Flowers in the Yard

In case you think that we only have fruits and vegetables in the garden, here is a post to dispell that thought.  We have tulips, peonies, irises, marigolds, and Easter lilies in yard-- though none of those are in bloom at the moment, having either finished already (in the case of the tulips, peonies, irises, and Easter lilies) or just starting to pop out (the marigolds).  

Currently in bloom are spectacular Calla Lilies.  There is a clump in the upper garden that are a brilliant yellow, with one flower rimmed in crimson red.  Even the leaves are beautiful, with the speckled white flecks. 

Calla Lilies

Crimson rimmed

As bright as a yellow finch

In the lower garden, we have a volunteer lettuce plant that has now gone to seed and flower-- delicate purple blossoms.  The roses are in their second blooming for the season and their perfume wafts through the air. 

Down by the path to the garage, the lavender is starting to bloom, the Sweet Williams are finishing, and the Tiger Lilies are all about to pop open.  We have balloon flowers opening and the sneezeweed starting to show.  The saliva is absolutely huge, attracting the butterflies again. And last, but not least, the honeysuckle is starting to really climb.

one of the opened Tiger Lilies

Balloon Flower

Sneezeweed

Saliva

climbing Honeysuckle

And further up the side of the house (and really all over the yard), the hostas are blooming.  It is the only time that I am actually happy we have them.   Most of the time I try to ignore them. They just aren't my favorite thing in the yard. 

For the moment, everything is green and gorgeous.  Hopefully the weather pattern will hold and we will have a glorious un-DC summer!  

The back yard

Garden Update

Our lemon "tree"

 Time for our regularly scheduled garden update!  Because it has been a proper spring (warm but not hot, rainy but not soaking wet), the garden looks great.  Plants have had a chance to really develop and grow, not just get burnt to a crisp as per usual in the DC swamp.  It has been perfect weather for our lemon tree-- which had so many flowers on its small body that Will had to pick a few off for fear of developing too many lemons and the branches not being able to support them all.  At the moment, we have 7 growing, with one enormous one that tempts me to pick it every time I walk by. 

baby lemons!

We still have pears on the pear tree, though not the millions we initially dreamed about-- they haven't all fallen off or been an early dinner for the birds or squirrels.  I keep looking up recipes on how to cook my Bosc pears-- roasting them in the oven? eaten raw? a cobbler?-- and hoping that they will continue to grow big while we are away on vacation.

Bosc pear perfection

The fig tree is once again in full production.  We have smaller jam jars at the ready for all the fruit weighing down its branches.  I am tempted to net the tree as the catbirds and starlings seem to be particularly interested in eating the figs and I am not particularly interested in sharing with them. 

one of the many clusters of figs

Not to ignore our vegetable side of the our garden, we have a purple pepper ready to pick, lots of stalks of rhubarb waiting to be harvested, and several tomato flowers turning into green tomatoes.  None of them have started to turn red, but we check every day.

Peter picked a peck of purple peppers...

RHUBARB!!

tomato blooms

lower garden

In the lower garden, the three types of lettuce has been used in salads and on sandwiches already.  The blueberries are just coming ripe (while the golden raspberries are finished).  The peppers, carrots, beets, brussel sprouts, and eggplant (not for me, but for Kelly) are all starting to take hold and grow. 

Blueberries

Waiting to turn red

Regional Garden Seeds

When Will's parents were here, a trip to the regional garden on the National Mall yielded some interesting seeds that happened to end up in pockets.  We have laid them out on the window sill to dry out a bit and then we will plant them in our yard and see what they are!  And yes, that is a pine cone.  The likelihood that we will get a pine tree is little to none, but Will is determined to try! Considering his special talents with orchids and bonsai, he of all people could make a pine cone turn into a tree.

Swedish Dahlias

Last  October, Will and I went to Denmark and Sweden (for a half day).  We went to the Lund Botanical Gardens and had a lovely stroll around the place, a quick picnic lunch, and a seed "borrowing" session.  Click here to see the video of our day out in Sweden and the gardens.

When we returned home and at the right moment for seed sowing, Will tossed a few of the dahlia seeds into a patch of dirt around the front corner of the house.  We were pleasantly surprised when several sprouts pushed through the ground, though I thought that they might have been weeds.  The sprouts grew tall and started to bud.  Will, away for a week, had me tell him daily updates as we had started to suspect what type of plant is was.  When it finally burst open and it was a gorgeous  red flower, we knew that the had been successful in growing Swedish Dahlias!  It is very exciting and we hope that it will continue to propagate here in its new country.

Not Just Sour Grapes

We have successfully grown GRAPES!  I should clarify-- we have grown grapes that have managed to *ripen* on the vine instead of being a snack for every starling, catbird, or pigeon that happens by our garden.

This bunch may not be enough for our own wine, but maybe one day.... They are pretty tasty when you get a ripe one. When you get one that isn't quite ready, it is still pretty sour. 

We have a few more bunches on the vine, so we are hoping that we might have enough for a fruit salad!

Yard Work!

No matter where you go, there is always work to be done.  The boys helped Daddo in the yard after it was thatched. Raking the grass into large piles and then bagging it took some time, but with modern farmers such as these, the work went pretty fast. 

From raking the grass to sweeping the front sidewalk, Brando was Daddo's biggest helper.

Apparently consolidating piles is a two-person job:

And in the end, the reward for a hard day of raking-- a nice Mic Ultra.

Garden Update

A Garden Update! 

 We are pulling off the first beans and tomatoes.  Grapes are abundant and peppers are flourishing.  Our fig tree is full and hopefully we can manage to get a few away from the catbirds and sparrows.  We have incredibly long squash vines full with blossoms and our herbs are shooting right up.

Start of Beans!

We quickly ran out of room in the upper and lower garden this year.  We limited our seedlings to things that we wanted to grow (tomatoes, tomatoes, and tomatoes), and when we transferred the sprouts into the ground, all of the space was taken. 

We then decided that we wanted beans.

Therefore, we resorted to sowing the seeds into a container. 

So far, success!  Beans have sprouted.  Next stages: to get them to trellis up the stakes.

We should be okay, so long as Stirling doesn't keep burying bones in the dirt...  I have had to remove rawhide twice so far...

Rhubarb!

I harvested fresh, beautiful, thick, juicy, and red stalks of rhubarb from our garden and made the first crumble of the summer.  It was extra delicious since we had grown the rhubarb ourselves (it might have been the extra vanilla sugar I added to the crumble though). 

It is a good thing that we have three rhubarb clumps, cuz we devoured the crumble with homemade vanilla ice cream and I just know that we will need to be eating more of that as summer progresses. 

Getting the Garden Ready

The garden is springing back to life with the season turning.  The days are longer and warmer, and the plants are waking up from a nice winter's doze-- cuz let's be honest: it never really got cold enough here to truly be called "winter." 

We have vegetables and fruits poking their heads out of the soil or starting to bud.  The newest rhubarb plant is enjoying its new home. 

 Our fig tree is starting to produce lots of figs again and our grape vine has the smallest of leaves. 

The strawberry plants are starting to take over the ground in the lower garden, which is fine by us.  A few plants even have buds on them. 

The big rhubarb, also in the lower garden, already has produced huge leaves.  We just need to let the stalks get a bit longer and we can have an early harvest for pie or crumble. 

The grass is looking quite lush and green (ignoring the chickweed and crabgrass of course) and we have several new bulbs coming up: lilly of the valley, chinese lanterns.

Indoors, we have our seedlings, some more ready than others to be put outside.  We will have to get most of them in the ground shortly-- they are getting too tall for the growing tray.