First harvest

We had a yummy salad made from this lettuce and spinach tonight. It was SO very yummy and I kept looking at the bowl and admiring how very green the lettuce was. The lettuce is a head of Parris Island romaine, and the bottom pic is a small bundle of spinach from the same bed. We all enjoyed our first harvest very much.

More roses

Misc leaves and blooms

Anyone know what this is? I think it is just a weed, but not sure...

More peonies

Main Garden Tour 2

Main garden from outside fence

Swiss Chard, peppers, herbs, marigolds

Corn

Paste tomatoes

Tomatoes, cauliflower, carrots.

Tomatoes.

Pole beans (like my teepee?)

Bush beans

Zukes

Peas

Cukes

By the driveway

The rose beds, herb garden and a hill full of daylilies are all on the perimeter of the driveway. They are in desperate need of weeding and TLC right now, but here are pics of today for comparison later.
This St. John's Wort is up on the hill near the daylilies.

Rocks and daylilies are hopefully going to prevent the landslide of this slope into the driveway. The daylilies are just now getting buds on them.

This is the very sad herb garden. I have chives, parsley, mint, bee balm and a big huge comfrey plant that I pruned way down but is still a monster. I need to start using it for garden tea fertilizer but haven't yet. I also offered some to friends and need to dig some up to give to them. I am considering transplanting it somewhere else since it is so large and invasive. Useful and pretty though!

These are the comfrey flowers.

The rose garden. See the calla lilies poking up on the left front? Most of these rose bushes are very young. On the right side is heather and dead nettles. Ignore the big pipe in the way... and all the weeds.

"Back of house" plant pics

These are the things that are planted behind our house. This is a fairly neglected area, it is pretty sloped but I hope to plant more there in the future. It gets good afternoon sun and isn't horrid soil.

Kiwi vine that had been growing for several years. I pruned this way back in late winter and it seems to have liked it. I need to get back there and train it up an arbor, similar to a grape vine. Need to build an arbor first though!

This is the female kiwi vine that I planted for the other side of the (yet to be built) arbor. I know this one is female.

This is the male kiwi vine. It is evidently rather pretty when it blooms. I am hoping that the other two are females. It takes about 5 years until they have matured and bloom and you must have a male and a female in order to get fruit. The fruit on these cold-hardy ones is smaller and smooth (not hairy). I look forward to one day enjoying them!

This is the rhubarb. It was doing quite well - until Tom mowed it down. I showed him where it was but had not marked it and the grass had gotten kinda high and it was getting dark when he was mowing. Oh well, I think it will survive and I put brick around it for now. I am looking forward to a good harvest next year if not this one!

"Small Garden" Tour

This is the "small garden". We have not yet gotten the fence around this one, hopefully tomorrow. I am hoping to add 2 blueberry bushes soon to the center of this garden, and the vines should fill it up and climb the fence once it is there.

This is the L-shaped bed that has now been planted with (closest to farthest) 9 yellow crookneck squash, 4 sugar baby watermelon, 4 moon and stars watermelon, 6 amish muskmelon, 4 sugar pie pumpkin and 2 big max pumpkin. The wood you see sticking up behind is the potato bed.

Domestic blackberry, the largest of the three and is in the corner nearest the L-bed.

Second largest, in center of fence wall-to-be.

Smallest of the domestic blackberries, in corner near asparagus bed.

I didn't get a pic of the asparagus bed, at the end near the gate -
it is a long, deep bed that is showing no signs of asparagus yet! :(

This is the potato bed. There are about 7 vines coming up, I am going to add straw as they grow and hopefully be able to easily harvest the potatoes at the end of the season. I have never grown potatoes before, but hopefully this above-ground method works!

Next time there should be a fence and hopefully blueberry bushes, and some weeding done.

Peony blooms

This is Tom's favorite flower. We have 2 bushes, 1 white and 1 pink. The pink has not bloomed yet, but is very close. We were able to save this bush and most of the blooms by putting a tomato cage around it after the dog(s) trampled it. Having a puppy has been rough this year on our plants!

"Cool Weather" Bed update

I just came in from weeding the "cold bed" which is what I have been calling this one tucked in next to the front porch. The big plants in here were started indoors months ago, the smaller ones were started from seed a few weeks ago. I have two plantings of lettuce started at different times so that we can eat salads from them as they are ready. I was out around lunchtime and some of the bed was in shade (the good pics) and some were in glaring sun, so pardon the poor pics on a few of these. I am pretty pleased with the lettuce and broccoli! :-)

Lettuce - 2nd planting.

Spinach.

Kale.

Collards - a bug seems to like munching on this...

Cabbage.

Lettuce and Broccoli plants.

Peas climbing twine trellis.

Broccoli head just begun.

Lettuce - about ready to pick!