Needs lots of moisture to germinate, and can take several weeks. I'd give the bed a sprinkle every day you're there (unless it rains).

Planted two large tubs of basic culinary herbs on the back deck Saturday. I think I'll add a third and then figure out how/where to plant some produce.

The wisteria pergola is showing multiple blooms for the first time. I'm so excited.

Wisteria pergola last summer.

No rows, no border. That would be much too regimented for me.

I just put a few bricks in the ground, and planted the peppers, etc alongside them.

Found this in the garden yesterday. It seems so exotic for California!

Not satisfied with hand-painting his beans, Steve began defacing the beasts that roamed his garden.

Blue tailed skink...sometimes nature's colors are truly amazing to me.

Evelyn, you continue to amaze me--the things you know!

Our garden is skinkless, but a big ol' skunk sauntered by Mr. Fly this afternoon.

Boom-de-ahddah, boom-de-ahddah, boom-de-ahddah, boom-de-ahddah...

Will you satisfy my inner garden geek, and elaborate on the varieties of your beets, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, and cukes?

Thanks, Mora.

We have our first tomatoes setting on the vine, on 'Matina,' as well as tiny squash on four of the different squash plants. The 'Litchee Tomato' has quadrupled in size, and already has big thorns. Those will be interesting come harvest time.

Here is a shot of our top three tomato plants, under the southern eave.

Left to right: Northern Lights, Southern Pride, and Green Giant. They have lots of flowers and are very happy in that spot.

I accidentally raked a wee garden snake. They are sort of fascinating.

I had a cow bird fledgeling (sp?) following underfoot.

I pulled grass where it wasn't to grow and planted grass seed where it was supposed to be.

I fought the strong efforts of the weed trees my neighbours have.

I spotted many a sow bug.

I loathe the chemical, but need to erradicate the sows. And beatles. And ants. And grubs.

The sawing today was amazing cardio.

Actually yesterday, but more of the same will happen today.


Mr. Fly put down the soaker hoses and the red mulch, then planted the tomatoes. This year we are just planting Early Girls.


Some help from the Mantis tiller. Some peppers await planting.


A little reward for the gardeners.

Just the name makes me hungry!

Looks like you are under control and ready for a good year!

Update in the runners in a pot:



Before and after/ last week and today


The fields are alive with the sound of beans growing!

So, non-bean grower question...how much will those plants produce?


ETA: The ones in the field, not the pots.

That's part of the point of the trials. but an an acre commercially grown can yield about 2k pounds up to 5k.

I'm giving some scarlet runners one last try. For some reason, they don't want to grow in my garden upstate. What else can I plant that will climb up lattice rather quickly?

morning glories? And then when you greet them in the morning, you can say, "What's your story, Morning Glory?"
Things could be worse.

I have clematis growing up lattice in one spot, I was hoping for beans or maybe peas? Maybe a bean that would work better? I don't know. At this point I have to find something that's already a start/plug - not gonna start from seed. But let's be optimistic. Maybe the scarlet runners will surprise me next week.

My herb pots shot up 3-6" in one week!! Parsley is nearly 10" high, the mint is rampant, the tarragon, chives, rosemary, basil, oregano, sage and thyme are already looking very promising. I added watercress last weekend. I need to add tarragon. The pots are about 20 feet fro the kitchen on the back deck, so when I am cooking, I can pop out with my little scissors and clip clip clip. Hannah and Thanny were tasting the leaves from the different herbs last weekend. Hannah might have eaten the entire chive plant if I hadn't stopped her.

Nice to see that all that snow finally melted.

It's too late for me this year, but my friend, Cynthia (whom I refer to as "The Tomato Curator"), up at Love Apple Farm, wrote a piece on her blog about how SHE plants a tomato. The preparation in the holes are probably as important as what you do to the plant(s) later.

This is a photo I took last autumn in Cynthia's hoop house: the tomato plants are easily seven feet tall or more. (The visitors are Peter and Gwen Jacobsen, who are Thomas Keller's farmers.(Robert41: you remember them: you sent me on the chase up to Yountville to visit their farm a couple of years ago, with Cynthia.)



Simplified instructions at the tomato sale:



Bob didn't follow these directions, but next year I'm going to do my best to do so: we need worm castings, fish heads, aspirin, and more. On the other hand, we can't put three feet of space between each plant, not if we want twenty kinds of tomatoes. And still we have flowers on about half the plants, and I've recently begun to trim off the lower branches with no flowers. The party's about to start! (We have tomatoes on the vine, and picked our first baby squashes last night. So fun!)

Besides clematis and morning glories, what other thing(s) can I plant that will flower and climb pretty quickly? I'm in Zone 6.

Sweet pea (annual), honey suckle (perrenial), mandevillia (annual).

http://www.garden-services.com/mandevilla.htm

http://www.aboutvines.com/honeysuckle_vine.shtml

http://www.naturehills.com/catalog/Vines.aspx

http://www.naturehills.com/product/lemon_lace_vine.aspx

I'm telling you, scarlet runner take less than 2 weeks to look pretty good.

I have tried to get them to start 3 times, and it ain't happening.

Less than 2 weeks

It's that Napa sunshine that does it.

What size planter is that? Is that there permanent home or are you transplanting?

The Rhododenrons started to bloom. The big ones (20 feet high) will be open fully by next weekend. The bed of hybrids I planted five years ago finally decided they like the spot and have rewarded us with glorious blossoms. Irises and peonies may be open I'll take photos next weekend.

How do you keep the deer from eating up your rhododendrons?

Woah it is hot out there. Planting climbing roses on one set of trellises, a couple more clematis on another set of trellises - man oh man those root systems are strong on the clematis! Put in red and green cabbage (bought starts at the farmers market), some more peppers, eggplant. Everything is looking good. My one lonely scarlet runner bean plant is very happy. Let's hope it gets along with the climbing rose. My wild rose bush is HUGE, and all the peonies are looking great and about to pop.

Now it's time for a swim!

I planted all 11 remaining raised beds today, and that included raking in bone, blood, and cottonseed meal and carting several wheelbarrowfuls of compost to a few. I'm toast.

I still have half a bed free to play with – thinking about planting Savoy and/or Napa cabbage.

A while back (post #606 to be precise) I mentioned a tulip that had appeared in our garden here it is with the standard one alongside it, the dandelion is purely coincidental.

I spent all afternoon pruning and deadheading our lilacs, and I am nowhere near done. This is my own damned fault because I have put off doing it for several years and they are a right mess. But now I can barely lift my arms, which made drinking my martinis damned difficult. After a snack of Champfleury and duck rillets I feel much better spiritually.

I did also manage to tie up one of my currant bushes, but I couldn't bear wearing long sleeves long enough to do the other one.

RTBC: the shallots and potatoes are starting to poke through the mulch, and we replaced the English cucumbers that the #$%^&&*( cutworms ate while we were on vacation.

Dandelion epidemic this year. We spent hours today digging the fuckers up, patching the holes, putting down grass seed and peat moss, and watering. And there is a whole lot more to do. I'm thinking we should get a spreader and get serious about this. The weeds, clover, and crabgrass have taken over.

Gardening RTBC: the poppies have bloomed, and the peonies are about to, and the gladiolus have peeked out. And the arugula taste good. And my little cucumber plants seem to be hanging in there.

Eyebrows is so dirty he looks like mudman.

My postgardening spiritually uplifting snack: strawberries with sour cream and sugar.

i planned to do our lilacs all weekend never got to it and now we have a thunderstorm, so i guess i'm off the hook. this may be the year to hire a gardener...

Mr. Fly is definitely not bringing those knees to bed without some serious scrubbing. I actually hosed myself down at one point today (no, video is NOT available).

Our peonies are also just beginning to bloom and the poppies are delightful. The irises are continuing their show and the gazanias are a daily delight.

"Feed me, Seymour!"


I'm free! I'm free!


And freedom tastes of reality...

June 6th is when our peonies, irises, laurel, climbing hydrangea and rhododendron open, and the petunias and bougainvilla get hung from the pergola. It's my favorite time in the garden. Everything is fresh and lush.

(Cont'd)

Lovely pictures everyone, both photographic and descriptive. Our poppies got hit by the rain but this season's winner so far has been the Viburnum opulus (Sterile) which looked like this before the rain came :



close up:

A new Papaver Somniferum 'Drama Queen' does not perform as billed, alas, though its colors are intense. It's a single-petalled variety, and the heads are small. (Heads are useful when dried, as they can be ground and made into an analgesic tea that is quite pleasant when consumed. Dreamy, even. And perfectly legal.)



And not as high as an elephant's eye, but our first bed of sweet corn is growing nicely. I don't know what kind this is: it's whatever yellow we grew last year, that Bob saved.



I want to document it over the summer by having Logan stand in the background. Here he's making a big smile out of his bow. I guess the corn is about knee-high on him.

Okay, it's NOT cutworms. Something penetrated the little mesh cages and the tin collars Mr. Fly erected around the new cucumber plants and ATE THEM OVERNIGHT.

Mice maybe, or rabbits.

Rabbits are a definite possibility. There are several around.* Could also be squirrels. Darned discriminating though; they have only eaten the English cucumbers.













*They are all named "Stew."

raccoons? between squirrels and raccoons we've given up on having a vegetable garden.

Could be skunks too or another GD groundhog; no end of critters really. But they have left the tomatoes and peppers alone.

Mercifully they have also left the flowers alone. I love the columbines, horned or not.

Shy


Bold

wow! i'll have to try those. i need more white flowers

Some friends were over yesterday, touring "the grounds" and one, who is a serious gardener, was shocked by my lack of weeds and was sure I was spraying something naughty. After a lot of back and forth, we realized the difference was she has horses and uses the manure directly on the ground and it's must be loaded with seeds. She said, "It's not so bad. I only have to weed about 20 minutes a day." Fool, woman! I haven't weeded yet since i put my things out on 5/15 or so. She gets her her fertilizer free and I spend about 50 bucks this year. But 20 minutes a day! And she says the nuisance weeds are deep rooted grasses.
I think you can add the horse manure to a compost and if it gets hot enough, it kills the seeds but what a bother.

one of my tomato plants has tiny holes in the leaves closer to the soil. i did what any green-friendly, organic gardener would do and bathed the plant in toxic pesticides. then i laughed loudly and drove my humvee over the neighbours' kids.