Sunday, June 28, 2009

Sunburnt, Bug-Bit, and Filthy; or Fun in the Garden

So, yeah, in the last few days we went from temps in the 60's to temps in the 80's. Yay, Summer. The transition was a little rough - no time to get acclimated at all. Sweatshirt and jeans to tank-top and shorts meant I got a tad sunburnt. As in, glow in the dark... Ouch.
But lots of garden chores got done, in between swatting various vampiric insects. I weeded the leeks, the beets, and the strawberries, planted basil, transplanted basil, planted parsley (which I had forgotten to do earlier), more beets, and more swiss chard. (The latter two had germinated poorly the first two times I planted. I'll just keep trying...) I also distributed a large batch of bunny fertilizer. (Gee, that was fun.)
Madman kept busy, too, finally getting the garden tractor running. He has another tractor that he's using for parts - in a few more years, I think it will have completely disappeared, as it gets absorbed by the "good" tractor.

Here's a view of the inside of the hoophouse - our tomatoes are blooming! (And oops, there's grass growing along the edges next to the plastic. More weeding when I get a spare moment.) Big change from my last pics.


The Vermont Cranberry beans are coming along nicely. Jean's Beans are visible in the upper righthand corner of the pic.

This is a volunteer potato growing in the path next to the bed where I planted basil today. We have them here and there all over the garden. (No matter how thorough we are in digging potatoes, we always miss a few...) (And considering this is the 3rd year we haven't planted potatoes, it's astounding how many we're getting...)


Madman got cages put on the tomatoes AnnaMarie gave us. Those little green things growing everywhere are triffids tomatillos. I'll be weeding them out soon.

One of our hills of cucumbers. And yeah, more triffids...

And, in flower news, and because I really really like lupines, here's a view of our lupine bed. They're especially pretty this year.

6 comments:

Anna M said...

Gorgeous! My tomatoes are growing up quickly but not flowers yet. I was going to take pictures today but with the monsoon and all it will have to wait.

Norma said...

Fab! Let summer commence!

Diane said...

I thought I was done planting for this year but your lupines are whispering "You want me" in my ear.

Sigh.

Off to the nursery.

Leigh said...

Nice lupins! So, where did you get your cranberry beans and what are they like?

pacalaga said...

you don't like tomatillos? I lurve them. I tried to grow them once and had a million blossoms, then we went out of town and the housesitter didn't water the garden, and...
I picked two reddish cherry tomatoes today. (I don't have any bird blocker up so when I notice them, if they don't have bird pecks in then I hustle them inside.)
I love lupines too. I've never seen any but the smallish wild ones that grow around here. Yours are beautiful.

Laurie said...

Beautiful lupines! Everything is growing gangbusters, except for the things that like it dry. They are rotting.