The Potager.

It's been slow going in the potager beds without much rain. The top dressing of horse manure and pine shavings dries out quickly. I'm watering nearly every day just to keep the soil below moist. A good hard rain is in order. Still, things are growing. Even the okra has germinated.

Most of the beans are up. I replanted one teepee this morning with asparagus beans. The flat Italian beans did not come up. I blame the squirrels.



Squash.



Cucumbers.



I planted nasturtiums throughout this bed to protect against squash bugs. Along the front edge, I've got dwarf red ones. They should trail over the front once they get going. Along the back with the cucumbers, I have a vine variety. They will grow up the same trellis as the cucumbers to a height of around 6'.



In the three lower beds, 53 tomato plants have survived. One just shriveled up and died. I think I'll have plenty.

Black Krim



Green Zebra



It's 64 degrees and sunny. I've given everything a good deep drink of water from the hose. The high today should reach the 90s again. The chance of rain for Saturday has been removed. We are now under a fire watch as humidity levels will begin to fall overnight.

On the windowsill in the kitchen, the first roots have appeared on my variegated hydrangea cuttings. I'm rooting them in water. The cloner needs to be cleaned soon. None of the camellia cuttings made it. A few salvia have rooted. All three butterfly bush cuttings survived. I'll be taking a look at the rest of the cuttings soon to decide if they just need more time or should be culled.

9:48am - It's 73 degrees. I sowed a few more seeds today, trying to clean out the seed box. Coleus has finally been sowed. They should germinate quickly with the heat. In the garden, a few new things have appeared.

Buds on achillea that were wintersown in 2008/9.



Clearance purchased Tennessee Coneflowers. Planted last fall in the crape myrtle bed.



Wintersown in 2008/9, White Swan has a bloom and many buds.



Clematis Etoile Violette





Off to work in an hour.

Oh yeah, it rained.

I wasn't here to enjoy it, but the storms over Charlotte were loud enough to wake me up last night. I was visiting. When I arrived back home this morning, the 3/4" of rain we received had sent everything into overdrive. There's a lot of new things popping up now that the ground is wet again. The gully has a lot of surprises.

Tomatoes and castor beans.



Squash? Or cucumber?



Of course there's datura.



And pokeweed.



Mimosa tree seedlings are all over the place. I'll let a few grow. They can get out of hand with the reseeding.



In the garden, Pride of Barbados survived being planted out weeks ago and receiving very little water. It should take off now.



Petunia seedlings. That must have been one virile specimen.



Cucumbers and beans are up in the potager.





I'm finally going to plant out some tomatoes. More showers in the forecast this coming week.



Near the basement door, the fragrant bed is germinating great. Four O'clocks, datura, and what I hope are nicotiana seedlings have grown since yesterday. They like the rain and the horse poo.



I'm starting to be very happy with this corner of the perennial bed. Last year it was a mess of struggling plants. It's a dry semi-shady corner with very acidic soil from years of oak leaves. I spread wood ashes all winter and transplanted a few shade tolerant perennials this spring. It's filling in nicely.



It's 72 degrees and windy. More rain possible this afternoon and evening. I'm going to plant out a few things today, at a very leisurely pace. No reason to rush.

Some photos from today.

I didn't get my entire list accomplished. I spent almost 2 hours visiting with neighbors. I took them each a yellow and a white brugmansia. I have six left to plant. Somewhere.

A new columbine has opened. The seeds were labeled "yellow". It's powdery blue. I like it.



Oxalis.



Salvia greggii. Does it realize it's a fall bloomer?



The first Dutch iris.



The view while weeding.



Nandinas. The color is so vivid.



Red clover.



The new birdbath. I need to find smaller stones to add to the bottom.



The dead oak tree is cracking apart.



Looking back.



Bath pink and yellow oxalis.



Baby hosta.



That didn't last long. "Screw you, I'm outta here."



The view from the swing. I did sit a spell.



The view from the hammock, for LeSan.



It's sunny and 73 degrees. I probably increased my water bill by $20 today. The beans, cucumbers, squash and various herbs were planted today. Nasturtiums were sown in the upper potager. Basil was sown in the lower beds. Tomatoes will have to wait. They aren't ready just yet for transplanting and separating. I know a few people who will be receiving the extras in a couple weeks.

New blooms

The squash and cucumbers I planted several weeks ago in the perennial bed are blooming. I hope to have a late crop of both. I wish I had taken cuttings of my tomatoes like I had planned. I just got lazy.



The first brugmansia has cracked. Shouldn't be long now. I think this one is yellow, maybe white, possibly orange. :)



Yesterday was a miserable day. It was in the mid 80s with upper 80% humidity. It never did rain. 50-60% chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms again tonight. It's 73 and mostly sunny. Humidity is already above 90%.

Sam, my former boss from 5 years ago, called this morning. He needs help with a project. I agreed. There are still some things I can do that they cannot. It shouldn't be more than a few hours of work in Photoshop/Illustrator. It's like I didn't have enough to do already.

Parents came up last night. My dad was looking at a new lawnmower at the store. After seeing the prices, he decided to see if he could get his repaired instead. They brought me a new toy. It's a leaf blower/vac. They couldn't find the bag, but I can rig something up. It'll come in handy this fall when I have all those leaves from the remaining trees in the yard. Time to make my own leaf mulch since the landfill is still not giving it away.

Harvest

Today I harvested the biggest haul yet from the potager. Since mid June, I've been eating fresh tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. All told, I've probably picked and eaten +/- 40 tomatoes of every variety, a dozen yellow squash, and a handful of butterbeans. I ate those beans right in the garden, raw. They were delicious. Hopefully I'll get enough for a 'mess' before summer ends.

Today I picked butternut squash, some more cucumbers, and a lot of tomatoes.



After having sampled all the varieties, I'll not be growing San Marzano again. These roma tomatoes are the mealiest, nastiest, blandest things I've ever eaten. Grocery store tomatoes are better than these sad things. My favorite is a toss-up between Green Zebra and Celebrity. The beefsteaks, while impressive in size, really haven't been all that tasty. Burstzyn is a good tomato too, but way too small for my appetite. It takes 6-8 to compare to the two cucumbers I chop, salt, and add a splash of white vinegar to. That's my kind of salad. Rutgers are just starting to ripen, and they're okay. I think all the rain we had this spring and the drought of the past few weeks has really taken a toll on the flavor and consistency of the fruits. I've been watering, but tap water only does so much for the veggies. It appears that even with 31 plants, I won't harvest enough to freeze or can as much as I wanted. I'll probably depend on my parent's huge plantings to get a couple 5-gallon buckets for that. I need a new plan for next year.

From other areas of the garden, I moved three Red Texas Star hibiscus plants that weren't getting enough sun. They're in the shrub border now. The vitex got planted too. I also moved the New Zealand flax into this bed. One loropetalum died, so it got tossed. I didn't have high hopes for it anyway. Poor thing struggled all summer last year, then nearly froze to death over the winter. Yanking it out and moving it when it was 95 degrees probably didn't help.

Vitex



Red Texas Star



A new double rudbeckia



The ugliest combination I've grown to date. The rudbeckia is brown, not orange. The camera lies.



I planted out the rudbeckia hirta seeds I summer sowed a few weeks ago. They had their second set of leaves and were starting to grow. Some went into the bed by the basement door where things seem to die as soon as I plant them. A few others replaced the dead geraniums near the mailbox. I pulled out dayflowers around the tree in the front yard and disturbed a yellow jacket nest. I didn't get to finish cleaning that area. Maybe this winter....

75 and sunny. Rain in the forecast Saturday and Sunday. I hope we get more than we did last night. While grateful, I need a lot more if I'm going to harvest any more tomatoes, squash, or cucumbers. The okra is blooming now.

Clearance

Everything must go, right? We won't discuss my personal life, but at the store, I spent the better part of the morning clearing out and pricing all the distressed plants. Some were things that had just been there too long. A little trim here and there, and it will mostly be good as new. I marked everything 50-75% off. As I was preparing to leave, my boss announced that any item on the clearance rack would be 50 cents for the next few hours. Fine. I brought home $7 worth of plants.



I got hardy ferns, lamb's ear, and two hanging baskets of gerber daisies (white, of course). I kept the tags with their actual name, but they're downstairs. I'm not.
The worst damage was to the ferns.



I got my clearance hosta and ferns planted in the north bed.





The gerber daisies were separated into 8 plants with 4 placed on the sunny side of the white bed, and 4 to the rear of the house.



I've got veggie sprouts in the potager. Beans



cucumbers



The asparagus I planted last week has grown a single sprout.



Tiny seedless grapes. Either Mars, Reliance, or Himrod. The tags got misplaced when I moved them this winter.



TOMATO BLOSSOMS!!!!!!!




The Potager



Over in the perennial bed, the knockouts are living up to their name even with only a couple hours of sunlight a day.





Linaria in 6-7 hour sun.



Black Eyed Susans are pushing up stems.



Poppies



Echinacea



Datura metel bloom about to open. I need to walk outside after dark.



Daylily seedlings. Collected from trades and along parking lot medians in Bethany Beach, Delaware.



True leaves on my dogwood seedlings.



And finally, a single solitary sprout in my Japanese Maple container. These were collected from Jackie's house in Virginia. I sowed them in mid-November. This one will be red.



5:50pm - Everything got some water. Planted out Sue's hosta too. Planted from the cloner: 4 Persian Shield, 11 petunia, and the third lantana. The kongmansia is just starting to push roots. I found more seeds for the white garden. The nicotiana germinated during my trip. I may save them for next year. I've already planted cotton seeds on the 25th.