Category: Gardening

First cutting.

First cutting of asparagus, which actually occurred over a week ago. Second cutting happened today.

Yum.

Have picked about 4 cups of Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes in the last few days. That’s on top of the 8? cups picked before this week. More are on the way, in varying stages of maturing and ripeness.

So good simply popped in my mouth – not all make it inside – in salads, baked in a little olive oil with garlic, rosemary, and pepper.

Yum.

Bounty.

We grow a few of many things in our small garden.

Todays’ harvest: jalapenos, ‘ugly’ tomatoes (which are volunteers from last years’ effort), Chocolate Cherry tomatoes, tomatillos (also volunteers), beans, a cayenne pepper, ground cherries. Also growing: rosemary, spearmint and peppermint, basil and Thai basil, sage.

How it is.

July 2022. The haskap has grown considerably and shares space with asparagus, strawberries, and sunflowers. Partly or completely obscured by the haskap and asparagus are Chocolate Cherry tomatoes, garlic, beans, tomatillos, broccoli, Chicago figs in pots.

Up against the foundation are ferns, more sunflowers, columbines, Purple Coneflowers, and more stuff I do not remember right now.

Some might call this untidy. Weedy. Even messy.

I say, less lawn to mow. More diverse. More welcoming to birds as well as pollinators and insects.

How it was.

May 2014. Pretty bare, lots of grass to mow. A little bitty haskap bush next to the stump of a Norway Maple we had removed.

I got down.

I got down to this Grape Hyacinths’ level in order to capture it from a different perspective.

Place holder.

Lucy dozed off on the couch once the game ended. We had been going through seed catalogs; she held our place when we got up to tend to things.

Harvest.

We spent time shelling beans on a delightful November afternoon. Not much yield by volume – perhaps two cups – and certainly not enough to be self sufficient. Yet, we grew them.

Still looked lovely.

Even after the first frost and the first hard freeze of the season, this Johnny Jump-up flower still looked lovely.

Brilliantly.

This hibiscus flower shone brilliantly in an evening sunbeam.