Wednesday Wandering

I have a lot of Daylilies blooming now. I'm surprised. When I noticed a few early blooms I thought more would follow. After a few rainy days I went outside expecting a glorious display of Daylilies in bloom only to see nothing but buds eaten off by deer. They ate all my rosebuds too. If that doesn't make you want to cry...

Well, instead of crying I went and mixed up a spray bottle of Bobbex (deer and rabbit repellent) and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed.  Gosh, that stuff smells awful. I think one of the ingredients is putrescent eggs. I even think I saw a butterfly throwing up after it caught a whiff. BUT it must have done the trick because I now have Daylilies in bloom and some roses ready to bloom. And it is probably time to mix up some spray and spray again since I have seen lots of new rose growth. 

I also tied some string pieces too skinny for using in quilts here and there around the garden to absorb the Bobbex and to wave in the wind if there is a wind. And maybe to tickle deer noses if they get too close. Who knows?

A patch of yarrow I started from seeds a few years ago. This is good for drying too. I used to make dried flower wreaths back in the day but haven't made any in a long time. 

These are Orienpet or Tree Lilies -- a cross between Oriental and Trumpet Lilies. Normally they get 6 - 8 feet tall and have large beautiful fragrant blooms. I have (or had) about a dozen of them in different colors. This year the deer have either trampled them, eaten all the leaves off before they could bloom or eaten the tops and buds off of several of them. 

This is a different patch of them tthat might actually have some blooms. 

Looks like I'll have some apples this year.  This is supposed to be a columnar tree but but I have not gotten around to pruning it for several years and it is no longer a column but an unruly tree. 

Bee Balm or Monarda

I started it from seeds  long time ago. 

This is a patch of purple.

And  I also have a patch of pink but it has been trampled - not by me. I saw raccoon poop in the midst of it all. 

This poor Oriental Lily struggled to survive. It's leaves were mostly eaten. It was partially bent over and still it managed to survive it all and produce a lovely and fragrant although misshapen bloom. 

Walking on over to the veg garden...a big tree limb fell on my tomato patch a few weeks ago when we had high winds. I have a small battery operated chain saw and managed to cut off most of the limbs that were on my tomato cages and inside the chicken wire fence around the veg garden.  I only lost one tomato. The cage was crushed and so was the tomato. A few other cages had limbs on top but did not get crushed. And one cage was toppled but I managed to get limbs off of it and put it and the tomato  back upright.  

I've started several different kinds of Coneflowers from seeds and have patches of it in both the cottage garden and native wildflower garden. I've seen so many fancy types of Coneflowers that I love but I have not seen seed suppliers for those.   I picked up a few different fancy ones from a local market grower and started an area just for Coneflowers. Most critters don't seem to bother Coneflowers so why not?   Well, I said most critters. A mole or a vole burrowed under two of my new Coneflowers and must have eaten the roots. When I saw those two Coneflowers partially out of the ground I smashed down the burrowing ground and tamped down the Coneflowers and gave them a good watering. Then I sprinkled cayenne pepper around and in what I thought was the hole for the darned vole/mole. But, a few days later my two Coneflowers were wilted and dead. Boohoo...

Well,  I still have several Coneflowers going strong and I keep sprinkling cayenne around after a rain so maybe mole/vole has gone elsewhere. They are all over. I sprinkle cayenne in their holes whenever I see them. 

I may have cucumbers soon. 

And this year I put hoops with row covers over quite a few vegetables that get eaten before I get to eat them. Well, of course, for awhile it kept rabbits, groundhogs and raccoons out; however, insects started eating the leaves of things like my broccoli and cabbage that were under the row covers. A few times I sprayed under the row covers with insecticidal soap. After things started growing again and producing the raccoons started tearing into my row covers. One night they ripped open the row covers over my lettuce and peas and then they and deer and rabbits and probably the darned grounhog had a feast. I am thankful that before that I did get a few harvests of peas and lettuce for myself. Yeah I felt like crying when I saw all the damage.  This row cover is over the broccoli so maybe I'll get some of that before too long although I do see a rip now. 

And my poor beans...I have two kinds...Red Swan and I don't remember the other kind just now...but they were not under row covers and were first eaten by insects and then by deer. Despite that those dinky little puny plants have survived to produce a bean or two. It's kind of a miracle really and probably a lesson in persistance, fulfilling life's purpose and survival.   I won't get enough for a harvest though so will probably let them dry and see if I can save the seeds for next year.   I don't think it is too late to plant more seeds. Maybe this time I will put under row cover since my pea and lettuce hoops and row covers are no longer in use. 

My onions are going strong. The last several years I've grown them from plants I order from a nursery that specializes in onions. This time I ordered a sampler pack of three different kinds of onions. I do love onions. 

I hope tomatoes start to ripen soon. I've started all my tomatoes from seeds. I have several varieties for eating fresh, a couple of paste tomatoes for canning or freezing and a few varieties of cherry tomatoes. 

I started my peppers from seeds too and have several different varieties. I can't eat hot peppers so I'm growing different sweet ones now that hubby no longer is able to eat any food. He used to love the hot peppers.  I think I did grow a paprika peppper though. It is mildly hot and I have dried those ground them for my own paprika. 

This one is a Baby Bell pepper - small fruits that are red or orange when ripe. This is the first year I've tried them. I will probably eat one for lunch every day when they ripen. 

These are Jimmy Nardello peppers ---- sweet and good for frying. I think I need to get some stakes next to these plants before they fall over.

These are Black Strawberry cherry tomatoes. Looks like they are about ripe. 

So far nothing has bothered this patch of watermelon and some kind of squash. I grow several varieties of winter squash. 

I know these plants should be Butternut squash.   I assume moles or voles ate my cantaloupe seeds even though I planted twice. I never saw anything in that patch develop and I saw a little hole near there where the culprit probably lives. 

I have a couple of old swing sets sans swings near and old falling down chicken coop that have wild raspberries growing behind them. They sit near the veg and herb garden. One of my next projects will be to get rid of most of those raspberries and clean up the area so I can plant vining flowers around the swing sets and a border of fragrant flowers where the raspberries are now. This area overlooks the veg and herb garden and my new Coneflower garden with bird feeders. I want to be able to put a garden bench or chairs under the shade of the swing sets so hubby can sit out and look at gardens since this area is not too far from the house. I want to turn the old chicken coop into a planting shed but it first needs quite a few repairs. We stopped raising chickens after the kids got older and after fox killed the last batch so the chicken coop has fallen into disrepair.   So anyway...another project...

And here we are in the native wildflower area. Coneflowers I started from seeds. 

These are blackberries...not raspberries. 

Yarrow.

I got tired of pulling out wild grapes so I just made a trellis for them on both sides of a path and will let them grow up to make an arbor. A deer keeps knocking down one of my tepees made of sticks so I guess I will have to put in a metal stake to keep it upright. 

The white Daisy Fleabane grows wild in there so I left it for now. It may get invasive then I will pull it. I think that's yellow coneflower in the back. I started it from seed too.

More Fleabane and Helianthus.

This is an area on the side of the barn (also in disrepair). I am constantly clearing scrub brush  and wild raspberries from there and before I know it there are tall mulberry trees growing there that fall on my veg garden. One of these days I hope to completely clear it and get some nice shrubs planted there. Reminds me that I need to take some shrub cuttings and get them started...Forsythia, Viburnum, Rose of Sharon, Hydrangea...   But hubby always thought we would tear down the barn and our very old house and build a new one here so I have left this area alone  and not planted much here while his dream is still alive. 

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CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

June 29 - What a beautiful day in the neighborhood! I spent most of the day in the gardens weeding. I do like weeding. It clears the mind and after I see a weeded spot I feel so accomplished! 

June 30 - Finished a book -- Life, Loss and Puffins by Catherine Ryan Hyde.  "If you want a piece of advice, always choose to live your life in a way that promotes awe."

July 1 - I go grocery shopping every two or three weeks. That's a job hubby used to do but since he doesn't eat anymore (he has G-tube) and can't drive I have to do the shopping. I hate shopping. Actually I hate leaving the house/property to do anything but that's another story. Well, anyway, I do stock up on gallons of drinking water to flush hubby's G-tube since our water is hard and even with a water softener we get lime deposits on things and I don't want his G-tube to get stopped up with lime. I go to a small grocery store and I go Monday mornings first thing when there is hardly anyone shopping. So, I bought all my groceries and had the bottom of my cart filled with gallons of water and headed out of the store to my car. Along the way a bottle must have dropped off in front of the door to the store and I did not notice or hear it (and I wasn't even on my phone because you know I rarely use my phone) so I must have been in Cathy's world at the time.   I did notice a little boy and his grandfather (later I found out it was his father) rearranging some lumber in the back of their pickup truck that was parked near my car  and I thought how nice that little boy was spending time with grandfather and they looked like later they were going to make something together. I continued on and started putting groceries in my trunk when I heard the man yelling at me from in front of the store. They started toward me with a gallon of water. "My son saw this on the ground in front of the store and we figured it must be yours".    "Well, thank you, son, thank you very much. I am so grateful. What a nice young man you are. Thank you, thank you, " I said.   And young man smiled.   Oh, yes, I celebrated a nice young man and his father who looked old enough to be his grandfather. 

July 2 - A rainy day so I spent some time piecing a few quilt backs so I can get some larger quilts quilted. Now to get them pin basted and quilted!