Winged Helper

Yesterday morning, while outside examining the plants along the fence, a tiny dragonfly appeared and hovered near the tomato plant I was looking at.  It was so delicate, and I had never seen a blue and black dragonfly before.  I stayed put and watched it linger around the leaves for a few minutes. Then it flew away and I continued on, watering and weeding the garden.

I completely forgot about that special visitor until this morning, when I spotted this picture while browsing a gardening site!  This is what my dragonfly looked like, though mine had longer black stripes than blue.

Off to investigate the dragonfly's meaning as an animal totem...

Bring On The Heat

It is a gloriously HOT, sunny day today and the plants are busily making chlorophyll.  Thank goodness.  The rain barrels are still full and the ground is still holding moisture from the weeks of rainy weather.  R. grilled smokies and turkey hot dogs outside on our little "Canadian Tire Special" charcoal BBQ for lunch.  Chapman's ice cream bars for dessert.  It feels like summer.


 
I discovered a rogue tomato growing beside the Beurre de Rocquencourt wax beans (which, to my dismay, aren't looking too starry).   The tomato is in the bottom left-hand corner.

The greens are doing beautifully!  I had a big salad yesterday - spinach, mesclun mix, and Black Seeded Simpson lettuce.










 


My poor kale bed.  It's a good thing kale and chard are considered  hardy.  I guess we'll see just how hardy they actually are.  We realized the day after I planted the seeds that the top 6" of this raised bed is mostly clay.  Arhg!  Some Swiss Chard, Red Russian kale, Lacinato kale, collards, endive (or could be weeds - who knows?) and two nasturtims have broken the surface, but have not exactly flourished. 




 

Some of the marigolds have started to open.  :)












 



Neighbour's cat, Butters, relaxing in the shade near the back fence.











 


The corn is coming along nicely.  (That's a container of three pumpkins in the upper right-hand corner)










 



Perennial green onions, the only things that will grow in this odd little corner at the back of the house.

Our Saj snoozing in the beans.



 










My healthiest looking eggplant.  Not huge, but the rest are even smaller.  Yikes.  







 







Another neighbour's cat, Karl, having a bath in the garden.














 


A nasturtium, some carrots, and leeks.







 





Saj and Karl, lounging.

Parsnips, Pumpkins, and Pests

Sunshine!

We are having the first solid day of heat and sunshine that we've had since the end of May.  Hallelujah!  When I went out to peruse the vegetables and do some weeding, I discovered that the parsnips (pictured) are coming along well, as are the second planting of beets.  

Melon (??)  in the middle, pumpkins either side (one invisible!)

I also discovered three pumpkin seeds have sprouted, in two different containers.  Those melon/pumpkin containers are going to be crowded...









 
One of my tomato plants, a Black Krim, has set two little tomatoes.  :-)











I planted some more pac choi in the space where I originally planted Red Oak Leaf lettuce - twice.  (That lettuce didn't come up).  I also planted some more kohlrabi where there was space for it in the kohrabi bed.



R. spotted the first **BLEEEEEP** cabbage moth of the season.  How I loathe those things.  More to the point, I hate the eggs they lay, which hatch into fat, squishy, disgusting green worms that keep me on edge when I'm cutting up cauliflower to blanch and that make me shriek and swear when one falls out on my arm.  Revolting.  

I have been saving eggshells since last summer, as I read somewhere that sprinkling crushed eggshells on the ground around brassicas keeps the moths away.  Elsewhere, I read that this is simply an old wives' tale.  I am trying it, and spread the eggshells in the garden this afternoon.   I also placed little pots with sage seeds (I hope they grow quickly!) among the plants.  Strongly scented herbs are suppose to deter the little buggers.  I hope these things work.  If they don't, I might resort to using Bacillus thuringiensis (BT).  




The flower bed.  I should know by now not to try to grow most annuals from seed.  Takes forever.  

Along the right side, Creeping Thyme (a perennial which eventually produces small pink flowers) with two small Silver Mound in between.  Wooly Thyme (perennial - love this, and it also produces tiny pink flowers) in the foreground, and a bit more Creeping Thyme in the left corner.  Along the left side, orange calendula, Scarlet Flax (I assume the things growing in that spot are not weeds), and in the back left corner, gomphrena (planted weeks ago, and didn't germinate until just a few days ago).

.

Uhhmmm...

We have a situation.  

The no-show melon seeds I planted and then replaced some time later with pumpkin seeds suddenly appeared yesterday.  I thought they'd rotted with all the rain we've received.  In three containers, there will be a mix of two kinds of melons (Sweet Siberian and Cream of Saskatchewan) and Winter Luxury pumpkin.  I have no idea, at this point, which melon is which or whether everything will grow properly, bunched together in those containers. We'll see how things pan out.  It would be wonderful if they all thrived and we ended up with melons for the summer and pumpkins in the fall.

For that to happen, though, we'll need a stretch of sunshine and heat, which we haven't seen since May.  Rain, rain rain.  My beans are about to sprout life jackets, flip us the bird, and row for higher ground if we keep getting downpours like this.  


 

The potatoes, peas, lettuce, and beets (pictured) seem to be doing well and the weeds, naturally, are flourishing.

We pruned the lilac bush, so it didn't produce many flowers this year.  What did appear are pretty, and smell divine!

The bed of leeks!  Can you see them?

Rogue chives, growing near the fence.

After a good pruning this Spring, the current bush has bounced back well. 

Our senior supervisor, Saj, opted to stay inside today and catch up on her beauty sleep.

A Few More Sprouts...

After much more rain (this is getting to be way too much of a good thing), I discovered a few new plantings have finally sprouted:  Rainbow chard (planted along the back of the container of chocolate mint), green onions (south garden), and FINALLY, a few of the Hollow Crown parsnips (container along driveway).  It took over three weeks for those suckers to germinate!

Almost all of the potatoes have sprouted at this point.  It's nice to see that large square of bare dirt finally start to look like a garden.  :-)

Pumpkin Planting, Take II

It has been a beautiful, sunny, breezy day.  I started to tackle weeding the raspberry patch and discovered a new cucumber sprouted, as well another sunflower and several nasturtiums.  The Sugar Pie pumpkin seeds I planted in May haven't shown any signs of germinating, so I planted Winter Luxury pumpkin seeds today in their place.  
 

Winter Luxury Pumpkin

After The Rain

I have typed the title of this post hesitantly.  After a clear day yesterday and a sunny, warm morning today, thick, grey clouds are rolling in and I just spotted lightning over the downtown area.  More rain?  I hope not!

A few pictures of the garden, taken this afternoon...

Beans!  My beans have sprouted!  I have no idea why this fills me with such glee, but it does.  These are "Tene's Beans", a dry bush bean.  My Speckled Algonquin, Anasazi, and Beurre de Rocquencourt beans have all started to sprout as well.  Oh, happy day!

Green Arrow peas are coming along nicely.

Determinate tomatoes (Yellow Cherry and Cole) in one of the raised beds.

This is Butters, another neighbour's cat.  She loves head-pettings and being talked to, but loathes being picked up and won't be held.  Super affectionate and likes people...but not other cats.  This proves to be a problem when she wanders into our house for a visit.  Visits outside work out much better for everyone.

Chocolate mint in the foreground, a flower bed in the making (stone bed), buckets of tomatoes lining the fence, a bed of kohlrabi (wood), and the potato patch ("North" garden) right in front of the house.  Swiss Giant Pansies and dahlias in containers on the step.  Dandelions everywhere.

A Russet potato plant in the freshly-hoed patch!

The "South" garden, also right in front of the house, with Anasazi & Beurre de Rocquencourt beans, sage, nasturtiums, cucumbers, green onions, red cabbage (transplants), broccoli (transplants), and cauliflower (transplant) planted.  The tree furthest to the right is a crab apple in bloom.  In the foreground, containers of Sunspot sunflowers.  Wooden containers to the right have Watermelon radish and various greens planted in them.

Indeterminate tomatoes, peppers, and rain barrels along the side of the house.  (Better Homes & Gardens material, this is not...)

At the back of the house: tomatoes, corn, a young apple tree, Sweet Siberian melons (maybe...I have lost track of what kind of melons I've grown...could be Cream of Saskatchewan instad!), and Sugar Pie pumpkin planted.  The flowering tree in the back alley is a crab apple, a different kind than the one on our front lawn.

Assorted greens:  Pac Choi, Red Oak Leaf lettuce, Perpetual Spinach, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, Mesclun mix, etc.  Also weeds in there, but I'll have to let things grow a bit more before pulling anything out.  I don't want to yank out lettuce and leave the dreaded pigweed.

Oh, my.....it just started to POUR.   :/   We already have 23 garbage cans of varying sizes that we use as rain barrels, one actual rain barrel, and a number of buckets  - all are full of water and could have been filled once over again.  And now more rain?? 

At least I won't have to water anything for a while.