This is our row of Swiss Chard.  Grown from seeds!!  These are heirloom seeds, but I didn't collect and save them myself.  Chard takes two years to go to seed, and it's a little too tender to survive our winter.  I haven't ever saved seeds from Chard.  But a $2 pack of seeds lasts a few years.  

 

We planted about 6 or 7 plants this year, and that will be enough to get us through the summer.  We use the young leaves fresh in salads, and the bigger leaves we use like spinach in quiche and lasagna.  

 

Really, I am just happy to see it every morning when I walk in the garden.  It is SO pretty!!!

 

HAPPY  GARDENING!!!

 

Yep.  We are going to the Annual Homeowners' Meeting today.  

 

But, be advised that we have a Sphinx guarding our home while we're away.  Just sayin...

 

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

 

I showed you Rosalie's wildflowers last summer, and they are doing it again.  She said she added a few seeds there on the left, but the rest came back from last year's planting.  A couple packages of Wildflower seeds!!  There are Zinnias, Nicotiana, Delphiniums, Cosmos, and Coreopsis.  Some are annuals, some perennials, such a great mix.  

 

Beautiful!!!  Go up to the top of Five Forks Drive and see for yourself.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Look at all that DILL!!!  It is blooming now, and in another week it will go to (what I like to call) berries.  That's when the seeds are still green and soft enough to eat. When they do that, I usually bring in a few big blossom heads and put them in a vase.  A vase of green berry heads.  They look like fireworks to me. 

 

Behind the dill is the cucumber trellis, and the beautiful leeks.  More fireworks.  I LOVE my garden.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Look!!!  We're going to have cucumbers!!  I love this picture, showing the bumbler inside the flower, the tendrils hooked on the fence, and the baby cucumber.  

 

We plant heirloom seeds, because they produce true to their variety, unlike hybrids which sometimes revert to one or another of their parent plant characteristics.  

 

We've been growing this variety of Japanese Long cucumbers for quite a few years now.  I bought a package of seeds in 2011, and have been saving some each year.  Seeds only last a few years, so you have to refresh them. 

 

These cucumbers grow 18 to 24 inches long, and are always crisp and fresh.  Since they grow up the trellis, they hang down and grow straight, well, mostly.  Sometimes they get hung up in the chicken wire and get all curvy, but still fresh and delicious.  

 

I always plant too many plants, because I have the seeds and I have the space.  So when they start getting ripe, we are inundated with cucumbers.  That lasts about a month, so we eat lots of cucumbers, share lots of cucumbers, and make pickles.  Dill's my favorite.  OH!!  I need to show you the dill;  it's in the same area as the cucumbers.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

This morning Jon was picking blueberries, and he thought he felt a little sprinkle.  He looked up and saw a rainbow.  He ran back to the house and tapped on the window for me to come out with my camera.

 

We don't usually see rainbows here.  Too many trees.  

 

We thought of our neighbors with a clearer view of the western sky, so I texted them:  Rainbow!!!  Look west.  

 

I got some pretty pics before it faded, but this one came from Lisa.  WOW!!!

 

HAPPY TUESDAY!!!

 

Patty's Balloon flower is blooming.  She told me that she planted it several years ago, and it comes back every summer.  Apparently it likes where it lives.    

 

It's easy to see why it got the name Balloon flower:  the unopened flower buds are puffy just before they bloom.  They look like little balloons, full of air.  I've read that they come in pink, white, and this luscious purple.  

 

Platycodon is native to East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, and the Russian Far East.)  It  is hardy down to 5 degrees F, so it can be planted here, and survive our winters.  It is probably readily available in our local garden centers.

 

It really is cute;  go see it in bloom.   

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Bill and Kelly's Yucca is in bloom.  Aren't the flowers pretty against the Leland Cypress backdrop?  

It is Yucca filamentosa.  There are threads on the edges of the leaves: filaments.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see them.  My books say that Yucca filamentosa is native to the desert Southwest, but it has adapted itself to the Appalachian mountains too.  I'm pretty sure Joel planted this one years ago;  it doesn't look native in this spot.  And this is the kind of plants he liked.  

 

Siri told me that Yucca is the state flower of New Mexico.  ;D   

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Look at my beautiful "weeds" in the garden.  Black-eyed Susies come back every year in the nether regions of the garden.  

 

By that I mean they grow down in the northwest corner where I don't plant anything.  The area is full of tree roots and rocks, so I just leave it alone.  And look who has taken over that area.  They certainly are welcome to the space, and whatever nutrients they can derive from that soil.  

 

They make me smile every time I go out there.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Have you seen all the new babies?  It must be fawning season because we've seen about six in the last few days.  Just what we DON'T need in the neighborhood, more deer.  But they are so cute.  

While we are ALL oohing and aahing over the new babies, many of us are shoring up our gardens and flowerbeds.  These deer will eat everything!!!  We have seen some very interesting barriers to keep the deer out:  fencing, wires, tomato cages, etc. etc. etc.  Not too attractive, but effective. 

 

I could never shoot one, but I must admit I do fuss about them daily.  Meanwhile, be careful on the roads;  the little ones don't know about cars yet.  

 

Mixed blessing, the deer.  We are so tired of them eating our plants and flowers, but we love seeing them.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!