The Yearly Cleaning

Today I got around to cleaning the garden gate. Once a year, after everything in the garden finally gets planted, I have the time to give the front gate a good scrubbing with a biodegradable soap and water. Over the coarse of a year it gets coated with dust, pollen, and dried grass from mowing. I never notice quit how dirty it gets until I clean it. Then its "mystical blue" paint from Home Depot just glows! And on the inside, my treasured glass dragonfly got a good cleaning too.

Tuesday Garden Update

Its hard to believe that this is the last Tuesday of the month. As we approach the end of July, the gardens are really starting to mature. I still haven't been able to harvest anything from them yet, but there is a lot of potential out there!

Here are some tiny fruits of "Black Plum". All of the tomatoes in the vegetable garden have set fruit now, with the except of "Momotaro". Since this is the first year that I have grown that variety, I don't know if it is always late to set or if it is just being ornery.

A row of "Mars" red onions. They bulbs are really starting to fill out now.

The first two set fruit on the Gypsy" pepper. There are a lot more blossoms on the top of the plant.

An underneath view of the "Yellow Patty Pan" summer squash.  It is amazing to see how many squash this one plant is going to produce. I think I am about one week away from harvesting the first ones.

And the Winter Squash are growing fast too. Here is an immature "Butternut" fruit on one of the vines.

Down in the big garden, the "Canoe Creek Colossal" Cantaloupe is starting to open its very first blooms.

The "Bingo" Pole Beans have just started latching onto the support tower in the last two days. This tower of beans seems to be much happier, and doing much better, then the exact same variety up in the vegetable bed.

I took this picture just this morning of morning glory "Milky Way".

Last, but not least, here a picture of a bud of dahlia "Nicole C". Of all my 199 plants, this will be my first bloom of the year. Let the show begin!

Wordless Monday

The Third Rose

There are three roses down by the big garden. The first two are located right by the garden gate, inside the deer fence. They are June bloomers and for the most part are done for the year. The third rose is located outside the garden gate, about twenty feet to the left. It is in an area that I think the former gardener Dorothy had some sort of flower garden many, many years ago. In the Spring Scilla bulbs pop up in the underbrush and bloom. And every July it is the rose's turn. It has been completely surrounded by blackberry vines over the years. I have only a general idea where its main crown might actually be planted. Each year it sends new canes arching out of the berry patch, searching for sunshine and elbowroom. This year all of the rose canes are buried within the blackberries and I had to go searching for my yearly blooms. At least the deer don't get them this way!

Saturday at the Farmer's Market

Today Beth & I made it down to the Farmer's Market. We tried to get there a bit earlier because it is suppose to hit the mid-nineties today. We started with Breakfast. Beth opted for a breakfast burrito and I got a Pain au Chocolat. Once we were well fortified, we hit the stalls. We pulled together a wonderful, all-local dinner. Fresh albacore, new red potatoes and sweet corn.

It really felt like Summer today at the market. Both the hot weather and the arrival of all the warm weather crops. This was a beautiful  display of basil.

And lovely slicing tomatoes. This stand had two huge piles of them, that were being quickly snapped up.

I was most excited to see the sweet corn! That means Summer to me. This was a white corn and 3 ears went home for dinner. It didn't have a variety name. The two other farms that had corn were both selling "Bodacious", the commonly grown sweet corn in this area.

Berries continue to be abundant at all the stands.

Green Beans have arrived as the Peas fade out for the season.

These bundled "Chipollini" Onion were so pretty and a rare variety to see for sale.

These "Early Laxton" Plums were almost gone. This stand also was sold out of the first peaches and apricots.

These were the first peppers that I have seen for sale this year. Another sign of Summer.

Locally grown cantaloupe. No small feat there. Very impressive, especially this year!

Flowers at the market have transitioned to mid-summer varieties as well. There were lots and lots of beautiful lilies in bloom, both oriental and day-lilies.

And you can't talk about Summer and plants without having lavender in the discussion.

The Barn Swallows - Part 2

Ten days ago, I posted about our many swallow families that we have this summer. Just this week, most of the Violet-Green Swallow babies have left the nests and the houses are now empty. The Barn Swallows, however, are still feeding and growing. And we learned in the last week that we don't have 3 babies like we thought- but there are 4 as you can see. The beautifully crafted nest that seemed so big when the parents built it is now filled to the rafters. Yesterday afternoon I discovered 2 of the babies out of the nest, 1 on the ground. Thankfully all 3 outdoor cats were inside at the time. I grabbed a ladder and after a bit of chasing returned both to the safety of the nest. Hopefully they have learned their lesson!

A New Tree - Sort of!

Back on June 6th, I took part on a wonderful bus tour to 3 unique plant nurseries. At Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island I found this great little Acer and decided that he should come home. Luckily it just fit in the storage area underneath the bus and made it home unscathed. Sadly, for the next 7 weeks, it has lived in its big nursery pot. Almost every day we put it out into the sunshine and at night it has returned to the safety of the shop. Finally, after weeks of planting my gardens and other distractions, we got it in the ground last night. Unfortunately, like all new trees on our property, it will need to spend its first couple of years "behind bars". The deer are just ruthless to young trees, eating all of the leaves and rubbing the bark off the trunks.

Here is what its nursery tags says; " Acer shirasawanum ' Aureum' A lovely full moon maple with a similar habit to that of Acer Circunnatum, the vine maple, but more tolerant of sun - all but full afternoon sun - with delicate golden leaves that tint orange then become vibrant orange in autumn, the tree growing to  8-10 feet in time. Decent drainage and regular summer water for best appearance. Frost hardy in USDA zone 6. " I am most excited about its Fall color potential. We have planted trees now that give us great Fall red and yellow color, but we need some orange - my favorite Fall color!

Blackberries - An Update

I was on a walk this morning and noticed that the wild blackberries are for the most part done blooming. Now most of the flowers have been pollinated and the berries are starting to mature. We definitely won't be having any July berries like we do every once in a while. I am hoping that our wet late May and June will translate into larger berries. Every raincloud has a silver lining!

The Big Garden Inventory 2010

For last week's Tuesday Garden Party post, I gave the inventory of the vegetable bed up next to the house. Today I will give a complete inventory of everything growing down in the big garden. As you can see in the above picture, what this garden lacks in sunshine, its setting makes up for in beauty. It is situated on a gentle, downhill slope. Behind the back fence and the rows of ash trees is a large seasonal creek. The garden is surrounded by a 6 foot deer fence with 2 feet of barbed-wire on top of that. What really makes this garden special is the fact that I am its second "caretaker". The original owners of the property, Howard & Dorothy, gardened here their whole married lives so someone has had a garden here for at least 60 plus years. It's a neat thing to be part of that continuity.

As you enter the garden, the first five rows have bush beans, cut flowers and tomatoes. The poor flower seed was planted so late I don't have a lot of hope for blooms this year, but we shall see.

The large middle section of the garden holds the dahlia plants. It feels so good to have them all planted now and growing well.

At the far end of the garden I have my pole beans, cantaloupe, squash, and morning glories. So here is a recap of everything planted this year:

Seed

Bush Bean (58) - "Hutterite Soup" - Seed Savers Exchange

Bachelor Button - "Polka Dot Mix" -  Hume Seed

Zinnia - "Persian Carpet" - Renee's Garden

Cosmos - "Kneehigh Sonota Mix" - Renee's Garden

Pole Bean (17) - "Bingo" - Territorial Seed

Cantaloupe (4) - "Canoe Creek Colossal" - Seed Savers Exchange

Winter Squash (6) - "Chimimen" - Territorial Seed

Plants/Tubers

Tomato (1) - "San Francisco Fog" - Log House Plants
Tomato (1) - "Orange Blossom" - Log House Plants
Tomato (1) - "Moonglow" - Log House Plants
Tomato (2) - "Valley Girl" - Unknown
Tomato (2) - "Taxi" - Unknown
Morning Glory (1) - "Grandpa Ott" - Log House Plants (gone due to rabbit!)
Morning Glory (1) - "Blue Star" - Log House Plants
Morning Glory (1) - "Milky Way" - Log House Plants
Morning Glory (1) - "Crimson Rambler" -Log House Plants
Morning Glory (1) - "Scarlet O'hara" - Log House Plants
Morning Glory (1) - "Sunrise Serenade" - Log House Plants
Mina Lobata (1) - "Jungle Queen" - Log House Plants
Dahlias (199) - misc varieties

A row of "Hutterite Soup" Bush Beans. They seem to be doing ok in the shade.

A look down the dahlia rows. Two plants of "Creekside Volcano" are front & center.

The "Bingo" Pole Beans. Although these were planted weeks later, they seem to have almost caught up with the same variety planted up in the vegetable garden.

A hill of "Chimimen" Winter Squash. I really love the look of their two-toned leaves.