The start of two very beautiful eggplants

courtesy of my Dad.

A fall like weekend

With the temperatures right around 60* all day today, a slight breeze, and a sky full of clouds it reminds me more of fall than July.  So we did some weeding and mulching today.  Here are some pictures of the garden.

Hydrangeas, peppers and broccoli

We planted some bare root hydrangeas in the spring but some didn’t make it so when we were at the farmer’s market yesterday we picked up three potted hydrangeas.  Here are some pictures along with a picture of one of the bare root plants we planted.  The flowers are a little droopy probably from the shock of transplanting.

We harvested broccoli at my dad’s house today.  It looks beautiful and is a bit more tender than the stuff you buy in the store.  We also harvested some hot peppers today.  At first I thought they were serrano peppers but looking more closely I think they are cayenne.  As I read more, I see that we could have waited to harvest them.  Some say they are best at this stage.  Others say to wait until they turn red.  If you plan to dry and ground them, I think they need to be red.  I’ll let you know how they are.

I sit in the sunroom listening to the chirping of the chipmunk.

We now have sprouts ready to eat!  I look forward to enjoying a tasty sandwhich for supper tonight.

 

The top level is radishes which were started 4 or 5 days ago.

The second level is a sprout seed mix..

The bottom level is the mystery sprout seed (the sprouter came with a trial packet of some type of seeds).

 

 

 

Below is the mystery sprouts.  They were started two days ago.

 

 

Here are the mystery sprouts.  They were started 4 or 5 days ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My hot peppers look incredible.

My oregano is in full bloom.  It grows like a weed.

My lemon tree has blossoms for the second time this year in addition to the two lemons.

The marigolds have started blooming.  I can’t believe how big this plant is.  It’s at least as tall as my lemon and orange trees.

The last of the three trumpeter vines has started blooming.

I’m not sure why I’m sharing this last picture with you but the area behind the garage has grown out of control.  I just need to get rid of some of the weeds so that black raspberry plants that are now growing there have space.  I didn’t plant black raspberries back here they just traveled from another area of my yard.  This would be a great space to let them grow though.

I love sprouts…

but they never seem to sell them anymore.  It seems everyone is afraid of salmonella.  So you wouldn’t believe my excitement when I saw in the catalogue for Jung a way to grown your own sprouts.  Here is what I purchased.  And here are a few pictures.

Day 2

Day 3

Check out these incredible photos my dad took of his garden

I don’t think these photos even need captions.  They speak for themselves.  Enjoy!

A hot and muggy summer day with the sun shining

We had $70 worth of gift cards and coupons for Stein’s and so made good use of them.  Paul was such a great help planting.

We added some Ostrich and Cinnamon Ferns to our slowly growing fern patch.  You can see the Lamium (Purple Dragon Spotted Nettle) around the ferns.

We went looking for some hydrangeas to replace the couple that didn’t make it but they were so expensive so we decided to hold off.  We did add some Pachysandra Terminalis Green Carpet (Green Carpet Japanese Spunge) to that area as ground cover.

A hydrangea is in the middle with the grown cover on either side.

I planted three pots with flowers.  The seeds I had originally planted in those pots never sprouted.  In two pots I planted Evolvulus Blue Daze and Nemesia Aromatica White.  In a third pot I planted Petunia Double Red Madness and Gazania Big Kiss which are incredible looking flowers.  I was also shocked that 20 minutes after I planted the Gazania a huge blossom opened up.

I also planted some mums.  This last winter was hard on our mums and only one and a small piece of another survived.

I planted two new herbs in pots where the seeds hadn’t sprouted:  Lavender Lady and Lovage a celery like herb.  The lavender is the top one and the lovage is on the right of the middle row.

Our black raspberries have grown wild.  Two summers ago a friend gave me two black raspberry plants and now they are all over and they taste so good.  Here is one small section of them.

Two of our three trumpeter vines are in full bloom.  The bees and hummingbirds love them.

The cone flowers are just starting to bloom and the perennial garden I planted this year is doing well.

In my topsy turveys my tomato and pepper plants are looking incredible as is the basil growing out of the top.

I’ve got some beautiful hot peppers that will soon be ready to eat.

I picked a cayenne pepper from my dad’s garden this weekend and ate that in a burrito of sautéed veggies and refried beans.  For such a tiny pepper, it really had a lot of heat.

These pots may not be pretty but our bearded dragon and turtles will love the collard greens.  This is our second batch of collard greens and is doing well.

The convoloulus has just started to bloom.

I trimmed off the old sage and new growth has started.

I’m hoping my egg plant does better this year.

I love the daylilies that bloom along our driveway each summer.