End of August Garden Bounty

It's been a relatively lazy weekend around here, and fortunately I have one more day to savor before back to work, which --as you may have guessed-- has been pretty busy for me the past two weeks. I've got a brief respite before another wave hits me full force again. So, as a small personal reward, I basically allowed myself a relatively slackerly Saturday and Sunday (though I did get caught up with laundry, no small feat there).

Thus the leisurely tone for tonight's post ... since Fernymoss has to work tomorrow, we did a bit of grilling to honor the weekend's official wrap up of Summer (though we're still hoping for plenty more warm weather to come for at least a while). So, in that spirit, this will be a basic "look and see what I saw" tour around the back.

I'm sure no one noticed the first shot did they? 'Sun Showers' is back in bloom again, after a brief rest, and wow, it's as eye popping as always! I'm really not regretting having forked over the big bucks for this plant now ... it's been a steady and profuse bloomer most of the summer... how could anyone quibble with walking out back and seeing a few of these screaming Heeeyyyyy look at me! You know when you're looking at such a fiery flower and realize that the coolest color in the entire bloom is hot pink, you're dealing with truly over the top Hibiscus! We absolutely love it, and will be taking meticulous care of this and 'Erin Rachel' this winter... they both deserve the pampering....
This shot is just one of the several (at least) progeny of Punkinstein, who is still trying to conquer the entire garden, and we keep putting him back on the ground ... that is, until he sneaks out of bounds again. We haven't been able to inspect the total sprawl of this plant for pumpkins, but we're sure they're in there hiding somewhere... while he was shooting this one, Fernymoss also discovered a much smaller one set on not far away from this one, which is the largest we've yet found. We're getting excited about them hanging on all the rest of the season so we don't have to buy any this year, but again, time will tell....
Let's venture down into the corn patch ... here you can see one of the many Zinnias we have planted in various spots around the veggie garden, and more importantly, a few ears of corn nearly ready to be picked just behind it. I think that this Zinnia, one of the 'Cactus Bloom' varieties we had mixed in with what we planted, is a particularly pretty one, but then I'm slanted to the fire colors, so take that as you will. Anyway, this shot serves two purposes: to illustrate a bit more detail of the corn patch and also to show a bit of brightness amongst all that green....
Today was our first harvest of the corn, and we picked 6 ears, of which we kept 3 and gave 3 to our neighbor behind us ... but what she's really looking forward to is when we have more ripe tomatoes, uh huh! Well, so are we, so I'm hoping that some of the myriad green ones out there start ripening a bit more quickly, but then again, given the weirdness of this summer, we're lucky they're still growing so well! As long as we can keep the warmth up in September, I think we should be in luck, because I have photos that remind me that in past years, I've had a bumper crop of tomatoes into September, so again ... patience is still difficult at times....
Finally, here we have an arrangement of just what we brought in from the back garden today. We're a bit disappointed in the onions, because though most of the tops had died back, they just aren't very big, but they'll certainly get used all the same, and some chopped onion may well go into the burgers I am planning for tomorrow's grill fest (along with my usual, trusty companion, A-1 Sauce). Obviously, these are the 3 ears of corn we picked and consumed within about 2 hours ... as well as some of the tomatoes we got today. These need about one more day to ripen inside, and then BLTs are going to be on the menu, and I finally got the bread, bacon and lettuce today ... one of those summertime pleasures I've yet to experience this year, and we're both looking forward to it!

On tonight's menu: Marinated Pork Tenderloin (with El Rey hot sauce, A-1 and Dijon Mustard), along with sweet corn of course, and some sliced fresh tomatoes I picked a few days ago. Aside from the pork, everything else came from the garden .. finally! In years past, we would have had such a meal weeks earlier, but given that none of the veggies got planted until almost late June (Memorial Day in May is usually my cut off for planting), I think we're heading into a bit more of the feast part of the cycle. Except for those pathetic peppers of ours. We had a work meeting the other day, and I asked one of the women there (who has a huge veggie garden out in the country) how her peppers were doing. She replied (just like everyone else I've asked) that hers were the worst in years, and she wondered if she'd get any at all. I don't know what it has been (erratic weather? that's a good scapegoat) this year, but no one I know has had any success with them. Ours are starting to perk up a bit now that the worst of the blast furnace heat has abated a bit, but I have no expectations that we'll see anything significant. More likely, they'll get their second wind right before frost and put on tons of tiny, useless ones not worth harvesting. That is, unless we have some minor miracle combination of warmth, cool nights and frequent rains, I've just about written them off. Next year I may just elect to plant them all in pots and try that again (I used to have great success with that when I first lived here and had very limited space). How disappointing ... I used to be reputed for making the greatest fresh garden salsa, but again, this year, that's unlikely to happen, alas.

There are good garden years, bad garden years, and then there are the downright bafflingly odd ones, and this year seems to represent a good exemplar of the latter. But tonight, we dined well from the garden, so we give thanks for what the earth has given us so far, and look forward to more for at least a little while!

Photos taken August 31, 2008, Hibiscus and Veggie arrangement by IVG, Pumpkin, Corn and Zinnia shots by Fernymoss.

Garden Update: We're Making Progress!

This weekend, Fernymoss and I finally had a weekend off together and we vowed to really dig in and get areas of the garden(s) cleaned up and planted with some of the plants we've already purchased who have (mostly) been patiently waiting to be planted..

Somehow, though, all that ended up requiring another trip (and shopping spree) at one of our favorite garden centers (at one of the local Hy-Vees of all places!). They're starting to mark down their stock drastically (like 50%!), so we picked up a lot of bargains and 'hadn't thought of' additions. The biggest bargain by far was the price of their peonies ... back in late May we had picked up 3 'Karl Rosenfeld' peonies for the sweet price of $9.99 each and those just got put in the ground in the past few days. The real eye-popper today was that they still had a great selection of peonies, now at the bargain basement price of $4.99! The plants were still in great shape, so how could we pass this by? So ... we bought 4 more! We got another Sarah Bernhardt, (pink) two Felix Crousse (red) and a Duchess de Nemours (white), all of which were planted within two hours of their arrival at Casa IVG. They are now well watered and settling into their new positions, just on the other side of the fence from their cousins who've already bloomed. So the total for this year is 7 new peonies, now happily planted! Yay!

And those weren't the only things that got in the ground (finally) this weekend. Alas, where we were planting wasn't merely a matter of just digging holes and plugging them in, no ... due to all the rainy days and nights when we couldn't get anything done, the weeds came in and engulfed many areas of the various gardens. So, to plant anything, we had to weed heavily first, so out came the usual weeds (lambsquarter, dandelions, wild lettuce, etc.) then the violets underwent a mass uprooting. Our philosophy is, they're taking up precious Woodland Garden space and so they need to give up the room to more worthy (I know, that's a mean thing to say, but still ...) plants waiting for their spots to grow.

Fernymoss was concentrating entirely on the far end of the Woodland Garden, not only getting in the peonies, but also planting our new Ligularia dentata ('Desdemona,' the red one), the two new Pulmonarias ('EB Anderson") and 3 Torenias we bought earlier. He's still going to move some of the more intrusive Ostrich Plume ferns in as well, but the emphasis this weekend was getting the potted newcomers in first. He also got the new 'Voodoo Lily' (Arum cornutum) bulb my sister gave us in, so it will be joining in with Mr. Stinky next year, (though it probably won't bloom its first year). So, things are looking much tamer (there's still work to be done) in the far end of the Woodland Garden now!

Yesterday, I focused partly on the Hibiscus and Butterfly Bush bed, which I had just cleaned out and planted a couple of weeks ago. It needed another good weeding, and I was disappointed to see that almost all of the seeds I had planted (granted, they were seeds from last year) hadn't come up at all. So I weeded, replanted Nasturtium and Four O'clock seeds, along with 3 new Flowering Kales who were patiently waiting to get plugged. I staked up the Blue River hibiscus (it always has to be staked, because it grows to about 7 ft every year!), did general weed patrol and then called it a day and watered it well, because it tends to be the driest of our individual beds (it's in the parking next to our neighbor's driveway). I watered it again tonight, so it's in good shape until the next watering.

I also worked pretty diligently in the veggie and herb bed I started behind the house a couple of weeks ago. I had mentioned in a previous post how overgrown it had gotten through neglect last year, so initially I had to "claw" my way through before any of the peppers and herbs could be planted. I spent an afternoon clearing it all out before planting our peppers, a bush 'Celebrity' tomato (which already has 2 small ones forming), some herb seeds and 3 new Thymes and 2 new Sages. Well, the peppers are doing fine (we have 3 jalapeños already) so far and growing ... I had planted a rough row of Zinnias behind them as well, and most of those came up, but where there were gaps this weekend, I filled them in with new seeds to complete the backdrop of this bed. I also stuck in some 'Alaska' Nasturtium seeds in a few bare spots as well, since those cucumber seeds I planted didn't do anything (they too were old). The Basil seeds I planted are doing fine (now that they're weeded!) and you can see their progress in the second shot posted. We did pick up a couple of larger plants today as well, but those are headed for the back veggie garden with the rest of the tomatoes, onions, the corn and pumpkins and other Zinnias.

As for today's purchases at half price, I also added a 'Bulgarian Carrot' pepper, which is reputed to produce 3.5 inch long, fluorescent orange and "fruity and pungent" peppers. On a previous visit, I had looked at them and negligently passed over them, then later regretted my decision. Today, however, they had one left and I snapped it up and then planted it in with the other peppers (in the first shot, it's the furthest to the left, back behind the Jalapeño. It joins its other cousins, the Yellow Bell, 'Cherry Bomb' and 'Cubanelle' peppers, and on the far right of the first photo you can see the more familiar 'California Wonder' bells, one of the more generic peppers I like to plant. In this shot (gardener evident in shadow ... these are not 'art' shots, they are documentary), you have probably noticed something 'oniony' looking ... well, we found LEEKS today and I couldn't resist ... Thanks to my time in France, I've really come to love them and have never seen plants for sale before, so I had to get 6 of them! And with the total coming to a whopping $1.50, I couldn't pass them by, since when you can find decent leeks in the store, those huge monstrosities they offer often cost more than that for one ... so now I can have my very own organic ones to harvest whenever I deem them ready to pull! And I've never grown Leeks before, so I'm especially excited to have some of my own to eat come later this summer ...

I also replanted the area where I had sown Italian Flat Leaf Parsley seed, because nothing but weeds came up in it, so I bought a fresh pack of seeds today and got those in as well as a few Nasturtium seeds in front of one of the new recently planted Thymes. We also got a Purple Sage today which joined the herbal party, along with a 'Munstead' (the only one that seems hardy for us) Lavender we had previously purchased (back in late May) which are now settling in and well watered. You can't see those in these shots, but they're there and to the right is a still weedy area in which we plan to put Hollyhocks (there are already some seedlings), Zebrina Mallows and a few other plants, such as a Gaillardia, 'Blanket Flower,' because most of our others have seemed to disappear since last year. We also plan on seeding this area heavily with Moss Rose and putting a few of the sun loving plants from the front garden to complete this entire bed, which is only about 3 ft wide by 30 ft long (the length of the house) and ends at that back yard gate. Yes, it's a relatively small space to pack this much in, but the intent was to get the peppers in some less fertile soil (they just don't produce in the back garden where there is so much rich compost), as well as getting a kitchen herb garden (Basil, Parsley, Cilantro, Chives, Thyme and Sage) as depicted in these shots.

I hope this all turns out according to plan, and that we have plentiful peppers, leeks, tomatoes and herbs, all with a backdrop of colorful Zinnias to complete the effect. This area gets plenty of sun most of the afternoon and even late in the day, so we have great hopes for it this year! Last year we just ignored it and it turned into weeds, mint and trees, which have since been eliminated ... it's past time it become productive again, and that is the goal for this summer! I think we've got a good start on it, and I look forward to providing periodic updates over the summer, so stay tuned, as they say.

The back veggie garden is looking good too ... the tomatoes are growing nicely, the Zinnias are up, the onions are thriving, and the corn is up about 3 inches now and looking like corn. My only regret is that we've not found any of the 'Bush Cucumbers' we usually like to plant. Oh well, we still have asparagus roots to get in this year, so I guess we'll get by. Seeing asparagus will be more than an ample reward, even though it will still be a couple years' wait to start harvesting it!

Obviously, more to come on this subject ....