Garden Friday

 It's Garden Friday again 
and we have been trying to stay cool.
We've had unusually warm temps (in the 90's) for May,
and the garden is responding.
The news from the garden is good and not-so-good.

 The Yukon potatoes don't seem to mind the heat,
tucked in their wire baskets and insulated with straw.
We're hoping to plant our sweet potato slips
this weekend in our newly built box.

Freckles lettuce variety

We are still able to harvest some baby lettuces.
Part of the hugelkultur bed is shaded,
so I'm hoping this will help us to keep growing lettuce for a while longer.

 While most of the chard has bolted,
this rainbow variety is still looking good.

The snap peas are completely spent,
even though I only got a couple of weeks' harvest from them.
The plants were sown in February, they just didn't do much until recently.
It's been a strange spring growing season.

 And, ugh.  
The worms and slugs have found the broccoli and cabbage leaves.
I didn't think I'd get to harvest either one, as it's been too hot,
but was hoping that I could salvage some leaves for salads.
Uh, I think I'll pass...

I have to say, I am a bit discouraged with the poor germination on some crops,
and others that are being eaten before they have any size to them.
It seems that summer, with its heat and bug issues
has decided to arrive early.
Ah well, it comes with the territory.

On a brighter note,
we were able to add some free mulch to the pathway
leading to the arches in the garden.
It was good to get all that cardboard covered.
The free stuff is used as a foundational layer,
and the pretty stuff goes on top.
This saves us some money on mulching.

gaillardia

 The flowers in the butterfly bed are starting to wake up!
The pollinators have been enjoying all the blooms
almost as much as I have.

 The first of our sunflowers has opened in the front porch bed.

 The black-eyed Susan has really filled out this year
underneath one of the crepe myrtle trees.

One of my all-time favorites is the coneflower, or echinacea.
There really could never be enough of these to suit me.
One tip I recently learned is to place your pollinator-friendly plants
in clusters of the same variety.  This makes it easier for them to find plenty of food.
Anything we can do to help!

Look at this curious critter we found on our new storm door.
It's an American Ermine moth,
which can be found in Canada and the Eastern United States.
This was our first spotting and it stayed on the door for a long time,
even though we opened and closed it to get the shot.
Nature is forever teaching us.