Garden Friday

 

 

Welcome back to Garden Friday,

where we share what's happening on our homestead.

 

Don't you just love echinacea?

This summertime bloomer just fills my heart with joy. 

Here, it happily skirts one of our crape myrtle trees.

 

The front porch is bursting with blooms

including Black-eyed Susans, marigolds, milkweed,

salvia, Shasta daisies, and even some leftover pansies from winter.

We have volunteer milkweed each year springing up in this bed,

and this year I potted some up to give away on Craig's List and Next Door.

 

The pollinator bed near the veg garden is filling in.

The irrigation really makes the difference here.

All of these plants are drought tolerant,

but by keeping them well watered, they really thrive.

There are several sunflowers beginning to make their ascent into the sky.

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A friend gave me some cardboard, so I used it

to line the sides of the chook run.

It will be covered with mulch, so that weeding won't be necessary.

 A neighbor gave me some bamboo he wasn't using,

and I fashioned an "A-frame" on which to trellis the beans and cucumbers.

The vertical element makes the garden more interesting, no?

 

The strawberries have now been hooked into the irrigation.

They have not produced fruit for a couple of weeks,

so I'm not really sure what's going on with them.

 

These scapes were found on some of the leek and onions,

so I cut them off to use in cooking.

Until I saw these, I had only heard of garlic scapes.

All being in the allium family, I guess it makes perfect sense.

 

Speaking of garlic,

the yearly harvesting of this crop took place earlier in the week.

Although we had a good amount of bulbs,

the size of the bulbs was fairly disappointing.

 

This is what our garlic usually looks like at harvest time,

but we only had a dozen or so that reached this size.

Most are smaller bulbs, and one good thing about that

is that they are easier to fit into the garlic press.

We're happy to have another year's worth of garlic curing in the garage.

 

The sweet potatoes got planted as soon as the garlic was pulled up.

We amended with some compost and worm castings,

then tucked our home-grown slips into the soil.

Having started early enough in the season led to plenty of slips to plant.

 

Just for fun, I also planted two of the potatoes from which we grew the slips

into the raised bed.

It'll be interesting to see how well they grow.

These were organic sweet potatoes I had gotten from our Misfits order.

 

Another two whole potatoes were planted in buckets

right next to the sweet potato bed.

Another experiment, because, why not?

 

The melons are looking mighty sad.

They seem a bit anemic, although they have been fed once already.

This is one crop I try to grow every year, without much success.

I'm not giving up though.

This may be my focus crop next summer.

Each year, I pick a crop to really dial in and learn how to grow well.

 

The onions are looking better.

A few weeks ago I was noting that they had not formed large bulbous shapes,

and this week it seems that they're coming along.

I also learned a secret that I'll share next week

about how to get them to really plump up.

 

We'd gone to the IGA near our house to pick up a few things

and I took the opportunity to purchase a couple of bags of this mix.

I had seen it the last time we were there and thought I'd give it a try.

It's half compost and half cow manure.

I thought it would be the perfect material to try in my flower beds.

 

What great timing on our part!

The day we went, I spent some time browsing their plant selection.

How could I not?

I was hoping to pick up a few things to add to my flower beds.

When I went to check out,

I asked if the plants were discounted,

as they looked a bit peaked.

Unbelievably, the gentleman gave me the whole kit-n-kaboodle!

I sure wished I had filled my cart to the top!

 

 Here's what some of them looked like 

when I took them out of their pots.

Poor souls.

They should be mighty happy once they get to spread out a bit.

I simply cut the bottoms and teased the roots.

 

 

I planted out three bushel baskets with my treasures.

Here are the materials I used to fill up the baskets.

 

There were enough plants left over from my haul

that I was able to add a few more to several flower beds.

A little goes a long way!

 The volunteer sunflowers (thank you, Mr. Squirrel!)

along the chook run are sizing up, despite the lack of rain.

With any luck at all, we are supposed to be deluged later on

(I'm writing this on Thursday afternoon).

These plants will not only add a bit of cover and shade,

but will supply the chooks with tasty sunflower seeds

(if Mr. Squirrel will share).

 

 

Me and this sweet boy will be spending the next little while together.

I love taking care of him while his folks are away.

I will make an effort to write up a few posts

for the time I'm away from home,

but I make no promises.

If things are quiet here,

we're busy playing.
 

Here's hoping your garden is blessed with just what it needs.