the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

a few pics

creeping thyme in bloom along the north garden edge. filled in nice. first year the whole area bloomed.

a shy blue face.

a more open smiling face.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Love the pics!

 

[flowerbug]

Love the pics!

thanks! gotta get out today and get the watering done... takes me a while when i have to do all of the gardens. cheers!

 

[flowerbug]

big pod peas.

the north garden beans.

small bean garden, including comparison of four Purple bean varieties planted side by side (first four rows from left to right, the front half of the row). From left to right: Purple Diamond, Purple Dove, Purple Rain and Purple Rose.

link to full sized image.

http://www.anthive.com/img/beans/DSC_20200708_164835-0400_528_Some_Beans.jpg

combined garden beans.

south fence beans.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Love all the purple beans! Everything looks great!

My garden is down to hot weather plants. Okra, peppers, cowpeas and eggplant. That's ok...it's too hot to do much of anything anyway.

 

[flowerbug]

Love all the purple beans! Everything looks great!

My garden is down to hot weather plants. Okra, peppers, cowpeas and eggplant. That's ok...it's too hot to do much of anything anyway.

i planted a ton of them so it will be a big harvest of those either fresh or dry, they're good either way.

i'm hoping for plenty of cross-breeding going on. those purple beans grow better here in every place i plant them than many of my other beans so i want to get those genes mixed up with the other beans.

almost every row is alternate planted with the Purple Dove beans.

yes, very hot, not much is really growing fast with the bush beans, but ...

 

[flowerbug]

we finally picked up some significant rain yesterday. first time in over two and a half to three weeks of very hot weather. the high today is forecast for 86F and more rain today. i'm taking the day off. i have a book to read and a comfy perch. i did water good yesterday morning so this rain will get soaked in too and added back. will help get rid of some cracks in the ground that were showing up. no matter how much i can water they can still happen from time to time. and when i do get out and water it does take me a while because i do soak them down pretty well. takes me half an hour alone just to water the tomato gardens. two hours to water most of the back and another hour to water the front veggies. the rest of the gardens have to get by on the rain. i don't usually have the kind of time it takes to water all the flower gardens. only new plantings and the clematis get watered beside the veggies.

 

[flowerbug]

gardens doing well, more rains since the last time, including yesterday morning downpour that gave us over an inch and a half of rain in about a half hour. i'd made some effort to make some ridges in the north garden for holding back the water so i could soak in instead of running off so this was the first time all of those were tested. i did a survey this morning to see which could use some shoring up for the next time. almost all did exactly what they needed to do so i'm happy.

a bit too hot and humid for me to do much in the afternoons, but right now we're in the sweet spot of gardening where most of the plants are big enough to prevent the weeds from having an easy start of it and so i can get through all the gardens each morning, checking for Japanese Beetles and pulling up or turning over some weeds that may be drying out.

purselane is a weed i'll pull and leave to dry, but if it gets a chance to reroot it will do that, so after it rains or a few days of laying on the ground it helps to flip it over. eventually it completely dries out and the worms get their due.

cucumbers are doing great (as usual). i'm so glad we only put in four plants instead of fifteen. even four is too many. we don't eat them ourselves all that much (Mom won't at all - i'll eat some), most we give to my brother and whatever is left that he doesn't want we turn into cucumber salad and give it away. today's batch is going to the hospice folks.

tomatoes are as tall as i am and have a nice crop coming on. we're going to be in an interesting spot if all of these plants come through even close to normal for us (20-40lbs per plant isn't uncommon). we're gonna need to get more canning jars!

we have our first baby blue hubbard squash. i don't think it is a baby as it is already a foot long, but it is the baby we got so we'll accept it and hope to eat it when it is ready.

onions, beans, melons all growing well. it's really quite a contrast from year to year how things can go. full steam ahead.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Sounds like your garden is going great! Mine is gone except for cowpeas, okra, peppers and eggplant. But, fall is coming eventually, right?

 

[flowerbug]

Sounds like your garden is going great! Mine is gone except for cowpeas, okra, peppers and eggplant. But, fall is coming eventually, right?

if not fall, then next year. i sometimes put peas in for a later crop but most of the time i consider it more of a cover crop than expect too much from them. normally they won't get much in the way of pods or seeds and the frosts can come along and take them out. i am going to try to get some of those big podded peas going though now that i have extra seeds.