Wordless Wednesday - Babies

Peppers

Cucumbers

Ground Cherries

Tomatoes

A Garden needs a fence - Update!

You may remember last week's post, A Garden Needs a Fence. Hubby and I were discussing how the fence was going to be put up and we decided that the entrance needed an Arbor.
Last Thursday, hubby had a few minutes to run to Lowes and look at the Arbors there. He was shocked at the prices. "They wanted $250.00 for an Arbor!", he told me later. Instead he went into the lumber section and bought $50.00 worth of cedar. He drew out a sketch and asked me if I wanted something like this:

I said "Yes!", of course. Then I asked him if I would be able to hang a basket of flowers from it to fill in until something grows big enough to cover it. He said "Sure! We can do that."
So Friday I came home from work and hubby asks me to come into the back garage (the one you see in the Potager pictures that has his work shop) and I see this:

Wow, he's started making it already! Mind you he only gets home from work an hour before I do. I was so surprised! I love the shape of the top. He asked me a few questions about how I wanted it and then worked on it for about an hour after dinner.
The next morning I went off to the greenhouse to buy flowers. I was gone, maybe an hour and a half. When I came home he had finished the Arbor and had installed it! Look how beautiful it is!

The fence isn't installed yet, we just had it leaning there to see how it would look. Do you see how he made a circle where the pots are

to match the circle of the gate?

I absolutely love this! What a talented husband I have! I am so blessed!

This is linked up to the Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage , where Jami has an experience I hope I never have!

Weekend Update

This weekend I did a lot of work outside, not a lot in the Potager though. I promised hubby I would get some flowers planted out front. So I ran to Hallock's greenhouse in New Egypt. I have never been there this late in the season. The sides were off the green house and all the plants were on sale!!! All I can say is hubby is very lucky I don't have a larger car!

I did plant portulaca for hubby out front. (Another name for these is Moss Rose). I love these flowers - and the deer don't eat them. That's a big plus because every evening these guys come to our front yard to dine.

They don't eat the vinca, but there is something growing in there that they eat. They are accompanied by a lady. There barely take notice of you in the yard. I'm fine with them as long as they stay out of my backyard!

I also pulled out the pansies that were not doing so well on either side of the front door and put in red geraniums. The deer will eat these. But they have to come up to the house to do so. We've had deer on our porch before, but this years crop hasn't yet approached the house. (I probably should have swept the porch before taking the photo!)

I put flowers on my patio, inspired by the two pots I picked up at Lowes with the blue flowers and hot pink geraniums, I added a magenta geranium, a magenta verbena and a mandevilla, which is also supposed to be magenta when it blooms and should smell heavenly.  Do you see Smokey in the screened in porch?

Yes, he is sticking his tongue out at us.
I didn't ignore the Potager. The nasturiums I planted in my great-grandfather's planter all died. So I bought a lovely Gerbera Daisy. I also found a petunia volunteer in a garden bed I didn't weed (oops) and I popped that in there too.

And then I put some more geraniums in that little old wooden wagon by the entrance to the Potager. The wagon is falling apart and will probably not be around much longer. I planted the geraniums in an old tin bread box that is also in really bad shape, and in an old basket (with a pot inside) with some vinca snatched from the yard. I need to get some moss to fill in the empty spaces, but I am loving this "vignette"!

As you can see by my grass weeds, it has been really dry here. All around us people are getting rain. We keep missing it. That means an extra half hour to water all the new plants (there are more, but I'm saving them for another day).  Vegetables may feed the body, but flowers feed the soul. I am loving all my new plants.

Tiny Tomatoes!

What every gardener longs to see

Ugli Tomato from seeds I saved last year

Black Krim from seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library

I'm so excited that the tomatoes I grew from seed are starting to bear fruit. Here's hoping for tomatoes in July!

Garlic Harvest

I was looking at my garlic yesterday and thought it looked like it might be time to harvest it. I thought it was supposed to be in early July, but the signs were there.

A quick check on the internet confirmed my suspicion.

1/3 of plant dying off, two leaves around the bottom dead. I dug down and the bulb was large and cloved.

So I grabbed that pitch fork I had bought at the yard sale and carefully dug up the garlic.

As you may recall, I planted a grocery store organic garlic bulb. I planted the big and small cloves. The big cloves made big bulbs and the small cloves made small cloves. This fall I will only plant the big cloves.

I brushed the dirt off the garlic,  brought it into the house, laid a screen across the table on the backs of two chairs, placed the garlic with the stems and roots on the screen and will let it dry for 3-4 weeks to cure. I accidentally stabbed a bulb with the fork and I cooked that with our vegetables this evening for dinner. It had a pleasant mild garlic flavor, but did not taste like actual garlic. I believe it will get a stronger flavor as it cures.

I am so excited about my first ever garlic harvest! When it is dried I will try my hand at braiding it. Fun!

Give Peas a chance - or not

Ahh, the days of plentiful peas, weighing down the vines, plump and succulent! I remember this like it was last week!
It was last week, before the temperature climbed over 100.

I had an enjoyable pea harvest.

Then the heat did in the plants.

They are half yellow and not really producing any more peas.
I decided to pull them put to plant pole beans.

And then I see this this morning - flowers on the snow peas!

But the promise of four or five more peas isn't enough to save the plants. It's nice and cool today, but the hot weather is around the corner.

Out they will come. It's a shame that the hot weather came so quickly and intensely. I normally would have gotten a few more weeks from the plants.
But the good news is that I can plant peas for the fall harvest in early July. There will be peas on [my] earth!
(How corny can you get!)
What's the gardeners favorite novel?
War and Peas. 
(Pretty corny. I'm going to stop now.)

Wordless Wednesday - A Garden in Bloom