Compared to the rapid development that happens in my garden every March through May, June was pretty laid back. I got my new perennials planted along with the first round of vegetables. Plants matured and bloomed. Raspberries fruited, though there weren’t many this year and after I ate the first big handful I didn’t fight the critters for the remaining few. Toward the end of the month it was time for a vegetable change-out: garlic was harvested and lettuces were cleared. Beans and basil were planted.
Tomatoes and mini cucumbers should start to ripen soon. The plants are doing so well that I’m a little afraid of the jungle I’ll have by August. We’ll see what else July brings!
I never imagined exactly how much a feeling of lightness would come over me during the first weekend after the EPA subcontractors finished their work in my yard. I knew that I’d been feeling a lot of stress and anxiety. I knew that I’d been trying to keep my expectations for my garden low and that I’d decided to stay out of my yard till the work was over. I didn’t buy plants. My gardening activities were limited to removing all my art and digging up plants that would be in harm’s way.
My garden still looked good. The plants came up as usual. The subcontractors didn’t destroy any of my flower beds. Things were good. But, that first Saturday I came out and started working and I felt such joy. I brought the first of my garden art out of storage, and I went to a plant nursery and treated myself to a few new plants. It was a perfect day to garden, and at the end of it my empty planter was filled and some bright bits of artwork were scattered around. I felt like life was finally, truly coming back to my garden. As an added bonus, this first weekend came at the absolute height of the blooming of the honeysuckle along the back fence. The air itself was intoxicatingly sweet.
I’ve had several more weekends to work since then, and things have shaped up more and more during each one. Because there was a time that I feared my entire garden would be dug up and destroyed, I’d pulled out all of the garden art from across my entire yard. I’d also pulled out a variety of plants and had prepared to pull even more. In the end, I would not have needed to move as much as I did, so it’s taken longer than necessary to put everything back.
At this point, I’ve gotten around to every garden bed except for the bare earth where I hope to grow berries and vegetables once more. There was no getting around having this area horribly compacted, since it was the machinery’s only route into my yard, but now it will take work to make it good for plants again. I’m also trying to plan better so I can contain some of the things I had planted there but that had spread beyond my intention. Since this is one of the original parts of my garden, I’m enjoying the prospect of a little bit of redesign.
Meanwhile, CATS! The Ladies are absolutely lovely as ever. It’s so calming to watch them survey the world from their chair at the back door. Perry continues to get daily walks. He continues to enjoy checking out the EPA subcontractors’ heavy equipment. He continues to bite.
Meanwhile, it appears we officially have porch cats. They’ve appeared one by one over the past nine months. It turns out our neighbor has unknown quantities of cats inside her house and when the boys become too big a problem she throws them out (though she still cares about them and feeds them).
The boys had all kept their distance until Captain Scrappy showed up and claimed our side porch. Now he’s always here. He’s incredibly sweet and lovey, but he’s not very bright. He follows me around constantly in the garden and then rolls all over whatever I’m focusing on. He’s flattened my garlic and he’s terrible when I’m trying to put weed killer on the trees of heaven that are sprouting everywhere from tree roots wounded by the EPA-related digging.
Two of Scrappy’s brothers also hang out in my garden a lot of the time. We’ve managed to get all three to the Humane Society to be neutered, which Perry is very happy about. Their presence tends to ruin Perry’s walks. There are other brothers roaming around, though they’re less often in my yard, so this may be an extended project.
I’ve been busy lately, so I haven’t been posting as much, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been taking photos of my garden. Here’s a collection of some of my favorite moments around the garden during June. All of them are set up as slide shows, so if you click on one thumbnail, you’ll get to flip through the show.
1. Blooms and foliage in the perennial bed. First came the flaming astrilbe blooms, then the hostas. Hostas blooming below are the tiny “mouse’s ears” and my favorite “golden tiara” that has a beautifully variegated bloom that’s beautiful with the chartreuse leaves.
2. My brick wall garden continues to make me happy. The ferns, begonias, coleus, and sedums are happy, colorful, and beautifully textured.
3. Sedums scattered here and there around my garden.
Real human visitors actually standing in my garden! I’ve had quite a few of them lately and it’s been really, really fun!
If you weren’t able to visit my garden in person, here’s a virtual tour. I had the place looking pretty neat and tidy, if I do say so myself, though it was nice of the plants to cooperate with me! Particularly noteworthy was the honeysuckle, which was in full bloom for the garden tours. I wish I could bottle the smell and spread it over the whole year. It’s so sweet and joyful.
Click on any photo below to get a slideshow tour.
And a view from closer up (again, click on any photo for a slide show)…
My elderly cat has been enjoying the sights, also. He’s starting to have trouble getting around but still enjoys watching birds, getting rubs, and eating his fancy cat food. To make it easier for him to look out the back door, I gave him a chair. He’s incredibly happy about that.
Five years ago I started my garden. It’s grown beyond my wildest dreams.
In 2009:
In 2014:
In 2009:
In 2014:
To celebrate all that new growth, here are some images of this spring’s plants emerging (click on any one for a slide show):
I’m discovering that I went a little crazy planting lettuces and greens in my new raised bed. I was too excited by all the new possibilities that the extra space would afford me and now it’s ALL ready at the same time. John and I are doing our best to eat it before it expires!
We’ve done a lot of salads, John’s making green smoothies for breakfast and lunch, and I’ve got a great soup recipe that can incorporate giant fistfuls of all of these greens. We keep harvesting it by the bowlful and laughing because afterward you can’t see the spot where any is missing.
It all tastes so good. The list of what’s growing is:
Vates collards from Seed Savers Exchange
Cilantro from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Apollo Arugula from Seed Savers
Rocky Top Lettuce Mix from Baker Creek
Salad Blend Siamese Dragon Stir-Fry Mix from Baker Creek
Two weeks ago, my garden was just starting to show some traces of green. I left for the weekend and was amazed to find a garden full of whole plants when I returned!
Sprouts:
Japanese Painted Fern
Solomon’s Seal
Hosta
Leaves:
Astrilbe
Coral bells
Iris and astrilbe
Blackberry
tiarella
Japenese Painted Fern
Coral bells
Coral bells
Blooms:
Tiarella
Magnolia Far
Magnolia Near
Epimedium
A garden!
And the plants are doing well in the greenhouse, too!
The cold winds are blowing ever onward. We had another blast of very cold air last week and I noticed a particularly large flock of birds eating at my feeders. In this photo, I think I can see about 50 goldfinches plus a couple juncos eating seeds off our side porch and from the thistle feeder in the background (click the image for a larger photo and you can try to count them yourself). I resorted to spilling seeds on the porch just to have enough area to feed them all.
While it’s been cold, we’ve only had periodic dustings of snow–just enough to show the critters’ comings and goings around our house. I’ve been on the lookout for raccoon tracks, but (thankfully) haven’t seen any. There have been plenty of tracks from a couple marauding cats and, of course, all the birds.
There is  beauty in my brown garden.
This year I left the dry astrilbe seed heads and I like their addition to my winter garden along with the dried hydrangea flowers and assorted leaves still clinging to plants.
All the wind in the bare trees has kept my wind chimes in motion. It’s even been enough to activate the little bells that are part of the tree jewelry I made last summer. I got a new chime for Christmas and I’m experimenting to find out where to put it so it will ring. So far I haven’t heard it, so I’ll have to keep working on it. It sure looks nice, though.
Life isn’t only shades of brown, though. Inside my house I’ve got four orchids in bloom and one working its way toward a bloom.
One of the things I accomplished over the Christmas break was finishing my seed orders for the upcoming year. I spent part of a couple days flipping through the colorful, glossy, extra large photos of prime produce in my seed catalogs and reading the luscious descriptions of flavors and scents.
I resisted temptation this year: I only got a few more things than I can reasonably fit into my garden and I didn’t get any of my previous years’ duds, meaning no carrots, squash, peas, melons (well, OK, a couple melons), or spinach. This year I am going to try a couple varieties of the (super hip) blue tomatoes, so wish me luck.
Garden projects I’d love to do in the next year:
Create a pool of moving water for the birds
Turn the container garden area into a real raised bed
Paint the exterior of the house so I can finally create gardens where the painters will need to tread (I spent vacation time creating a way to test color ideas in Photoshop)
Repaint the blackberry trellis
Relax and Enjoy my garden space!
Activity at my bird feeder has picked up. Each morning finds 7-8 goldfinches hanging on the thistle feeder in their butter-kissed but drab winter attire. There are also masses of English sparrows, doves, house finches, and cute little juncos that Shamoo loves to watch. Several days ago the woodpeckers were out. In addition to one of the usual downy woodpeckers, I was treated to seeing a red-bellied woodpecker helping himself to some sunflower seeds.
Looking back at the past year, I put together videos reviewing 2013 in my garden. They’re a series of photos I took out my back door roughly once a week. I had forgotten that the houses across the alley from us were built in early 2013. The construction activity is one point of interest.
Squirrels and Tomatoes 