Home Sweet Home

We're home and I can't begin to express my happiness over that fact. Peace and quiet---YES!

The garden was busy growing while we were away despite no supplemental watering and a streak of cold /hot/cold/hot weather. There was 3" in the rain gauge for the month. Don't know if any evaporated or not. The ground is as dry as dust....but stuff is growing like crazy.  Hmph. It seems I'm not needed! Maybe it is ME that needs the GARDEN and not the other way around.

I got 11 out of the 12 broccoli that I planted. One had bolted already. I blanched/froze it and have 8 packages with 2 large servings in them, and one HUGE bag of broccoli "parts"  for soup.  I'm definately gonna need more. I sowed more seedlings this very afternoon.

The peas, onions, and potatoes are doing very well. The potatoes are almost 2 feet tall. I have to add more straw to keep them nicely covered. 

This is a Vatican White Salvia I grew using the wintersown method. It's HUGE---almost 3 ft tall. I ordered the seed online based on a picture. I'm very impressed with it.

The tomatoes came up and are about a foot tall. I'm beginning to wonder if transplants are necessary at all. All my seeds did remarkably well except the Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato. It came up, but something caused it to collapse---I don't know if it was wind, weather, or animals. Don is certainly going to miss that one--it's the one he always snacks on while outside.

A lot of the alyssum seeds I planted at the base of the raised beds must have washed out into the aisles during a rainstorm.  I have alyssum coming up EVERYWHERE. That's okay, though. It's pretty and the bees are enjoying it.

My corn is doing good. It's about a foot tall, which is pretty good considering that mid month they had a bout of really cold nights--2 nights dipped to 32 degrees (according to the weather almanac online)

Ta-da-----the best looking radishes I've ever grown (ignored!)  And it was from the 99 cent garden---one of those 9 cent seed packages. Hmmmm. Are hybrids a joke on us?????????

 My Great Northern beans. Four rows....doing great, but I have taters from last year popping up in there that I must have "missed".  Dig em up now? Or let them crowd out my beans?

And this is what a lawn looks like that hasn't been mowed in 4 weeks.  Free grass seed. LOL!
No wonder Dolores shot me an email on the road saying I have to mow when I get back.
(Don says we're going to wait a week or so---just to see if she says anything-LOL!)

As for the flower borders, those have been nibbled to the ground by our lovely deer population.
I can tell you that they do not eat Salvia, Stachys, and Achillea. That's about it though. They completely destroyed the Rudbeckia, Coneflowers, Hollyhocks, Phlox and Cosmos. I hope they got a bellyache!

I've really enjoyed seeing all the progress in your gardens this past month. Despite Ma Nature doling out some nasty surprises, gardeners seem to take it all in stride.  I've thoroughly enjoyed all the pictures of your veggies and flowers. It kept me going and I appreciate it very much!

Have a great week!  I've got a TON of weeding to do................