verdant june

june is the month that for me, holds the halcyon days of gardening. once the planting is done in may, we get to watch it all grow and bloom while the weather is still freshly warm and the ravages of summer—insect stampedes, hail,wind storms, drought—have yet to make their mark on new leaves.

right now it’s strawberry season in ohio and not to waste an opportunity, i drove out to the country on friday to pick up pounds of ripe berries to freeze for winter. i hulled and washed them all while i chatted with my mom

by the time i was done, i had fourteen bags of whole berries and six or so boxes of sliced berries—that’s a lotta smoothies and yogurt mix-ins, haha, but i actually think we’ll use them all. i might even go looking for more tomorrow . . .

i worked all day saturday on pattern and secret knitting projects, finishing up the latest batch in the afternoon. feeling good about what i’d gotten done, i headed outside to treat myself to some yard work; i was in serious need of the outdoors (it always quiets my mind to move around and do physical work).

to start with, we were a little behind in getting the front of the house gussied up for summer and with company arriving on sunday evening, i wanted to get some pretty plants  in place.

we have a lot of trouble growing smaller plants in our root-bound front yard, so this year, we finally invested in some additional pots for that area to bring some color to the porch and stair landing.

these we planted with my favorite shade-loving annuals—caladium, coleus, ivy, and begonias . . . anything with weird, exotic coloring appeals to me. just look at the veining and the borders on that pink one, wow.

or this beauty—how in the world does mother nature do it?? that sexy little red rim at the top of the stem?? breathtaking, am i right?? david picked some real beauties for us.

this one would be a ridiculously beautiful shawl—how one would do it, i know not—but it would be fantastic fun to try . . .

just goes to show, lace is everywhere.

i put together some more pots near the back and side doors—i like to have pretty colors nearby when i step outside or take a break to sit in the garden.

after all the potting was done, i went back to the vegetable garden to poke around for a bit, mostly taking pictures for the blog. there’s lots to do out there, but not enough light was left that night to bother starting. i’ll get out there tomorrow morning when it’s nice and cool.

everything has germinated very well; all the seeds are up out of the ground now. i’m a little surprised at how well they’ve germinated actually; there are only a couple of seed strains that did not take well and for those i had back up varieties that are looking great. usually we have a few items that need to be completely replanted and even then, we can’t succeed with them. hopefully,  the rotation and companion planting is really working!

the potatoes are already very big—i can’t get over how well they are doing. even those rogue potatoes from last year that i transplanted are faring much better than i expected, though i’m still not sure they are truly fertile. to the left of the potatoes are the carrots—in serious need of thinning now, which is a nice early-morning chore for the coming week.

the chard that was thinned and transplanted a couple of weeks ago is growing rapidly now and we’ll probably eat some this week.

even the spinach germinated and is growing fast—surprise of surprises. i have never been able to grow it.

i’m growing radishes for the first time since childhood. it was a choice based on their ability to help out as insect repellers; they’re a good companion to many other vegetable plants.

in fact, i planted them heavily between the potato translplants at the back of the garden, where we have a lot of trouble with insects. and now that we have them, i know we’ll end up eating them lots.

so far, our squash is doing well—i only planted three hills, but they are looking great. i’m hoping that by planting heavily around them with radish, marigold, and nasturtium, we can keep away the bugs long enough to harvest some actual squash (which didn’t happen the last two years).

green beans are also good garden helpers and i planted two long rows—one near the potatoes and the other near the eggplant and peppers. three types germinated well, so we should have another bumper crop of them this year. one type hasn’t shown its face yet, but i’ll give it a few more days and then replant with something else.

my hot peppers already have fruit—i can’t get over how fast they get to work.

we also have wild, volunteer tomatoes growing up here and there—more than in other years, maybe because we let everything go to mulch over the winter instead of cleaning it up in the fall. these are most likely cherry tomatoes—they are more prone to growing wild.

even the beets have impressed me with their even germination and growth; this is one crop that tends to be very uneven for me, yet this year, i see we’ll have a good one. since david doesn’t like beets (no matter HOW they are fixed, trust me), we grow them mainly for the greens, which are my favorite (and his). i couldn’t resist this strain, which i planted to make erica laugh, haha (i won’t make her eat them).

all in all, the whole thing is very pleasing at the moment. what i need to do next is get all that thinning done and given the very dry weather here this year, we also need to get our mulch down soon; that will save on water and keep the ground cool. i expect we’ll tackle both those things this week, but it will have to be a little at a time, since i have  club deadline coming up next sunday.

this morning, while opening the windows to let the breeze in, i saw this view

wow, what show!

i noticed yesterday that the hydrangea were starting to open, but they were in specTACular bloom today; they must have known i’d take their pictures for the blog.

our shrubs are loaded again this year, which is surprising; i thought the flowers might be sparse due to the extremely dry weather.

but apparently, david’s attentive care and faithful watering has paid off—they are absolutely stunning.

even this variegated shrub, which has only bloomed once before has a whole bunch of flowers—lace caps that will open to tiny dark purple florets.

and another surprise—the large host next to it has also bloomed.

it kinda makes me feel like summer is already on it’s way out, though i know we haven’t even hit the solstice yet. now if we can just slow things down a bit to make it all last . . .