And some morning fog to start the day after too many days of unseasonable heat.
I got sick of handling the little six-packs of peppers and basils and decided to go ahead and plant them in the garden a little over a week ago. I didn't have any grass clippings for mulch, but I did still have some bags of maple leaves I'd collected last fall, so I ran over them several times with the lawn mower until I had a wheelbarrow full of nice-sized pieces to perfectly mulch the newly planted beds.
After a lot of tedious work, I had planted and soaked down two beautifully and thickly mulched beds so that on these hot days the ground wouldn't dry out quickly, and any little weed seeds that sprouted would be smothered.
Well done!
Until the following day, that is, when a scirocco from the Sahara blew all day long. This is what it left:
Better than nothing, I guess.
These beds had okra in them last year, and when I added a couple inches of compost to them, I left the old okra stubs and roots in the ground. My idea was that I could easily plant peppers and basil in the spaces between the roots, and the roots would rot away, amending the soil. It turns out to have the added benefit that it's something of a deterrence to moles going through under the surface. This is a huge plus. The little pests almost wrecked the lettuce patch this year. It looked like they were having a party under there, and the plant roots were getting pushed up and losing contact with the soil, and then wilting. I had to keep going out and tromping on them to get them back down. Of course, tender little lettuce plants don't like to be trod upon.
Finally, I have a red-stemmed rhubarb plant! After only thirteen tries. Here's the story: I found it at Springwater nursery. I had to pay $10 for it, too. It better live. The variety is 'Canada Red'.
The potatoes I tossed into the compost pile are coming along.
The second round of lettuces is coming up between the first rows, and I've got more lettuce than I can handle, despite the moles. I'll be giving away bags full.
That freezing weather we had the first two weeks in April did a number on the pea germination, reducing it to about 20% of what I planted. They're producing pods now, but I don't think there'll be enough for a harvest. They will just have to be one of those things that I eat raw while I'm working in the garden.
I planted the lima beans on the 12th, figuring they'd be perfectly happy in this early heat, and they emerged four days later. Normally, I would be planting limas after the peas had produced all they were going to and I pulled out the old plants, which last year was the first of June. This year, they'll be in there together for a while. That pathetic stand of peas certainly won't crowd the beans.
Left side of arc: 'Improved Maestro' bush peas; right side: Henderson's Bush lima beans
Speaking of beans, the runner beans I planted next to the cucumbers on the trellis are being attacked by something. I sprayed them with neem oil, which is a natural, all-purpose insecticide, miticde and fungicide. Since I've not seen what's eating on them, I'm hoping this will mitigate the damage. It's not nearly enough to interfere with the plant growth (yet), but the reason I planted them there was to grow over the trellis and look pretty. They're beginning to confirm my suspicion that this might just be a jumbled mess instead.
Whoever is eating on the beans doesn't seem to be interested in the cucumbers.
This arrangement is definitely going to take some serious management and vine training.
I haven't had any luck with the melons I've tried before, but this French Charentais variety ('Savor') looked so good in the description that I had to try it.
I've put three plants on the compost pile with no support, and three in the garden proper, which I caged beside the yellow zucchini. (I had to buy the zucchini, as the year-old seeds I planted failed to germinate.)
I hate putting up the cages, because they detract from the beauty of the garden, but once the zucchini plants grow up into them, they get covered with foliage, and picking the fruits is easier than if they're on the ground. Also, they don't seem to get so many squash bugs. Here's hoping the melons will benefit from the cage as well. It's going to be a little tricky to remove the fruits, though, since they're not going to fit through the cage wires (hopefully!).
The cabbage row is growing large, and somebody is already eating it. I don't know for certain who it is, but since a likely culprit is cabbage worm, I'll need to start applying Dipel, which spoils the beauty when you use it in powder form, but that's all I have. And the melon/zucchini cages have already spoiled the illusion that this isn't a vegetable garden.
The purple Zi Su (Perilla aka shiso) is a disappointment. The description of the taste said it's a cross between mint and basil. I guess that's a fair description. But the leaves are kind of hairy, and I don't like that. Maybe it doesn't like this terrible heat, because it always looks kind of droopy. I won't be planting it again, but the Baker Creek description mentions using it for color to make pink rice. I might try that. In fact, the strange flavor might just be a good one for rice.
(That reminds me - sidetrack: I put some peeled hard-boiled eggs (brown eggs) in the liquid from my pickled beets, and within a couple of days they were a beautiful dark magenta all the way through the white and a little way into the dark yellow yolk. I should have taken a picture of the slice. Very pretty. Fairly tasty. But then I put some in the liquid from a jar of Kalamata olives. After three days they were a not particularly attractive color, but boy, did they taste delicious.)
OK. Out of the vegetables and into the cut flower and rose gardens.
This is not what I was expecting from the Gaura (also purchased from Springwater):
The foliage is gorgeous, and that flower color is amazing (until it fades to a pale pink), but I was expecting the flower to be borne on a tall stalk, swaying in the breeze. Maybe this is just an artifact of the bizarre weather we're having and the first flower production of the season. I'll find out with time.
You just can't beat this 'Sparkling Sapphire' baptisia (purchased last year from Helmi's) for show:
But you can match it with this pink lupine (grown from seed purchased from Baker Creek, overwintered from last year):
A watched pot never boils, nor does a watched flower ever blossom. I've been tracking this giant allium for days. It's pretty cool the way it's unfolding, though.
Check this out: I collected marigold seed last fall from my plants that had done so well. Since I had three or four different varieties, I tried to keep the seeds separate. I figured it was a long shot they'd come true to the parent plants since they were all close together and expected at least some crossing. What I didn't expect was that the cross would produce a plant that had two different varieties on the same stalk!
When I saw this, I thought I'd simply gotten two seedlings growing together that appeared as one, but those two flowers are branched off the same stem.
I've seen trees and shrubs that have been grafted to have more than one variety of fruit or flower, but I've never heard of a plant doing this on its own. In theory, at least as far as my education goes, those flowers should be similar to each other, if not to the parent plants, but for one to be completely like one parent and the other completely like another parent is something I've not heard of. I'm eager to see what the continuing blooms look like.
Always something surprising when you're growing your own plants.
Fingers crossed for more rain. And a little cooler days would also be nice. This isn't July.
'Karl Rosenfeld' peony and dark purple bearded (German) Iris
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