I heart my garden!

I'm a day late in posting an update because I partied on Saturday night and stayed out way past my bedtime. My friend Meredith had her last night out as a single lady, she's getting married next month. I volunteered to be the designated driver, and believe me, that was FAR more exhausting than getting drunk and dancing all night. Keeping track of all the girls was like herding kittens. The next morning I had to take Dan to the airport. I went out into the garden in the afternoon and took some photos, but it was raining, so I only took a few. I went out today and got some more. The plants loved the rain! See for yourself.

I am so proud of my morning glories. They are the only thing (besides the beans) that I sowed from seed that survived. I know they're really easy, but still, it makes me happy to see them grow so well. When they start blooming I am going to stick them out by the front door. I think this variety has a red flower.

As you can see in the photo above, the prickly pear cactus is flowering like crazy! I am already thinking of all the things I can make with the prickly pears when they are ripe.

Ok, so here's a video. Nature is just so cool. Apparently, prickly pear flowers have a really neat adaptation that helps them to pollenate. When something touches the anthers, they all move in towards the stigma. Watch - I caught it on video (yes, I am really this nerdy!).

Here's my itty bitty paw paw tree, growing more leaves every day! I learned AFTER I bought this last year that I need at least two trees to get fruit, so maybe next year I will buy another one. The fruit is supposed to taste like a combo of mango and banana. Yum!

WARNING: Here comes another spider picture! :)

This spider web is probably the most amazing one I have EVER seen. This little spider has been living in the blueberry bush for weeks now (in fact, if you go back a few posts, there is a picture of the much smaller spider). She has been building and rebuilding her web, so the whole top of the bush is covered in a mess cobwebs. She then built her new web, but attached the center of it to the other webs to form an inverted bowl shape. It was SO hard to get a picture of this. You have GOT to click on the picture to see it magnified. Also check out the perfection of the web - it looks like fine-mesh mosquito netting. Man, nature is just so awesome! At this point I'd like to give a shout-out to my homegirl Becky, who would have taken just as many photos and obsessed over this just as much. Love you, Becky! Wish you could have been there!

Remember when I posted that photo of the first fig leaf? Well, here's the fig tree. It's growing pretty well this year. We haven't had any figs since the first year, so maybe this year?

Ok, let's move on to the garden!

Here's the barrel that I bought to turn into a rain barrel. I want to get more of them so I can have a whole water-storage system, but right now I am concentrating on getting this one up and running. I have all the parts, I just haven't figured out a way to build a platform that will support the weight of a full barrel (400 lbs!). The problem is that the bottom of the barrel is not flat, so it weebles and wobbles a little. I am hoping to get this going by the end of the week, so look for the finished project in next week's update!

Here's a view of the garden from further away. The beans are absolutely out of control; I love it! Next to the beans, the cucumber is growing up and away!

Here's a view from the house-side of the garden.

Look at the cayenne peppers! When we started out, I was doubtful these would make it, especially after the windy day where they kept getting stuck under the plastic. They have caught up to the other peppers in height. I attribute that to the sun shifting, and this part of the garden getting more sunlight than before.

Someone's going to be eating squash soon!!! At least I hope to.

Teeny little cucumber. The vine is covered with these guys!

Drumroll please: the beans are flowering! I have been waiting for this since the day I bought the seeds. I have so many fond memories of eating fresh beans out of my grandparents' garden, so these are going to be the best crop for me!

The beans are growing up the fence and have run out of room,...

...they're looking for something to climb on!


Here's a view of the zucchini, just huge!



And a view of some of the fruit! Today I plucked some of the blossoms and fried them in butter. WOW! How come I've never done this? It was unbelievably delicious. Now I kind of wish I had another couple of plants, just for the blossoms!


The eggplant is looking a lot better. No more aphids, from what I can see, and lots of flowers. Still waiting for the first fruits though.

I am training the cucumber to grow up and over to the left, so it doesn't interfere with the beans. There are tons of male and female flowers on this vine, so we'll probably see some cucumbers soon. I'll be making cucumber salad all day long!

The corn is officially taller than the fence...
...and taller than me, too!

Cherry tomatoes! I go out every day and tell them, "please turn RED, NOW!" They look so perfect and plump!

The little bell pepper is also growing fast. I am thinking I will be having this with dinner in a few days! Yay! If it's big enough to eat before next Sunday, I will post a mid-week update of the first harvest.

And here's a first view of the roma tomatoes. These are still small and have a ways to go.

I'll leave you with a story. (Another story? Yes, I am full of stories.)

Last Saturday, I was preparing to host my friend's bachelorette party. I let the dogs out into the yard, and two of them made a beeline for the fence at the corner of the house. They didn't bark, but they were sniffing and whining. I followed them to see what they had found, and I heard the strangest sound, kind of like a mixture of a baby bird and a toad. I pushed the dogs away and found the cutest baby possum behind the fence. Of course possums do not run away, so it stayed in between the chain link fence and some cinderblocks. So I put the dogs back inside and went around front to rescue the baby. I had to lift the cinderblocks away, and the little baby was hissing and growling violently the whole time. (I had to move it, because I wanted the dogs to stay outside while the party guests were there.) I plucked the baby close to the base of its tail and carried it to the front corner of the house, where we had some boards. It ran under the boards and that was that.

So, why no pictures? I still had to put out food and get dressed and I didn't have time to grab the camera. Otherwise the whole story would have been chronicled. :) I haven't checked to see if it's still there, since possums usually don't stick around for long.

All righty, that's it for this week, friends!

Let's go around front...

So, here's a much overdue update on what's been going on in the front yard! Back in March, I finally convinced Dan to pull out the rest of the old azalea hedges and that pesky, half-dead formosa tree in the front yard. The tree started out tiny when we bought the house, and grew at an alarmingly fast rate. We had been talking about pulling it out of the ground for the longest time, so it was nice to finally see that thing go.

Here's Dan in his victory stance. Thank goodness he has a truck that can pull a tree out of the ground... AND thank goodness he has a wife who doesn't mind if the lawn gets ruined in the process!

As you can see, this thing really didn't want to come out of the ground!

Here's Dan chopping and pulling the roots out of the ground. The thing with formosas is that they are highly invasive (which means nearly impossible to kill) and will grow if there is even a bit of root left in the ground.

In place of the formosa, we planted a palm tree surrounded by some creeping phlox.

Here's what the front yard looked like at the beginning of March. You can see that my lantana is starting to come back, and you can barely see the leaves on the salvia and beautyberry. The confederate jasmine looks a little brown still.

This picture was taken a few days ago. As you can see, the lantana has filled in... a lot! The salvia and beautyberry are hiding out behind the lantana.

Here's a close-up of the lantana. I have two different varieties - don't ask me what they're called though. I bought them a few years ago and don't remember. The lantana comes back bigger and better every year and requires almost no care. It attracts lots of bees and butterflies. It's my pick for easy, pretty and long-lasting plant. I don't even have to weed because it grows so thick. What more could I want from a plant?

Here's the salvia. The variety is called "black and blue." As of today, there is a second flower spike coming up. This plant is already so much taller than it was last year!

American Beautyberry - one of my favorite late summer/fall plants. It will eventually have bright, magenta-colored berry clusters on it. I ordered this one in the mail last year. It died back in the winter, leaving only a sad little twig, and now it's growing like crazy! The good thing about native plants is you can plant them and forget them, once they're established.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the milkweed coming up! This was another plant I ordered through the mail, and it wasn't doing so hot last year, it never really grew much. This year it seems to be shooting up, and I am hoping for a few more plants to come up. For those of you who don't know, milkweed is a host plant for the monarch butterfly, so I am hoping to see some of those tell-tale caterpillars soon.

Lastly I will leave you with this picture - not sure if I posted him two months ago when I took his photo, but who doesn't love an anole? And it wouldn't be a typical post if I didn't have some form of wildlife represented!





I am refraining from posting more garden pictures, although I've taken some photos this week. I just want everyone to ogle at how big everything got in a week.

I purchased a barrel to turn into a rain barrel, but it's been too hot to work on that project during the day. We hit 90 degrees today!

I will have a garden and rain barrel update this weekend!

Dan didn't kill a thing!

I had a wonderful time at the outdoor retreat I went to, but I have to admit I missed the garden and was a little nervous about Dan taking care of it. But he came through and everything was still alive when I came home Sunday afternoon. I know I was only gone three days, but I'm surprised (and you will be, too) by how nicely everything is maturing!

The cucumber is getting the idea that I want it to grow UP!

Check out the first little cucumber! So cute!

Dan (reluctantly?) modeling with the green beans. Looks closely and you'll see how high they are climbing already!

Close-up of one of the tendrills.

Here's a short video of the tendrills, so you can see how high they are growing. First I thought they'd never start climbing, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do once they reach the top!

The planter box beans are a little behind. I should probably thin these out a little.

Dan says, "look, Svenja, I didn't kill a thing!" The corn is growing tall..

...and it's starting to grow reproductive parts! I know almost nothing about corn reproduction, except that wind helps in pollination of seperate male and female flowers. That's why you're supposed to plant in several rows. I didn't get that memo (I have one row), so I guess we'll see if we get any actual corn this year.

The eggplant has multiple flowers on it and is growing out of the top of the cage now. I'm having a bit of an aphid problem with this plant, so I'm thinking about buying some ladybugs to help me out (I also want to get a praying mantis eggcase to combat other pests).

Here's the zucchini, spreading out!

Feast your eyes on the first zucchini fruit! I'l be eating this in a few days, and yes, I will be taking pictures of the first harvest.

The squash plant now has flowers galore!

Most of the ones I saw are male flowers, but there was one female flower with a little squash growing on it. Come on pollinators, do your thing!

The bell pepper in front and the jalapeno in back.

First little bell pepper! So cute I can't stand it!

The pimiento peppers.

They are starting to grow flowers, too!

The cayennes had a huge growth spurt!

Here's the cherry tomato...

...with actual tomatoes on the plant!

And here's the roma tomato...

...still flowering like crazy.

Last, but certainly not least, the herbs. The cilantro had started bolting, so I had to cut a bunch off of it. I had parsely and lemon thyme with my chicken last night, and it was delicious! If you live near and want some fresh herbs, please let me know. We can't possibly eat all these by ourselves (the exception is the basil, I want to make pesto and freeze it). Let me know if you'd like any peppermint, parsley, chives, oregano, lemon thyme, cilantro or dill!

Another fun week on the farm! I am getting closer to leads on free or cheap barrels to use as rain barrels. I'm hoping to get these soon, as my weather forecaster friend Jonathan thinks we might be heading for another drought this summer - eek!

Stay tuned for the first harvest - coming soon - I hope!

Another one so soon?

Now that the weather is so nice, I just can't seem to stay out of the yard. I realized that I haven't posted any pictures of the peaches yet, so here is a cute, fuzzy peach for you. I hope that we can actually eat them this year. We haven't had a year of edible peaches since we've had the tree.

Another update I forgot to include in yesterday's blog is the miracle known as "Svenja's little paw paw tree." This little guy looked dead to Dan, but I kept telling him to just wait. It was off to a rough start last year when the dogs ran it over and it broke in half. Dan wanted to yank it out, but I knew it would come back - and it did. This winter it looked like a dead stick stuck in the ground, but I was hopeful... And now look! It's sprouting leaves! I'm going to have to pull the grass from around it and mulch it, and then hope it grows a little more this year.

On another note: don't you just love the weeds in the background?

It wouldn't be a complete blog without another spider photo! This is a small one, but click on it to enlarge it and you will see what I think is a golden orbweaver - one of my favorite summer spiders. These girls get HUGE and are beautiful. This one was teeny tiny and living in the blueberry bushes (which probably won't bloom this year because we transplanted them).

Another update: I've been researching like crazy and found out that the mystery plant is Saxifraga stolonifera, more commonly known as strawberry geranium or strawberry begonia. It's native to China, so not a SC flower afterall, but it is a nice, evergreen ground cover and doesn't seem to be invasive, so I will be dividing it and planting it in other areas this fall.

The reason I grabbed the camera in the first place is that there are even more flowers out today! The cucumber had two yellow blooms:

And the green bell pepper had two as well, with ants crawling around in it. I've never taken the time to look at pepper flowers, they're pretty!

The jalapeno should be flowering tomorrow!

I was also thrilled to discover that the beans are finally "reaching out" for something to climb on.

A view down the row:

While I was out there I tossed the frisbee for Brooklyn, and I happened to catch this really cool flip on camera. Not garden-related, but still fun.

So next weekend I will be at an outdoor retreat and I'm having a little anxiety leaving my plants for that long. I guess I will just have to trust Dan. I hope I don't miss the first harvest of zucchini! Last year once the flowers bloomed we were knee-deep in zucchinis...

I'm sure I'll be posting more updates this week if the weather stays this nice. Check back!