Have you seen all the Joe Pye weed growing?  It is all up and down Mocassin Creek Rd, 19/129, and the 4-lane into Murphy.  We love seeing it all along the roadsides.

 

It grows about 6-8 feet tall, and has the most beautiful flower heads.  They are huge and pink.  And you can spot them at 45 miles per hour.  

 

Another common name for Joe Pye weed is Queen of the Meadow.  Now that paints a pretty picture.

 

I hope you see some in your travels. 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

If you are thinking about your garden for next year, whether it’s your first or your 14th garden, you need this catalog.

 

It is way more than a vehicle for this company to sell seeds;  it is a great source for all kinds of gardening information.  This catalog tells you how to start your seeds indoors, how to avoid insect and disease problems, how to harvest, and tips for success in the garden.  And it tells you all this for every type of vegetable you are growing.  Oh yeah, it’s also a good source for seeds at reasonable prices.  Here is their contact information:  www.superseeds.com  (207) 926-3400.  Order your catalog today, so you will be ready when it’s time to plant next year.  

 

I have learned so much from this catalog about the vegetables in my garden, making me a better gardener.  

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sumac is beautiful right now.  It was pretty when it was blooming yellow, but now those flowers have turned to seeds, and are somewhere between red and purple.  

 

This tree is on Clifford’s hill, but you can see them in the neighborhood, and all along the highway.  

 

I have seen sumac used in recipes, and I know some people who make a kind of lemonade (sumac ade) drink with the berries, but we know that there are some species of wildlife that depend on the fruits to get them through the winter, so we leave the berries for them.

 

I hope you notice the Sumac the next time you are out for a walk or a drive.  It is really pretty all times of the year.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Look how beautiful the kale is, still!!!  

 

We have managed to keep it gorgeous since I planted it in March.  We do that by keeping it picked from the bottom, removing  dead leaves, and using Dipel dust to keep the cabbage white caterpillars off the leaves.  Dipel dust is a biological insecticide that is used in organic farming, (meaning that it isn’t a poison, but a living bacteria that kills the caterpillars when they ingest it.)  I don’t want to poison the cabbage white butterflies, I just don’t want the caterpillars to eat holes in my kale leaves.  

 

There are about 12 plants of kale that I planted this year, and three that overwintered from last year.  Last year’s kale is making seeds, and we will plant those seeds inside in the winter to grow microgreens.  We can eat kale year round.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Look who I saw in the eggplants.  It wasn’t eating the leaves;  it was eating whoever was eating the leaves.

 

We like seeing Praying Mantids in the garden.  They are “ambush predators,” and they eat bugs, the bugs that eat my plants. This particular praying mantis couldn’t get away from me fast enough.  All I wanted was to take its picture, but it kept moving.

 

I hope you can see how pretty it is.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!! 

 

Look what we saw when we walked the loop on Friday.  This one was at the top of Clifford’s hill.  What a pleasant surprise after that climb.  I took its picture, then looked it up in my books when we got home.  Isn’t it just the sweetest color of purple?  

 

They are native to the United States, and grow on dry, rocky hillsides from Maine to Florida and west to Arizona and New Mexico.  I hope you get to see some in your travels.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

Here are Nancy’s Hydrangeas in bloom again this year.  I love that they are somewhere between pink and blue.  The pink ones are telling us that the soil is alkaline, and the blue ones say acid soil.  It looks to me like this soil is somewhere in transition between alkaline and acid.  Because when the soil is neutral the flowers are white.

 

Hydrangeas always make me smile and think of the blue ones in Nanny’s backyard.  One story is that Granddaddy hammered rusty nails into the ground near the hydrangeas to make them blue.  And Linda tells the story of her little girl self pretending to be a bride and those made beautiful bouquets.  

 

Happy birthday and lots of love to sister Linda.  I would deliver them in person if I could.  

 

 

HAPPY SUMMER!!!

 

I love it when the persimmons on the tree are big enough to see.  This tree is loaded with these little green persimmons.  Right now they are about the size of bing cherries, but they will grow to be more like ping pong balls by October.
 
When they are ripe, they will be bright orange.  I’ll show you the tree again then, so you can look around and maybe find some in your area.  I think it is so exciting to find a persimmon tree.  You know, they don’t move, so you can eat persimmons every year once you find the tree.
 
HAPPY SUMMER!!!

 

Here are the eggplant plants in the garden.  They each stand about 3-4 feet tall, with baby eggplants growing.  The ones I grew from seed have caught up to the ones I bought at the garden center.  I need to rethink the eggplants for next year.  

 

And, yes, that is a stalk of dill growing right next to the eggplants.  Not sure how it got there, or why I would have planted it;   but there it is, and I’m ok with that.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Look at our beautiful eggplants.  

 

The dark ones on the bottom are from The Basket Barn in Blairsville.  In April when we were getting ready to transplant our tomato, pepper, and eggplant seedlings into the garden, the eggplants that I had grown from seeds were so tiny.  I panicked, thinking we wouldn’t have any eggplants this year, so I bought a 6 pack of plants from Jessie.  Meanwhile, I kept nurturing my baby seedlings.  

 

The lighter purple ones are the ones I grew from seeds.  The heirloom variety is Ping Tung.  All the plants are growing beautifully in the garden, and giving us enough eggplants to make some really fine dinners.  These are going to become eggplant rollotini.  With tomato sauce that we made ourselves.

 

HAPPY SUMMER!!!