April 6, 2010

Man, it sure feels like I'vele been blogging tons over the past week, but alas, I haven't.  You know this from the lack fo posts. I guess I've just thought I'd been keeping up with it.  Oops.

Well, Easter came and went, along with spring break for the kids.  The weather was crappy all week, which was bad for letting the kids go out to play, but at least it cleared up for Easter. 

I'll spare you the tons of pictures and even video clips of my kids racing for Easter candy, though I did want to share a few shots from the day before.  My eldest wanted to leave carrots for the Easter Bunny.  Just not any carrots either, but ones from our garden.  Before I could get out there to stop them, each had pulled from the not-quite-ready to harvest patch of over-wintered carrots. I had hoped they would pull from the didn't finish harvesting the overwintered fall carrots patch.  It's still adorable what they did.



Being out there in the garden made me want to do some spring clean-up and planting of spring's carrot patch.  Logan wasn't too keen on helping this year, despite his desire for the spoils.  Thankfully by the time I had them nearly done tilling the bed to aerate it for carrots, they were in heaven. 



We did 12 SF of carrots in the middle of bed 4, where I planted potatoes last year.  I actually found a few yukon gold husks that I'd apparently missed.  With that many squares and rain interrupting us, most of the patch got 16/SF spacing, but some got far more than that.  A little thinning never hurt anyone.  And they sure had a blast!



Speaking of potatoes, my brother never asked for my potato bins like he was supposed to.  I had planned on giving potatoes a rest for a season given my planned absense during the critical hilling stage.  Of course, Mother Nature had other plans.  I couldn't help but notice that what I thought were weeds in the bins that I hadn't taken down over the winter, were actually potatoes that I swore were not there.  I dug and dug with my hands trying to find some to no avail last fall.  But sure enough, each bin looked just like this the other day.



I plan on hilling a bit to give the taters room to bloom, but not the tower of old.  The system works if you work it properly.  I just haven't yet. 

I've got tons more to talk about, but this post is getting crowded as it is.  So I'll leave it with a slight breakthrough.  I swear I only brought up chickens to my wife a few times, but the kids keep wanting to go back to the chicken house near my folks place.  So, much to my shock and surprise, my wife starts asking questions about chickens the other night, clearly looking for answers that will cross off her cons.  Like how do they stay warm in the winter and what do you do with them when they die (she doesn't want to eat pets).  Great conversation insued, and I didn't push.  I'm still bidding my time, mostly because it'd be a rush to get them now for spring and we're planning an extended vacation if I'm still not working for early summer.  Of course, if I am working, there's no way I'll have time for chickens if it's a high-pay, high-stress job.  Still, it's a MAJOR step in the right direction.

Enjoy your garden!

July 23, 2009

Today I got a chance to get out into the garden for the first time in a while.  Mostly I needed to gut it of all the spent and bolted plants.  The secondary benefit was to get rid of the piles (and I mean piles) of compostables that have just been sitting around (mostly in the garage) waiting for me to turn the compost.  So I got on my garden gloves and started ripping and composting.



I forgot to take a before shot, but here is most of what needs to be removed.  The lettuce has bolted badly and I should really have yanked that huge broccoli when I harvested it.  You think these overcrowded their squares a tad?

The funny thing is that this hot, hot weather around here has basically killed my grass. I have never watered because my lot is so wet, but this year it actually died.  Oh well. I water food, not grass.  What that means is that I have not mowed in a month.  That's another thing that is odd about this year's weather (ahem, global warming, hehe). What that means for my compost is that I am at a sudden loss for greens.  I was tempted to go to Starbucks for grounds, but this time I had more than enough from the garden.  The browns of course were shredded newspaper and soiled paper products.



I couldn't believe it.  I almost ran out of partially composted material to layer in between the new greens and browns.  I couldn't believe just how much garden waste I had, on top of the stuff I've been saving.

I also have been trying like mad to get a good shot of my yukon potato bed.  Every time I try I keep getting the bright/shadow lines that make for lousy pictures.  Finally it was a good shot at dusk.  Look at what's happeneing to my once proud potato stems standing tall.



Not only are they laying down, but they're touching the gravel pathways and smothering my carrots.  Honestly I have never experienced this with my bins, at least until they are dying back.  I wonder if that's what they're doing.  They are an early variety after all.  I'm still watering them in case I'm wrong. Once I see them starting to die despite the watering.  I do want to get them out of there soon though, because I've got 8 SF of carrots that may or may not be doing anything under all that mess on the right.

July 22, 2009

My oh my, it has been a while.  Seems my vacation has been far more type A than type B.  Kind of a shame because sitting around and gardening is just about my speed.  Instead I've been pretty much go-go non-stop ever since we got back from camping.  Blogging about the few scant hours I spent in the garden just wasn't on the agenda. 

Yesterday for instance, was a perfect example.  For over a year, my garage was jam packed with junk left over from our last garage sale.  It was also a catch-all for anything we didn't want in the house.  I've been wanting to tackle it for the last 8 months, and so we did.  It felt so good to create four piles of stuff in the driveway.  Of course there was the keep and the charity piles, but there the garbage pile was broken into  dump and recycling piles.  Very Seattle of us. 

While we were moving everything out, I came across my seed potatoes that didn't make it into the ground this year.  I knew there were plenty of Buttes left, but I couldn't give them away.  I had known they were trying their best to grow sans dirt, because I kept seeing the box.  It looks like this.



I've been surprised that it was starting to form leaves in a mostly dark garage with, I repeat, no dirt.  However, if that wasn't surprising enough, I was downright shocked to find this inside.



Look at the spaghetti noodles all bound up inside.  Absolutely insane!  Life will find a way I guess.  These will be composted next chance I get.  And I thought the sprouts were long when I planted them at about a foot.  Now they're well over three feet in some cases.  Crazy.  I just had to share.

About all had time to do in the garden that day was to water.  While I was doing it I spotted a ripening tomato.  It was one of my big ones (I didn't recall having any big ones).



It was ever-so-apparent that I haven't had time to LOOK at my garden of late, because as great as this tomato looks from the top, look at the bottom.



I haven't noticed any other BER (Blossom End Rot) on any other tomatoes in my garden, which is pretty good since I am growing all heirlooms with no particular resistance. Thank goodness my inattentiveness didn't come back to bite me. I am not sure if BER is contageous or not, but it doesn't appear to have spread.  Whew!

Lastly, I had to snap this pic while I was watering.  I still haven't pulled my spent cauliflower.  I'm not sure how much longer it needs to harvest seed from it, but I don't need the space right away, so I may just wait it out. 



Ugly I know, but that's what taking a month off will do to your garden.

I had really hoped to get out more into my garden this week.

July 9, 2009

Well, I got out into the garden for the first time in ages. That is, not just to water it after dark.  I was getting tired of humming Gardening At Night by REM, hehe.

Much to my surprise, my garden marched along without me.  The kids have been harvesting carrots left and right.  In fact, they harvested a slew of them at once (against all I've taught them).  Thankfully, I learned from Good Eat's that storing carrots with an inch of stem left on them in bubble wrap is the best way to keep them fresh for a long period. 

I also found this in the garden.



These are (I believe) my bloody butchers that I should have pinched the blooms off of instead of letting them form fruit.  Sure I have early fruit (probably the earliest in the neighborhood), but the plant is less than half the size of the rest of my plants.  As I have read, all the energy went into the fruit and not growing the green vines, despite repeated watering with fish emulsion.  Oh well, I will get to save seed from these to create an earlier maturing variety next season (hopefully).  Anyway, aren't they cute?

I also found these during my personal garden tour.



These are likely yello pear as I found another that is likely roma.  I can't wait until these go from green to yellow!

Well, as I said, the garden marched on for two weeks without me.  I knew my cauliflower and broccoli were ready to harvest, but when you eat out every night and get home exhausted, it's tough to harvest in the dark.  What that meant is that my nice, tight broccoli and cauliflower bunches got leggy.  They're still edible I think, just not the peak of freshness.  Grrr.  Thankfully, I found this when I was out there.



I realize I don't have a hand in there, but you can tell by the 2x6 there that this is about 3 inches wide.  I pinched the inner leaves together and clipped them with one of my handy dollar store clips.

Lastly, I was giving the potato bins some much needed water and saw the pest damage was getting worse.  Contrary to popular belief, I don't know everything about potatoes.  Mostly I know about growing them, not pest problems as I haven't had too much of that.  Any idea what's causing this?


The plants look healthy desptie all the holes.  I hope that means the potatoes are growing bigger in the tower.  I also hope I kept them watered sufficiently so they aren't deformed.

Well, I'm back, and feeling better (though still sore and tired) back in the garden.  Thanks for all the kind words about the house.  It was listed today and there's an open house both days on the weekend. Fingers are crossed that it's a quick sale.

Oh, on a separate note, I just realized that this is my 400th post. Wow, that's a ton, hehe.

Enjoy your garden!

July 2, 2009

Whew, what a night.  Exhausting but fun.  Tonight was the first night in I don't know how long that we took a break to spend time with our families.  For my part, we went on a walk, which was fun, but I was sluggish being so sore.  As we were locking the kids up in their jogging strollers, I couldn't help but snap this pic of my shady pea patch.



There must be hundreds of peas in these 4 SF!  A ton can happen in a few days since I last walked through the garden.

When we got back, I fired up the grill and barbequed some steaks.  In addition to the baked potato, I had the kids go out and harvest our side dish.



Don't mind the carrots.  They couldn't pass by without picking their own vegetable for dinner.  My wife and I didn't get any of those.  Instead we paired the snap peas with some left over broccoli.  Seems the cauliflower flourettes had gone yellow and smelled a bit funky in the crisper after a week, so they got composted.

Speaking of compost.  I still haven't had the time, nor energy to get out and aerate and mix in the stored compostables.  However, last evening I got home at 8 so after we read to the kids and put them to bed, I rushed out and ripped out the flowering radishes, spinach and spent broccoli.  For lack of better place to store it, I keep throwing it on top of the shrunken pile.  I've got tons more than this to add.



When I turn this, I'll use a shovel instead to chop up these so they break down faster.  Oh, and the newspapers in the corner are simply stored there under cover for when I need them, hehe.

Dinner was yummy, and my wife even ate the week old broccoli saying it was still good tasting, just not as crisp.  I'll take that!  Oh, and we found out that snap peas are unlike beans, in that you want your peas to be big and fat and your beans young and tender.  Note to self, pick only the largest peas.  They're sweeter and jucier. 

Lastly, I have no idea why I took this shot. I just thought it showed my garden from a different angle. 



In the foreground are yukon gold potatoes and carrots.  In the middle are broccoli and cauliflower and in the back are tomatoes and more carrots (my kids love them).  The other thing this shows is the shade-line created by the side of my garage.  It's in there where my monster pea patch is located. The patch in direct sun for more time every day is much smaller and stunted.  Go figure.  Peas like shade.  See, you learn something (many) new every day, hehe.

Well, I'm exhausted and tomorrow is a long day of work and then a late night at the house.  Saturday will be light and celebratory, then Sunday will be all hands for rigorous cleaning from top to bottom.  THEN WE'RE DONE!

Enjoy your garden.

June 25, 2009

I guess this is a random garden tour-like post.  I've been accumulating pics of things that struck my fancy for a while and just haven't had opportunity to work them into posts.  After chatting with Judy on Facebook tonight, I commented on my freaky corn and I promised her I would show it in my blog post tonight. 

I've been trying to get it to grow fast by side dressing with fish emulsion every week or two.  That may have had something to do with these side shoots...



I went out today and those V side shoots are thicker and looking like more stalks.  It almost looks like the stalks that the ears grow on, but they should be mid-way up a 3 foot tall stalk, not coming out of the ground?  What do you think? Can I expect ears from each side shoot?  Very odd.  I'd wanted the nitrogen to help them grow tall, not freaky, hehe.

Ok, now I'm normally good at segwaying to the next topic and pic, but I'm not going to bother this post, sorry.  Instead I'll just jump from topic to topic to clear up my pics, hehe.

Here is a demonstration of what a few weeks can do for my peas.



I took that a week or two ago, and that same pea yesterday looked like this...



What do you think, snap peas ready now or should I wait?  I'm so nervous after waiting too long on my beans that I'm gunshy. hehe.

Now on to tomatoes.  I finally found another plant that is producing fruit. 



It's clearly a cherry, though not sure which one.  I'm kind of liking the mystery of it all.  Oh, and if you're wondering like I was, the grey thing at the bottom left is my wand, filling the SWC.  These plants are going through water very fast, much earlier than last year.  As a result, I may very well have home grown tomatoes by the 4th of July.  No, not these, but look at what I found when I last watered.



Yep, I've got two (Bloody Butcher?) ripening.  Pretty cool.

Next, I thought this shot was cool, so I snapped it.  It's a pic of my yukon gold potato patch.  Some of the plants are nearly 3 feet tall now, but some have dodged the crowd and are growing out into the path.



I remember last year I had a broccoli that did this, the stalk was leggy and in the shape of an S with the head growing two feet off the ground.

This next pic is yet another from my lone surviving Blacktail Mountain watermelon plant in a scrap SWC.  I'm just waiting for tomatoes to grow on it.  Very odd.



Lastly, I just had to take a pic today of one of my new blueberry bushes.  It's too small to allow it to grow a full harvest, but I like to let a cluster or two mature to taste them while most of the energy goes to developing a sturdy root system and strong canes.  This Jersey will be the first to mature a berry.  Look at them!



I'm worried that if those corn with the V stalks grows much bigger, they'll shade this plant, hehe.  Tough to do from the north, but it could create a canopy.

Anyway, sorry for the random thoughts.  Hope you've enjoyed my miscellaneous pics and have a big weekend planned in your garden.  I've got renovation and plumbing repairs scheduled. /sigh.

June 15, 2009

Wow, I know, it's been a while since I had something to say two days in a row.  Funny to think not long ago it was odd for me to go a day without posting.  I promise to try to get busy in the garden. 

It's actually easier now not only because I have more time, but because so much is happening in the garden.  Not only are cool weather crops maturing all over the place, but summer crops are growing like mad in this warm weather we've been having. 

I know my son will be pleased that his favorite carrots are pretty much ready to be harvested.



No, I haven't done the finger test by digging around the base of the stem to tell the diameter of the carrot, but with stems like that they've got to be close.  Of course, I've determined that that little triangular area is prime growing real estate.  It's all about sun exposure.  No place in my garden gets more sun than that little 5 SF area.  Not only does it get the morning sun, but as soon as the sun passes by the trees it shines on that spot and others as well, but no other spot gets more looks from the sun.  Does that make sense?  The carrots seem to like it.  For that matter, that bed seems to do pretty well even though the back end of the bed gets no late afternoon or evening sun.  Look at the rest of that bed.



Not only are the yukon gold stems growing a foot and a half tall, but they're starting to flower.



Not sure if you've seen this or not with potatoes (especially yukon golds), but after they flower, sometimes they grow little green tomato looking things.  Not only are they poisonous, but they are where the potato seed comes from.  Potatoes are actually just overgrown roots, hehe.  Note that planting the seeds rarely produces true offspring.  Though I've read that that's how Mr. Burbank created his famous variety.  A little tid-bit of triva for you tonight.

I see folks liked my broccoli pic from yesterday, well there's more where that came from.  Look at these beauties that aren't far behind the one I harvested...



I just hope I can make it through the one I harvested befor these start flowering.  I really don't want to freeze these (I've not had good experience with par boiled and frozen veggies), but I will if I can't get through them.

I guess I'll end with another project I tackled this weekend in my few hours of pure garden bliss, hehe.  I finally broke out my screw gun and a 1/8th drill bit and poked holes at the apex of the arch of my hoop covers and also in the cross bars.  Then at my local hardware store I looked into getting long bolts and wing nuts to solidify the hoop covers for the winter storms that are so prevalent in the PNW.  They didn't have tiny diameter two and a half inch bolts.  The longest they had was 2 inches and that just isn't long enough to fit through the bigger diameter PVC pipes I used on some of the hoop covers. I knew I should have not been so cheap as to save a buck or two with the bigger diameter PVC.  Ah well, it just means I saved $10 on the hardware now.  Instead I just used twist ties.



I only installed one because it took a bit of time to get the flimsy twist ties to line up with the second hole and it's too late in the season to need hoop covers (unless I had shade material to extend my cool-weather crops).  Hmm, I have 4 feet wide landscape fabric... Maybe I could sew it together, hehe.  We'll see.  Anyway, here's what the small bed looked like.  Very sturdy!



That reminds me.  My good friend EG took some wide angle shots of his entire garden area. I should really do that. I know I've been looking for shots like that from last year and couldn't really find any. Not only that but they're good to see growth progress. I got home late tonight, but maybe tomorrow I'll take a couple.  Anyway, you can see the cole crops in the foreground are the broccoli I harvested and will harvest next, with some peas in the the back of the bed that really need a trellis (I hope the wasp nest is dead).  Then in the middle is a jungle of tomatoes.  I've never grown a variety that gets all jumbled like that. I wonder if those aren't determinates.  Not sure. I'll have to wait until they mature to see what the tomatoes look like. Lastly, to the left of the tomatoes are the cauliflower that I showed you yesterday, along with more succession cauliflower.  My wife will be happy with all the crowns we'll harvest this year.

That's about it for tonight.  I've got more for tomorrow. 

Enjoy your garden!

June 8, 2009

Well, another weekend essentially gardenless for me.  Fortunately the folks place is coming along nicely such that it should be done by month-end.  Unfortunately that means my garden is getting farther behind.  Of particular concern is my rapidly growing potato bin potatoes.  I'm so behind on both hilling up and adding boards that they're just like last year where I swore I wouldn't let them become stems.  Drat. Come monday now I have time and I'm feeling so bummed about it that I'm almost tempted to just let them mature with the few boards I've got installed.  Grrr.  This season is all about letting the garden grow iteself.

I'm seeing stuff in the garden that I have no time to figure out what or why.  For instance, I came home the other day and was watering the broccoli and cauliflower (I'm watering them via side-dressing wand spraying the dirt next to the plants, keeping the leaves dry), only to find this.



I had been proping it up for days but for some reason it's toast.  Nothing else in the area has been touched.  No clue.  Looks like insect damage, but in the absense of any other damage I'm hesitant to nuke it or anything.

I'd admit that this next shot proves other damage, but it's on the complete other side of the garden area from the cauliflower, and this has been going on all season.



Oh, and I checked it this evening and it seems to have rebounded with new growth, so hopefully whatever's getting the cukes has missed it's chance with this one.  Of course I've got a half dozen new sprouts I would protect if I had time.

The good news is that despite my negligence, the broccoli seem to be maturing at a rapid pace.  Soon I will have fresh steamed broccoli.



Sorry for the dirty hands, I was at a loss for a unit of measurement for perspective, hehe.

About the only thing I've had time to do in the yard, other than water, has been to play with my kids... yep they mean more to me than my garden, go figure.  While I was out there, I saw some cool things that I thought I'd share, just to prove not everything in my garden is edible (despite my big plans to the contrary).

In the rose garden, my Dr. Huey's are blooming.  They're apparently any variety crossed with a red such that when it dies, it comes back to life as the red rose it started from, but it only blooms once a season.  Apparently the former owner planted several of them, and either they killed them, or I did from ignorance in my first decade in the house.  Either way, I wanted to take pictures of the beautiful red roses.



Note that the one on the left was moved 3 feet to plant my blueberries last October.  See, it's pretty indestructible, just blooms once a year.  Ain't it pretty.  Parton the ball, the kids live outside this summer.

I also saw something pretty amazing in the front of the rose garden where I have my irises.  I have blue and yellow.  So how did this get there?



They're gorgeous, but definitely not my brilliant yellow (they bloomed also).  Anyway, here are my favorite.



See Dan, I can take pictures of flowers also.  Of course mine have ugly walls, SWCs and extension ladders in the background, hehe.  /sigh.  I guess I'm not like Dan after all (he's a genius with the camera).

I sure hope you've had time to enjoy your garden!

June 6, 2009

Ah, time sure flies.  It seems like just yesterday my youngest was born, and now he turned three last week, and we've been celebrating ever since.  Good times.

Still, gardening has been done, and I've tried to take pics of whatever I did to share.  Mostly I've watered, especially the tomatoes.  They're drinking tons in this warm weather.  I am guessing a gallon a day is being wicked up into the growing chamber.  And they're nowhere near as big as they're going to get.  Although the two bushy ones sure are huge in their own way.



I really need to take the time to prune the useless vines out to make room for sun to get into the middle of the plant.  I did that last year after researching it on the internet.  I think this year will be better as I'll do a better job of leaving shade for the tomatoes in the heat of the summer.

I also took some time to garden with my eldest.  He had his shovel out and wanted to dig.  So I gave him a kitty litter bucket and asked him to fill it with compost from the compost bin.  Then I used it to plant carrots in some blank spaces behind the yukon gold potatoes.



Shame is, about 24 hours after I planted the carrots, I realized I wanted to use those squares to plant summer lettuce so it would get shade from the potatoes and the garage that blocks the afternoon and evening sun.  Doh.

Oh, and I also took the time to re-seed last fall's carrot patch with more carrots.  I sure hope they grow a good succession crop in time to replant for fall.  No, I won't be using the same area, but I guess I mean I hope these mature before fall.  Not sure, it's a test.



Anyway, with the left over compost in the bucket, I used it to "hill" the yukon golds.  No, hilling is not needed for yukon golds, but they do need 6 inches of space to grow their potatoes.  I think I had it already from how deep I planted the seeds, but I wound the extra long sprouts pretty high in the hole, so I may not have enough space.  And since I have about 3 inches of settling of the Mel's Mix since I built the beds, I decided to use the left over compost to add some more soil around the stems.  Hopefully the nutrients combined with the added depth of soil will make for perfect growing conditions for tons of yukon gold potatoes.



If you can't tell from that pic, the potatoes have grown like gangbusters in this heat.  Take a look at the potato patch in bed #4 now.



Lastly, while I was in the planting mood. I replanted some stevia seeds in my pot.  None of the ones I planted last time germinated so this is probably the last attempt this season.  Actually, I'm a bit concerned that I may have planted marigolds instead of stevia.  The seeds were in a small manilla envelop inside the stevia package.  That and they looked like strips of paper rather than seeds, very much like marigold seeds.  Not sure what they'd be doing in the stevia package, or why I would no longer have any stevia seeds.  If I'm out I'm contacting Territorial Seed to complain that non of their seeds germinated.



Sorry for the blurry pic, I must have moved.  However, note that I've built up a pedistal of brickto make it on level with the 16 inch high beds.  That way it gets sun.

Hope you got out today to enjoy your garden!

May 28, 2009

Boy am I tired.  I'm not as young as I used to be.  Yesterday was the final show of Village Theatre's season.  Much as we enjoyed the evening, it was a very late night, followed by an early morning.  Unfortunately I was so exhausted this evening that I almost didn't head out to mow the lawn despite the calf-high grass.  It must have something to the 75 to 80 degree temperatures we've been having for the last several days.

I actually did get out and mow.  It took just over an hour and a half, which isn't bad, and the kids had fun "helping" me when I did the back yard.  The whole thing took two hours of course because I had to do the compost.  I hadn't aerated and turned it since I mowed last, which is bad, so it was difficult to turn before I added the new grass.  I actuallly had too much new material so I ended up dumping about half a 96 gallon yard waste container on top of the pile at the end.  No pictures were taken this time because it was too dark at the end.  In the end I am excited about the amount of compost that I'm making this year.  It seems like more than last year, though I'm not sure how that's possible.

Mostly this evening I spent my time staring into my rose garden.  I was searching for the bumble/carpenter bees to try to identify them.  You see, my recollection is that they had fuzzy butts which would make them bumble bees. However, EVERYTHING about their behavior screamed carpenter bee.  I've been doing a TON of research and carpenter bees nest in eves and facia, where this hive is.  They create the same size hole as I saw.  The males hang around the entrance "defending" it while the nest is being created, which would explain the bees lounging on my siding the other day.  The interesting thing about carpenter bees is that the very agressive males have no stingers so they're all bluster and no bite.  The other interesting clarification I learned is that bumble bees don't die when they sting you like honey bees, so they can sting you over and over, though you really have to piss them off to get them to attack (like get too close to their nest).  Finally, both types of bees are beneficial to gardeners, so I guess it really doesn't matter for the garden, but it does to my house (carpenter) and kids safety (bumble).

I could go on and on with all I've learned, but what I was really looking for was their torsos.  Carpenter bees have hairless black behinds and bumble bees have colorful furry ones.  When I was out there looking, I saw all sorts of bees.  My attention was first drawn to what looked like three wasps comanding the entire garden to themselves.  You know, the elongated, banded torso of and the long antenna.  Scary fighter planes is what I think of. 



Thankfully they ended up flying away over the top of my house after pawing all over all the plants.  Really odd since wasps don't like plants.  After they left, I did see several bees come and go, but they didn't hang around or go slow enough to see them, and none were lounging around the entrance. 

It wasn't until I was watering the plants in the shade that I saw a ton of bees all over my flowering rosemary plant.  They were definitely bumble bees, I got within a foot of them.  The same went for my flowering rhodie tree. However, I couldn't be sure if these were just traveling bumble bees or if they were the ones from my house.  It wasn't until I found one hanging out on the siding under the nest.  It clearly had a fuzzy behind.  I tried to get a picture of my bumble bee, but the silly bee was in the shade so my picture didn't come out.  You'll have to take my word for the fact that I have bumble bees that act exactly like carpenter bees.  So they're dangerous if the kids disturb them while they dig in the rose garden, but hopefully they'll just do fly bys over their heads until winter when they will abandon the nest and I can plug the hole. 

Of course I planned on painting the house so that would definitely anger them.  Not sure if that'll happen this summer, but if so, that'll take some thinking.

Ok, enough about bees, though that has monopolized my time ouside of work for 48 hours, hehe.  While I was out there I had to snap a shot of my purple/blue irises.



Of course my son likes the yellow the best, but they're not quite in bloom yet.  Arent these pretty?

While I was watering the scraps, I had to make note of the fact that I think I have a volunteer (weed?) in my watermelon bin.  I say this because I planted three seeds and got two different plants sprouting.



I guess I'll let them grow and see what happens.  Odd though.

Lastly, I was downloading pics from my phone, I guess I'd snapped some silly pics that I'd like to share.  First is when I was upstairs putting some things in storage I realized I still had my light setup going.  What I had really forgot is that I had some seedlings growing under those lights.  Unfortuantely I hadn't watered them in a few weeks, so there was no hope for them.



They USED to be Italienshier lettuce.  What I had THOUGHT they were originally was stevia, they were growing so slow.  It's ok that I don't have them to plant, I still have TONS of lettuce to harvest.

Whoever said I didn't have enough space to donate a CSA share of my garden clearly overestimated the amount of salads our family can eat.  Hehe.  I've still got tons of open squares to plant in my garden.

My final pic tonight was taken one morning on the way out the door to work.  I still have tons of sprouting potatoes that I don't have room to plant.  I would compost them but with my luck they'd grow and I don't want plants growing in my constantly shaded compost bins.  But look at these sprouts searching desperately for dirt to grow.



Enjoy your garden!