Summer Vacation

Late July is perhaps the most precarious time to leave your garden for an extended period of time especially if you don't have a sprinkler system.  However, with the help of my wonderful parents, we were able to leave for two weeks without fear of coming home to crispy crops.

We try to visit the in-laws in Tennessee during our vacations, but we also like to see new places as well.  So this year we decided to fly to DC, drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway, see the in-laws, and fly to Albuquerque before heading home.  It was an ambitious plan, and it turned out to be one of the best vacations we've ever had.  

The contrasts in the landscapes were amazing, the sun and heat felt great, and we got our fill of gardens as well.  The Garden Highlights are as follows:

A sign featuring the Cabbage Butterfly at the Smithsonian Butterfly Habitat Garden

Coleus on display in the National Floral Library

Arch of potted containers at the United States Botanic Garden

Vegetable Garden at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

Sea Kale

Bean TeePees

View Point along the Blue Ridge Parkway

Dale Hollow Lake, TN

Cactus in Old Town Albuquerque

Children's Garden at Rio Grande Botanic Garden in Albuquerque

Heritage Farm at Rio Grande Botanic Garden

Produce from the farm feeds the local zoo animals

Trumpet vine Pergola at Hotel Albuquerque

Sunset in Albuquerque

This was just a sampling of garden/natural sights we saw.  We saw an amazing number of cultural/historical sights around the DC National Mall, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and in Albuquerque.  This was the first vacation in a long time where I wasn't ready to head for home at the end.  

After two weeks away, we came home to a garden that had grown up significantly.  My parents did a heroic job keeping up with the watering.  It took us a few days of mowing, weeding, and pruning to get the garden back in order... just in time for summer crop harvest season and fall crop seed planting.  

  

Ladybug Larvae- our little friends

Ladybugs like to eat aphids.  Every year our honeysuckle vines are covered in gray aphids and I get really agitated.  Around the time I'm ready to spray chemicals on the vines or rip them out, I start to notice ladybugs on them.  They are extremely outnumbered, so the vines look terrible and I trim them back and toss the clippings into the yard waste container.  The next day, the yard waste container is covered in lady bug larvae trying to get out.  Terry spent this weekend collecting the larvae and putting them back on the honeysuckle vines.  

The second Terry placed a larva on a leaf, the larva starting eating a gray aphid.

Eat well, little lady!

Our first homegrown Cauliflower!

I read that some people tie the leaves up to cover the head.  I now know why.  When exposed to the sun, the head turns yellowish.  It's also important to pick it when the head is still nice and solid.  After awhile the curds separate.

After harvesting the head it is good to soak it in a bowl of water to encourage the cabbage worms to crawl out of it before you store it in the refrigerator.

Be sure to ham it up for photos before you eat it.

Shortly after the photo was taken, we chopped it up, steamed it, and ate it.  Yum!

Yellowjackets- a cabbage's friend

By keeping your eyes and ears open in the garden, you will discover the most amazing things...

Terry noticed that Yellowjackets were crawling around our cabbages.  He assumed they were looking for pockets of water collected in the leaves.  Then he saw one eating a cabbage worm.  That clump of green at the head of the yellowjacket is the worm.  

The yellowjacket has a chunk of worm flesh in his mouth.  There is the worm's head left on the leaf.  He finished it off later.

In other cabbage worm news...  I cleaned a bunch of veggies in the tub the other day.  That night when I was brushing my teeth.  I spied a little green cabbage worm crawling away on the wall.  I was thinking... this doesn't happen to normal people.     

Welcome Summer!

The flowers have come out to celebrate the solstice.

Cottage Gardening

I have a tendency to keep magazines.  Back in 1999, I had subscriptions to "Country Gardens" and "Garden Design".  I loved the free flowing look of the cottage gardens in "Country Gardens", full of flowery annuals and perennials.  I grew up on two acres of prairie and my parents grew a lot of dahlias and cutting flowers.  From "Garden Design" magazine I learned to love modern, high concept gardens with impeccable hardscaping, strong lines, and sophisticated plant palettes.

In 2000, I got job with a Seattle landscaping company and came away with a well-developed taste in garden design.  I fell in love with unusual plant varieties and learned how to combine them together to meet the functional and stylistic needs of a particular space.  I also learned to create beautiful container gardens featuring beautiful Asian pottery, pricey annuals and perennials.  When we bought our home, I was determined to utilize all that I learned to a create a colorful and functional garden that featured all my favorite plants ($$$).

Now it's 2011, and we've developed a love of growing vegetables from seeds.  I grew a few flowers from seeds the past couple of years.  This year I expanded my flower seed collection and my cousin gave me a bunch of dahlia tubers.  I started zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, nasturtiums, marigolds and statice.  I went a little crazy and found that I didn't have quite enough space for all my starts.  However, today, with a little creativity and some old black plastic pots I got all my flower starts crammed in- Hooray!!!!  

I've also been delighting in self-sowing annuals and perennials.  I've got foxgloves coming up all over in our pathways and beds.  Thyme, lavender, erigeron, and salvias have self sown in the cracks of our sidewalk.  I even discovered a blueberry growing out of an old log (a little birdy must have pooped it out).  

Thinking back to what we started with and how earnest we were about our landscaping plans, we chuckle at how wild our garden looks.  Despite it's wildness we know exactly what everything is and how it got there.  We know why there's chicken wire winding around, irregular salvaged wood steps, and streams of plastic.  It doesn't look messy to us.  Apparently it does look messy to others.  A couple very tidy and regimented, new to gardening, friends of ours were visiting our garden the other day and started gushing about how great another garden looked in the neighborhood.  While that garden is super orderly, we know that it just recently had professional landscaping installed.  Gardens always look perfect when they first go in.  We also know how much cost is associated with such things.  We were practically rolling on the gravel patio in laughter at how our garden and our priorities have changed.  No longer are we worried about crisp edges, weeds in the lawn, or keeping our beds perfectly groomed.  Now we just obsess over how to grow yummy veggies despite a record cold spring.  And we are excited when we can reuse scrap wood for something in the garden and don't have to spend money at the hardware store on more materials.  Our depression era grandparents would be proud.  

While searching the attic for rummage sale items last weekend, I re-discovered my old magazines.  While our original landscape plans looked like those in "Garden Design", I've found that our garden has evolved to be like those in "Country Gardens".  I guess that is what happens when a prairie girl marries a ranch boy.

Orchard & Vine Community Garden Rummage Sale

The Orchard & Vine Community Garden is hosting a Rummage Sale Fundraiser Saturday, June 11 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.  The garden is located at N 45th. & N Orchard St.

Lots of items have been donated, including beautiful tomato starts.

Funds raised will go to support garden projects and programs.
 
Come by and check out the goodies and the garden.