Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Growing things

Marechal Foch a week ago

Marechal Foch today
Frontenac last week (just blooming)

Frontenac just setting frui


York elderberry last week

York elderberry today

Apples. Looking good, a little russetting but better than bugs

The leftmost Edelweiss, putting on some berries.

Morning Glory

Some petunias to match the house

Its growing!  Beans are newly up as well

Weeds!  And a few plants.

I can SEE the corn.....mostly.

I forgot how tall potatoes get. What was i thinking?
I even have some volunteer tomatillos in there


Broccoli, yay!

Cucumber trellis up.

So many weeds, so little time outside.  But so much is growing. I'll have to look back a bit to see how it compares to last year. It will take me a few years to get a feel for the garden events like first ripe tomato, first cucumber, first bloom of squash....

Today i saw Japanese beetles and cabbage butterflies.  I'll have to break out the BT soon.

I think it might be time to pull some new potatoes in about a week.  If i remember what side i put the red ones on!


It hit 90  degrees today, supposed to stay warm tonight.  Great growing weather!

Weather

THIS is the time of year when 6 foot snowdrifts sound soothing!

When the idea of putting on a swimsuit and going out to the back yard to make snow angels sounds like a fabulous idea.

I melt at 75 degrees.

88 with 100% humidity is almost unBEARable for me.  Thank God for air conditioning.

The garden is looking well.  Marechal Foch is clustering and the berries are growing more rapidly than i imagined they could.
I'll have to get pics.

But i'll do that when the sun comes up.  I'm having a sleepless night, but i have to try to sleep.

2 am and 65 degrees out, its the mugginess that does it. But 65 degrees means plants are growing.  I forget the actual calculations, but the numbers mean good things.

i just need to kill Colorado potato beetles and striped cucumber beetles tomorrow when i get pictures,  they are everywhere.

I started to put up the cucumber trellis, but didn't have time to finish. I had bought another 6' fence stake (the metal ones) thinking i needed one more for the grapes, then realizing i didn't need it ( i had also bought 4, 4' wood stakes without understanding how i was going to attach the netting to them) since i had no more full-sun space to plant that red seedless grape i bought last year (that i now have in a 5gallon pail)...  so i pulled one of the end stakes from the grapes so i could put that up for the cukes with the new stake (follow?)...  the metal stakes have hooks,  i can just hang the nylon netting on them.  I needed to pound them in with the mini sledge that we have, so i didn't get to it.  The posts are pressed into the ground as far as i could get them with bare feet....   so i'll pound them in later so i can hook on the netting.  The cukes have grown by leaps and bounds in the last few days.  They looked pretty sad until just about today when i really got a good look.

Last year was weedy,  this year is crazy. I just don't have the time.  I spend about 2 hours outside each day,  but that time is spent enjoying it with my little one. Not weeding.  But the weeds are seriously getting away from me this year.
My corn made it to just about knee-high (by the 4th of July), but some of the weeds are more enormouser...

My broccoli is starting to bud so that is going well, cabbages are looking good. Things are going well so far.  No woodchucks (PTL!) so far and that is a major reason!  This year so far, my biggest trials were direct seeding that was fruitless and those peapickin weeds.