Flowers, Berries, and All Things Good & Beautiful

At last the garden is growing like it means it. Beautiful flowers, vegies, berries. Tonight I enjoyed carrots, lettuce & green onions from the garden. I'm ready to do my third batch of raspberry jam. The flowers are lush and rich. I love summer!

We had a couple of days of serious wind. The good news? No trees down - guess the weak ones were taken out in the terrible winds last summer. The bad news- my delphiniums were blown over. So... now I have a beautiful bouquet of the ones that couldn't be propped up. There is nothing so blue as delphinium blue.

Closeup Photography

With digital photography you can crop pieces out of a bigger pictures. I've had great fun doing that with some of my flowers recently.

And Finally, the Sun

I was comparing last year's garden photos with this and it's depressing. Fewer than half the beans I planted came up and only four of the peas came up!! So I did a questionable thing - I put some more seeds in. Who knows if I'll be able to put them up this year, but at least I can say I tried. How do you determine what has gone wrong? Was it the rain? The lack of sun? Bad seeds? Bugs? Poor soil? At least this year it doesn't seem to be the deer. So far. There is definitely a kitty using my soft garden dirt for a sandbox. I pssssted it away a few days ago. The scarecrow sprinklers don't scare my dog and do seem to get me in the butt when I forget they're on, but they've worked on the deer for the last two years. I'd better get them out now that the sun will get things growing.
With all the complaints, I have some beautiful flowers growing and my raspberries are loaded.
An explanation: The rose photos were taken a day apart, July 4th & 5th. The first rose is a Christopher Columbus and that's my first one this year. Particularly interesting is how the Jacob's Robe changes in a day from bright yellow and deep orange to the soft pinks & yellows. I love it! My dear friend Carol has Northland Rosarium and for my 60th gave me a dozen roses! My yard is loaded with beautiful roses that come back every year because they were started from their own roots. If I ever move, I'll have to take them all with me because I couldn't leave them behind. Check out her site: NorthlandRosarium.com. She's also on FB if you want to check out the Rosarium there.

Summer is finally here

The tulips and bleeding hearts have come and gone, the irises are almost finished, and the peonies & delphinium are here or on their way. The garden is valiantly trying to emerge inspite of the rain. It seems a few rays of sunshine are very encouraging. :D Here is some of the beauty of the season...

A New Season

I haven't done anything on this blog for awhile. Winter takes it(gardening)right out of me. I replace my spade with a snow shovel. This was an easy winter - unlike the previous two years- and I only had to shovel my deck once. My wonderful neighbor who plows my driveway only had to do it once. It was almost not like winter at all.

However, it's May and time to get back into the swing of things. I'm making some changes, reducing some beds, increasing and adding others, and preparing the garden for seeds. I can tell you, I have some serious sweat equity. Sunday I played rototiller - I don't have one so I had to be one. I know about dirty, tired, and sore, but the front vegetable garden is about ready. The back garden is calling for attention now. Some serious advice - don't let the grass and weeds get started - it is SO MUCH EASIER to prepare the soil if you don't have to dig out those evil crabgrass roots and dandelions. And as you're digging them out, you sow the new seeds for another great crop of dandelions.

Friday I turned into my driveway after a loooong week and was rewarded with the vision of an already mowed lawn. My other wonderful neighbor (I do have wonderful neighbors :])had his riding lawnmower out and kept right on going clear over to my yard. All I need to do is the grass paths around my garden. What a blessing!

On Being Thankful

We're coming up to the beginning of what is known as The Holidays. I guess Thanksgiving is the first of them, but it seems that the stores have skipped it and moved directly to Christmas. I was the host for P.E.O. Tuesday night and discovered I was out of napkins as I was gathering things together. I ran to the only grocery store we have in our small town thinking I would purchase some cute Harvest/Thanksgiving paper napkins. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when there was not one single Thanksgiving anything anywhere. So... I bought plain white napkins. Then I looked at my artwork realizing I haven't done anything at all in the way of Thanksgiving or harvest. I have lots of photos of the harvest of my garden. I'd better get some of that committed to paint, don't you think?