and to natter excitedly about the obscure heirloom varieties we're growing.  (I discovered early on that you either "get it" or you don't, where this interest is concerned.  Those who don't just smile politely and hope you'll change the subject soon. Ha!)

   I'll have to ponder whether there is a spot on our property that would work for lovage.  I have wanted to grow it for years, but it is a perennial and gets very large.  Hmm...