Sunday, July 6, 2025

Morning is Blooming

 Morning is the best time in the garden because you get to see what all is going to happen today.

Clarimore Zucchini
Both a male and female flower.  Yay!


Pickling Cucumber.

Little Prince Eggplant

Hootenany Dahlia

And for work - the peas are coming out and the Bee's Choice Dahlias are going in and English cucumbers are being sown.

Friday, July 4, 2025

Knee High by the Fourth of July

 Farmers used to say that a field of corn should be "knee high by the Fourth of July".  Modern corn varieties will grow much faster than that.  My sweet corn is generally waist high or better by the fourth and it is right on track.


The earlier variety is forming some tassels


Daisies are such happy flowers


Thursday, July 3, 2025

All The Buzz

Last year I purchased both Mason Bees and Leaf Cutter Bees from Crown Bees.  The Mason Bees didn't stick around long although I still have a few.  The Leaf Cutter Bees were a good success.  You have to remove the nesting material and store it over winter in a constant, cool temperature.  Mine stayed with my Dahlia tubers.  When the temperatures reach a consistent 70F the new bees should emerge.  I began to see some activity last week.  Today it looks like everyone is out and beginning to nest and lay eggs.  My little bee chalet is a hive of activity.


Their favorite hang out right now is the Queen Anne's Lace (below)


Tomatoes are self pollinators so we don't need the bees for that.  The Carbon plant is beginning to set fruit.  It is surprising each year to see which plant produces first.  It seems to be different every year.


We will need the bees for the Cucumbers.  They will be flowering soon.



Further Notes on Deer-Proofing

Some more tips on what I am doing to discourage the deer.  In some cases, my netting is wide enough that it needed a sort of center tent pole to hold it up above the flower stems to reduce the number of flower buds that get caught in the net.  In those few cases, I placed a regular aluminum garden stake in the center and used a black ping-pong ball fitted on top of the stake to hold up the net and prevent it from sliding down the stake.  This sort of disappears from a distance and was an inexpensive solution.


There have been whole flower beds that I have netted from the deer.  I created a "room" around the Dahlias that I will remove later when the foliage thickens to the point that the deer don't want to walk through the middle.  You can see the net shining in the morning sun.  


I also created a "room" around my 4 in 1 Pear tree that is going to stay up year round.  The deer walk through to the one side of it all year and the smaller limbs just get big enough to harden up and balance the tree and then the deer rip them back off.  The tree is getting a big hole in one side and its starting to piss me off.  So I took the conduit I have for use as bean poles or whatnot, and I used a post pounder to sink them in the ground and I clipped a net around them.


As far as Hosta go.  I place nets over each plant and hold it down with rocks or landscape staples depending on where the plant is located but I have to sacrifice the blooms.  Initially I was not a fan of Hosta flowers and I used to trim them off anyway.  And that is how I learned that those were what was most attractive to deer.  Now, years later, I am starting to get just a little bity bit bitter about not being able to have them.  However, I would rather have Hosta with no flowers than no Hosta. I do admire unmunched Hosta with flowers when I see them just because of the novelty.


I just reach in and snap them off.  If I leave them, they are irresistible to deer and they will stay to eat the foliage.  If they never find any tender scapes, the net and the repellent is usually enough to protect the plant, but now and then they try tearing the net off.  They get discouraged before they do too much damage to the plant.


Another strategy is simply to not plant anything the deer like.  That's what I have going on on the far side of our property that we tidied up last summer.  I don't have to worry about the deer eating ornamental grasses so I have divided five kinds of grasses and placed them as a backdrop.  It's a little too ...green.  And there are still large areas of bare mulch.  But I did not spend any money on additional plants last year.  I just divided and moved around what was already there.


The only spot of color is a Johnson Geranium that does have a net in it to keep the deer from eating it down too far.  I spray it after the rain and so far they have left it alone.  I want to see how things fill in with the existing plantings before I add anything next year.  For color, I am only going to consider deer resistant plants.  I am thinking of Salvia or maybe Veronica, alternating pink, blue and white.  Maybe two or three collections of Bearded Irises for showy color.  I would love to have some different foliage color and texture and there are a couple of shrubs I am considering but I am going slow because I don't want to have to do much experimentation with the deer and rabbits having full access to this area.


And finally, the Blackberry patch.  I don't often fiddle with the Blackberries much.  I am usually content to sample a few each year.  But this one plant is so loaded with berries I was starting to think... gee, there might even be enough there for a small cobbler.


Between the deer nibbling the brambles, the birds picking at the berries, the Japanese Beetles devouring the foliage, and the occasional bear who will just eat everything, I need a pretty comprehensive cover.  I already had to drive a couple of posts and lift the canes with a wire because they were so heavily laden they were laying in the lawn and making it difficult to mow.  So I used a summer weight floating row cover.  Netting would not be enough to stop a deer or bear from eating berries, and netting will snare birds especially if you put it between them and something they really want.  So a solid cover was the only safe option.


Now this won't stop a hungry black bear, but we haven't had as much bear activity this year since everyone in the neighborhood learned last year to protect their Humming Bird and Oriole feeders.  So with luck, I will get these berries before anyone else does.

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Looks Good Enough to Eat

The Battle for the Buds is going well this year.  All of the Coneflowers and Deerlilies Daylilies are beginning to bloom.  They are all fresh and delicate and yummy looking.

Prima Ginger Echinacea

This is when they are at their most vulnerable to deer.


I can understand why they are appealing.  When the Daylily buds are at this stage it looks like a candy store.  Those buds must just pop in your mouth like a gumdrop.  I can see the allure.  If I had been browsing on twigs all day, the sight of dewy, fresh, poppable buds would be mouth watering.

Happy Returns Daylily
Every morning when I open the drapes and look out my bedroom window and see all of these yellow Lilies and white Daisies still intact it puts a smile on my face.


It makes all of the work worthwhile. 


And it still requires work.  Removing all of the orange lilies along the front fence was a huge step in the right direction.  Not only does it save me time and money, but it was a huge attraction to bring the deer through in the first place.  Next I have made some pretty good strides in protecting the plants I want to keep with netting.  I still have plants in tempting locations (below).


These plants have suffered a little damage here and there.

Empty Stems

Even though they are netted, I still spray with Repels-All after every rain.  This makes them smell less like food.  I spray pretty much everything, including shrubs and annuals.  Every evening, the last thing I do in the garden is walk through with a bottle of Bonide Hot Pepper Wax and give the most vulnerable blooms a light spritz, especially nearest the spots I walk by every day and want to enjoy the blooms.  Also, the flowers along the edges of the netting and anything that looks like it will open in the morning.


This way if the deer do munch on those, they will get the most unpleasant taste I can muster and move on.


I have to say that the Daylilies have never looked better.  Plants that never had a chance before are absolutely full of buds.


Of course Daylilies and Coneflowers are not the only thing that looks appetizing.  I have to be protective of the Clematis vines.  Those are full of delicate buds and fragrant flowers too.


In the vegetable garden, I picked a gallon of peas.  This is the second and largest picking for this crop.  There are still peas coming but not in this volume.  By the time I got them all shelled my thumbs were sore!  I had to use the big pot to blanch them.  I freeze them in pint bags for individual meals. 


Sunday, June 29, 2025

Catching Up

 The humidity finally broke and we had a perfect summer day.  Hot, breezy and low humidity.  Not a cloud in the sky.  There is always some chore to be done outside, but I finally got to the bottom of my To Do List and took care of a chore I have been kicking to the bottom for weeks.  I had to divide a ornamental grass in the riverbed.


This is a Little Bunny Dwarf Fountain Grass (Pennisetum) and it is the weakest variety I have planted in the landscape.  I have lost a couple entirely and others are dying out in the middle.  That is a sure sign that it needs to be divided.  Below is what it should look like this time of year.


We got a half inch of rain the other day and this is a soft grass anyway so I was able to easily cut it with a transplant spade just like a pie.  Then I loosened it with a fork and pulled each section out by hand.  Now I had six copies of a grass that doesn't work well in this spot... I transplanted them in the new landscape area where they will be happier in all of the wide open space.


I replaced it with a division of my favorite Foxtrot Pennisetum.  


Back in March I divided the one Foxtrot I had (below) in half, and cut the half I removed into ten sections.  I planted eight of them and set aside two extra in gallon pots.  I still have one left and you can barely tell that I reduced its size at all.


Below is what the Foxtrot looked like last fall.


It was good to finally get that crossed off the list.  The vegetable garden is beginning to produce.  This week I have picked cabbage for cole slaw, broccoli and peas.  I thinned the carrots some more and ended up with some baby carrots so I will be getting some sour cream and making fresh dill dip for carrots and the cauliflower which will be ready soon.  The lettuce is finally getting bitter in the heat.

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Random Thoughts

 Yesterday I was chopping down the spent flowers of the six foot high Valerian before it seriously went to seed... The Sunflowers are (so far) keeping pace with the Dill.  Their faces follow the sun each day.  Next year I am going to combine the two herb beds into one.  This much Dill is an incredible waste of space.  The Valerian is a monster and had a lot of aphids on it.  It would be excellent on the back side of a natural border.  The Feverfew is nice, but not a huge attractor of pollinators.  I am removing the Valerian and Feverfew and replacing with Dill and Mustard greens next year.  That way all of my shaggy herbs will be in one bed.


The Mustard I planted solely to occupy the flea beetles.  They actually prefer the Potatoes.  I will have to sow an early row of Mustard along the Potatoes next year.  I will still plant a square of Mustard because they seem to like that better than Eggplants which is a win.

Mustard at the end of the Dill
The Pole Beans are finally starting to fill in.  I will sow the last of the Seychelles, probably today, in the space under the wire cage.  The direct sown Marigolds along the edge are spotty despite being sown twice.  Heavy rain drove some of them in too deeply I think.


The potted Bell Peppers are catching up.


A view from the shade of the Maple tree up the River Bed garden.


The Viburnum thicket between the neighbors and my garden is always flanked by Golden Rod, Ferns and Asters.  I am trying to get the Milkweed to take over instead.  I was thinking I should weed whack the Golden Rod down by at least half to keep it from laying over in the driveway later in the season, but I see now that the Milkweed is spreading and coming up in half a dozen places, making it more difficult to avoid.... I may give it a try anyway before it becomes too sneezy of a job. 


I need to find a spot for these Hosta.  Last summer, the neighbor dug them out because she tired of defending them from the deer.  They were a bedraggled, munched on mess, but I threw them into some random containers of compost and stuck them here out of the way of the deer and ignored them.  They came back beautifully this spring.  I did find a spot for two of the thickest ones back when we were mulching and cleaning beds, and this is what is left.  I have a good spot for the white centered one. 


I awoke early this morning to gentle rain.  We got about a quarter of an inch which is perfect for the grass seed we sowed yesterday over the new soil on the septic field.  Now the sun is trying to break through and it should get into the low eighties today.  A perfect June day for tying up loose ends in the garden.

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

The Honey Bees are Swarming

 Today, while I was sitting in the shade under the apple tree, I heard that vague, but primordial sound that still sort of raises the hairs on the back of my neck... the sound of bees swarming.  I was taking a break in the shade of the apple tree when I heard the unmistakable sound of a honey bee swarm.  I think this is the fourth time I have encountered a bee swarm.  Not something everyone gets to experience.


This was not as organized as some swarms I have seen, and we no longer have a bee tree to host them.  They came up the side of the garden, over the horseshoe pit, and I retreated to the side of the garden shed to have a better look.  As all swarms, they had their minds on something else, so without knowing how well it would translate on camera, I took a little video,

Past blog entries about bee swarms:






When You're Hot You're Hot

 Is it ever too hot to do yard work?  Apparently not.  Remember back in April when we opened up our septic to pump the tank?  Well, this spring was so wet, and the ground was so saturated, that we began to be concerned about the slow percolation in our septic field.  The one we had was a closed system designed for a two bedroom house.  There was no water outlet.  If the ground was saturated, as it certainly was, water just wasn't going to go anywhere very fast.  When we had this system put in back in 2011, the septic field was surrounded by woods., and there really wasn't any other option than a closed system that size.  Then in 2021 we removed most of the woods.  And now, we had easy access and elevation to drain a sand filter down to the road ditch.


So we dug up the yard.  Because, if you have ever had a septic system back up into your house, you will know that there is just about no amount of money that is worth taking that chance.


Now we have a big, beautiful sand filter that is permitted for three bedrooms, but actually big enough for four.  If anything catastrophic ever happened to this house, we would not rebuild it this small.  It is also a good selling point if the next owners ever wanted to add on.  

The filter drains down through where those trees were to the road ditch so it should never back up just because of saturation. We can do as much laundry as we want.  And boy, do we do laundry!  On days like this it is best just to undress straight into the washing machine.


After the excavator left, my husband spent several days with first a box scraper, then a york rake, getting the whole area graded and smoothed down.  Yesterday, we happened to find a nearby source of good topsoil that we needed to reseed the lawn over the sand filter.  The best time to use topsoil is when it is freshly dumped.  You don't want it to be rained on if you want to be able to spread it smoothly.  So, around noon, we began to repair the lawn.


Luckily, when we started, we were working towards shade.  And we had shade and a nice breeze to sit and cool down in.  Because the official temperature was 94F but both of my outdoor thermometers said 100F.  It took us about four hours.  We had to use the smaller tractor because one end of the filter is still a little like walking on a water bed, and the big tractor would have left deeper ruts.  Now we need to spread seed and hay so we can take advantage of upcoming rain and get some grass growing.


Below is a shot of our second family of Eastern Bluebirds at breakfast time.

ME FIRST!