Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - May (???) 2012

The garden continues to change at a frantic pace...  with all of these June bloomers, it's no wonder I have to keep reminding myself that there's no need to panic. It's only mid-May, and I still have plenty of time to get the veggie garden started!

In the meantime, I need to stop and smell the (lovely, sweet grape-scented) variegated iris:

And marvel at a few Seussian allium blooms: 

And smile at the puffballs on the purple ninebark:

And think that the 'Caradonna' salvia needs to be moved next to a grass that stays golden all summer long, because it looks so nice next to the bright new grown on this switchgrass:

 And decide that the blue star gets too lost next to the powdery leaves of the sea kale:

And rejoice that the clearance, unmarked baptisia not only came back but also turned out to be the coveted 'Twilite Prairieblues':

Then head to the backyard and remind myself to collect the seed from the yellow-flowering collard greens--and to deadhead the white-blooming chervil:

And have the idle thought that the elderflower and the ninebark look pretty similar, with pinky-white flower tufts on super dark foliage:

And maybe even drool a little bit, knowing what it will mean that the blackberry is covered with hundreds of snowy white berries-to-be:

And then go sneak out of the house to make a quick Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day list, before I head back into the house to work a little more on my wedding invitation design!  For more of what's in bloom, head on over to May Dreams Gardens and check out Carol's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post.

Other things in bloom here:  'Purple Dragon' lamium, various heuchera, last year's brussels sprouts, many dandelions, lungwort, 'Jack Frost' brunnera, Ozark everbearing strawberries, the last of the passalong dianthus, globe allium, sweet woodruff, yellow baptisia, passalong pink lamium, my rhododendron, Japanese bloodgrass (for the first time ever), sea kale, 'Sweet Kate' spiderwort, many purple salvia lyrata, 'Marcus' salvia.

Of note: Raspberries, cherries, peaches, and my tree peony are usually in some sort of bloom at this time of the year... but each of their bloom times have already come and gone!

Things I've Learned This Week

When figs look like they're wrinkled and dying...

... they are actually ready to eat, fresh, and delicious:

The best way to show off deep purple elderberries is with an underplanting of something bright and silvery:

Which I need to keep in mind next year when I plant more of these awesome 'Bull's Blood' beets:

Some garden mysteries solve themselves, when you peer under ginormous leaves...

... to find rapidly growing (are there any other kind, really?) zucchini resting on a bed of thyme:

But as soon as one mystery is solved, another appears.  Like when one of the 'Purple Cherokee' tomato plants that I purchased this year turns out to be... some kind of a plum tomato, but which one?

I've also learned that when you grow funky tomatoes, you have to do research on when they should be harvested.  'Green Zebra' and 'Black Krim' can still have greenish "shoulders" when they're ready to harvest, but these 'Great Whites' do not:

And the blossom end will turn yellowish, to give me another clue. But I'm really looking forward to trying their purported sweetness that it's hard to wait for them to be ready!  In fact, it's been such a long vigil for these supposedly tall snapdragons that they gave into fatigue and are now laying down on the job:

Speaking of laying around, some of the more brazen tomatoes--like this 'Big Rainbow--turn their noses up at even the most fun tomato cages I could find (they're bright red!) and prefer to stretch out across the nearby shrubbery instead:

Other veggies need to be watched, too.  Like 'Gretel' and 'Ichiban' Japanese eggplants, whose fruit multiplies at night when you're not watching.  Sort of like gremlins.

At least these types of eggplants stay tender at larger sizes.  And the plants stay compact enough to allow for container growing:

Speaking of containers, I have learned that a watched 'Yellow Doll' watermelon is slow to mature:

While surprise ones that escape your notice are nearly too large to go without support by the time you see them dangling precariously over the edge of the pot:

As far as pots go, a replanting of 'Red Zebra' tomatoes in an easy-dog-access pot is already on my Gardening Assistant's wishlist for 2011.  They are the perfect size to pluck and carry into the browning grass for an evening snack:

My own "Next year..." wishlist starts with more rain to keep the cherry trees from stressing out...

... and includes remembering to plant more kohlrabi, even later in the spring, as long as they'll get enough afternoon shade to make it to harvest size:

It also may involve planting at least one pale rose, like the one that I was surprised (and touched) to see waiting for me after work at the end of this very rough week:

I am amazingly lucky, to have a sweet, thoughtful boyfriend like Steve.  I think I'm going to make him help me pick out that rose--probably a repeat-blooming climber, to be planted near the porch this fall--which will hopefully keep this gorgeous gift* filled with floating blooms for years to come.


* This fascinating blown glass bowl, with its many layers of clear and opaque glass, swirls of blue-black, and sprinklings of silver, was a present from Steve last month to (unconventionally) celebrate a dating anniversary of sorts. It makes me smile every time I see the light streaming through it in the morning, and I continually turn it to display new patterns and views. I still can't believe that I own such a beautiful piece of glass art!
                                                                           

2010: The Summer of Fruit

This evening, I noticed a story running on several news sites about the temperatures in June.  They were the highest in recorded history across the globe, and our temperatures here in Northeast Ohio were no exception.  I rarely run the air conditioning, but when they're consistently in the mid-90s for a few days with little cooling at night... well, my Gardening Assistant looks like she's about to melt under all of that heavy Malamute fur, and that's when I cave in.

Thanks to the wet spring and the hot temperatures, almost all of my fruit crops have been promising banner yields.  I had to thin the peaches, and the raspberries gave me so much fruit that it was borderline ridiculous.  Tonight, at dusk, I picked my first peach:

And I already found the first fruit on my container-planted 'Yellow Doll' watermelons:

Guess it's time to start figuring out just how I'm going to support those fruits, huh?  They're a little smaller than a tennis ball right now, but will end up being 3-7lbs at maturity.  (Imagine that there was such a thing as a "single serving watermelon"... that's how the mature 'Yellow Dolls' will end up looking, size-wise.)


On the flip side, the heat and dryness of July has really decimated my blackberry crop.  On a single berry, about half of the little segments have dried up while the others mature.  I still eat them, carefully, but they're not really good for making jam and such.  And the birds and squirrels have been eating my grapes--partly for the juice in them, I would imagine.  The 'Concord' grapes are mostly okay, as there's a protective layer of chicken wire around the arbor that I've been too lazy to remove, but 'Himrod White' is almost completely picked clean!

Hopefully the 'Brown Turkey' figs, pictured above, will keep enjoying the heat and will escape the critters' attention.  There are a good dozen and a half right now, and I would be happy to get at least several to harvest.  As always in a garden... time will tell!