7/19/2009, what's happening in the garden

the weather this week has been wonderful for gardening-except today with the rain. the temperatures were perfect for doing the drudge work-weeding! sunday was perfect, not too hot and not too humid and very comfortable to work in. we were surprised by chris hackenbrack, she came out to work in the garden and from the looks of it, she pulled many, many weeds. so, many thanks to you chris! we appreciate the help and we enjoyed the company as well.

if you come out to the garden, you will be surprised by so many things. the flowers are beautiful, the vegetables and herbs are abundant and so are the bugs and weeds. we are amazed every time we work in the garden and lately, we are well fed too!

those #%*@ harlequin bugs!!! between them and the caterpillars, the cabbage doesn't stand a chance. we will be removing it!

a close up of the nasty little buggers.

the cherry pepper plant is covered with peppers; ripen, ripen, ripen...

we have picked many cukes and enjoyed lots of salad! darry makes a cucumber salad with rice wine vinegar, sugar, onions, peppers, chili flakes and herbs that is very tasty. between these and the ones in our garden, i am almost tired of them!

do you hear that? it is the perennial garden crying for help. "save me, save me" it cries as the weeds take over.

i love the color of the rocky top coneflowers, the photo doesn't do it justice though

a pretty painted lady in the perennial garden

"help me, i've been spurged and i can't get up..." cried the perennial garden

beautiful grapes in the arbor. i picked a few and i am going to attempt to make a bread starter with them and all of the natural yeast on the skins, wish me luck!

please come out and join us on sundays, if the starter works, there could be fresh baked bread to sample!

7/12/2009, what's happening in the demo garden

once again, darry and i were the only people who showed up to work in the garden. it's sad but true, our fellow master gardeners have abandoned the demo garden once again. i had hoped that the small group of volunteers that worked with us in the garden before the big field day event would continue to come out and help us maintain the beds. i can only send out so many invitations to work with us before it becomes annoying. so, if you are in need of fulfilling your certification requirements, please consider coming out and joining us on sundays from 9am til...

a beautiful swallowtail in the butterfly bush

the hibiscus plants that are part of a study on japanese beetles

a close up of a hibiscus bloom

day lilies

the edible flower bed is just full of blooms; nasturtiums, borage, basil, dianthus & snap dragons

a bumble bee and a green bee on a purple coneflower bloom

the asparagus long beans are doing well and we have picked a few beans

a close up of the beans, they are about 18" long

they also have beautiful blooms

the enabling bed is bursting at the seams with flowers

just goes to show you that despite the problems with the sawflies, the hibiscus is blooming beautifully

more bees in the cosmos

a skipper on a zinnia bloom

the joe pye weed had to be propped up, it must have been blown down during a storm

our garden needs you! if you can give us some help, we would appreciate it. hope to see you out there soon.

if it's july then it must be time for ...(fill in the blank)

let's see, coneflowers, cucumbers, basil, and critters of all kinds just to name some of what we saw in the garden this week.

bumble bee on a coneflower

this bee brought along a friend, at the bottom of the photo

all three flowers are on one plant-so colorful!

an early pepper and an odd one at that

somebody please send the caterpillars packing, they are making lace of the cabbage

that sound was the collective groan of gardeners everywhere-harlequin beetles have arrived

all of the many basil plants were in full flower so you know that i had to put a stop to that!

pretty pretty (small and wormy too) peaches with some thai basil

the arugula was in full bloom too until i trimmed it back. after picking all of the leaves from the stems, we had a huge basket of it. i sense a big salad in my future

also in my future, a cucumber and dill salad. the cukes are coming in now and the dill was in need of a deflowering to keep it growing for a while

more basil than you can shake a stick at. we made some lovely pesto and we still have more than we can use

the perks of being the only two volunteers who work in the garden-unlimited supply of herbs and other treats; fresh picked cucumbers and peaches are two of my most favorite things about summer. consider coming out and working with us, you never know what you might end up taking home!