Summer garden assessments

As always, the garden is a combination of the good, the bad, and the ugly; what keeps you gardening is that it's never the same. Here in the upper midwest, the very wet June and July zapped many people's tomatoes and bush beans. TPP got lucky in using containers this year, and while the early  blight will forshorten the tomato season, right now the Phactors have a lot of tomatoes. Crab grass is beginning to make its way into our gardens. Ugly. Finally getting on top of the unusually large crop of maple seedlings.  And where the ever loving heck do all the poke weeds come from, and how do they grow so bloody fast?  Annual and summer flowering plants are providing a lot of color and hopefull a lot of flowers for wedding decorations. Last year wax bells and beauty berry were a bust, but this year they look to be pretty spectacular. After dealing with very wet conditions so far, now some rain is needed or gardens will have to be watered in ernest. Actually had to water the annual cut flowers to keep them going strong for use as wedding flowers. Limelighter hydrangea is looking great. Oops, TTP thought he was planting late bush beans, but they are pole beans so had to put up some supports. Fall snap peas are up and growing too. People forget that in August you can replant spring crops, as long as you keep them watered. After the wedding craziness is done, fall lettuce will be planted too. Got a couple of cheapy late season specials to add some color in places where plants have pooped out making a blank spot in our gardens. On the whole, the gardens are looking OK for this time of year.

Where did June go?

Next week is the 4th of July?  What?  Where did June go?  Dang, guess we've been busy because June just evaporated. Several signs suggest everything but us are on schedule. Had some black raspberries for breakfast; they aren't cultivated, just "tended" in the wildish black raspberry preserve at the rear of our property. Had 2/3s of a garden tomato, the 1st, and it was wonderful, but some tomato-loving critter ate a big chunk out of it. Typical. Having a wildlife friendly yard isn't all its cracked up to be at times. Zucchini, beans, peppers, eggplant are on the way. Usually by mid-June our gardens are in good shape and then the lilies, all sorts, break into flower for the mid-summer. This year there's still a lot of our yearly cleanup to do, and then all the gardens that we usually don't have to do anything to.  Where did all the weeds come from? The Phactors are still planting new things mostly to repair the winter's damage. So work is longer term. Some American hollies had been demonstrating for several years that hollies don't like growing in the upper Midwest; this winter truly convinced them.  TPP bit the bullet and removed them, well, what was left of them today. You know you've done the right thing when the space left looks better than it did with the hollies in place. Four of them were females, and birds loved the berries, especially cedar waxwings, but the male tree totally died so even if the others were growing well, their best feature, the red berries, were going to be absent.  A relocation of a mock orange and a new oak leafed hydrangea should help fix things up.  A ever larger Magnolia salicifolia is encroaching on this garden from the other side of a fence, so not so much space to fill. All this cutting and pulling is real work and TPP has had enough of it for today. Time to cool down, clean up, and blog.  Off to a cocktail party at 5. Later to Hyde Park.

Timing is everything - household jobs edition

September is always a schizophrenic weather month, in like summer, out like fall, and here in the Midwest the changeover can be sudden.  Last week you needed the ceiling fan on one night, and the next night it was 45F and you had a cat snuggling in bed with you.  Except for late August and early September temperatures around here were pretty reasonable this year, so reasonable there was little need of the AC.  As a result TPP got the window screens installed on the south end of the sun room, and then a distraction occurred of some nature, so he never got the screens in the north windows, although there is a screen door there.  So for 3.5 months those two window screens have leaned against the wall a testament to procrastination and distraction.  Each time TPP spied them launched a very brief self-recrimination that was quickly squelched by good mental health, and then forgotten until the next time they were noticed.  Now comes the realization that it didn't matter. The screens now can be returned to the garage attic until next summer, a quite happy thought, and then brought out again with all the best intentions.  The sun room needs to be warmed up because several tropical plants want to come inside; 45F is a temperature they don't like.  Although it doesn't damage them, some of them metabolically shut down for a spell.  The bonsai figs are very tough plants and don't seem to mind a bit so they can stay outside for a bit longer. 

Distant Memories - Six Months Ago

Think about it. Six months ago it was February 3d, and this photo was taken out of our front door. July has a way of making you forget about February. Suppose if we didn't we'd move to a more reasonable climate. So having forgotten the snow, the Phactor did typical enough summer things. A relatively new to this area invasive species, the Japanese beetle, has emerged, maybe not in as many numbers as two years ago, so the dwarf apple trees were netted up, and while at it so were the cucumbers. Around here just about the time your cucumbers begin bearing fruit, cucumber beetles show up, and while not particularly destructive themselves, they vector a bacterial wilt that kills your cucumber vines prematurely. Since they were planted late to begin with, keeping the cucumber vines out of the reach of beetles until they begin flowering, but then because pollination is needed, you have to provide insect access unless you like hand-pollinating lots of flowers, which in a garden on our scale is feasible. The herb garden, some of the more recently planted trees and shrubs, and the Japanese parasol pine (Scaidopitys) all got watered because they handle these hot days best when well watered. Having gotten through the "to do" list for the day, it's time for a margarita.