suziebeezieland

all-you-can-hold pumpkins for $16.99

Late this afternoon we went to one of our favorite nurseries to pick out pumpkins.

Claire looked for good orange pumpkins with interesting stems.

She was a very thorough pumpkin inspector.

The big pumpkins are all-you-can-hold for $16.99. We have learned from years past that Bob can hold five big pumpkins without problems. Six is pushing it, and seven creates a big pumpkin cascade and they all get smooshed. Trust me.

This is a nursery that does not stock anything too unusual.  South Pasadena is pretty liberal politically, but they are mighty conservative when it comes to their gardens, yes, sirree.

But I find the displays so peaceful and lovely, and I love to come here around four on an autumn afternoon, when the light is dappled and there is a good smell in the air.

This was my favorite pumpkin.  It had a stem like a witch's hat.  I use the past tense because sadly, during the car ride home, it tipped over and the top of the stem got smashed.  I wanted to cry, but there is no crying over spilt milk, baseball, broken chalk, or smashed pumpkin stems. Those are the rules.

I think these white and lightish orange pumpkins are called Cinderella pumpkins or Fairy Tale pumpkins or something like that. Do you know? They are very regal-looking.

More pumpkin inspections in the gazebo.

Claire's favorite part of this nursery is the mushroom patch.  Do you remember the mushroom patch in the nursery in Cambria awhile back?  She has started a casual collection of these.

And the fire lantern plants are lovely, as if miniature, translucent pumpkins grew all over a little plant.

cold-weather annuals

It has cooled off a bit, so working outside is once again enticing and pleasurable.  I've been trying to get some cold-weather annuals into the pots out front and back.  What I really need to be doing is weeding and clearing out the garden beds, but putting flowers in pots is easier and more immediately satisfying, so I've been doing that. :)

Last week Claire and I went to our local Armstrong Garden Center and picked up a few plants. She really wanted a cabbage. I have never really seen the beauty in decorative cabbages, but when I was planting it, all of a sudden, I got it.  It seems pretty now.

I love the fragileness of the poppies.

Yesterday I went to Persson's Nursery with my friend Michele, who first told me about it last year.

We found white stock that smells exactly like cloves.  I also filled up my flat with pansies, violas, and snapdragons.

These are all waiting for me to plant them, so I'm going to log off and go play outside. :)

whites & creams

the bunny hutch

Our little bunny Hugo has turned into our big bunny Hugo! He was getting squished in his little cage, so we ordered a hutch for him online, and yesterday Claire and I built it.

This funny concrete slab is where the previous homeowners had their washer and dryer. It's in a little covered area between our driveway and backyard.

Funnily enough, I didn't feel comfortable washing clothes outside.  When it rained, I would be standing in a puddle of water throwing clothes into bazillion-volt appliances.

So we moved the washer and dryer into the kitchen when we remodeled several years ago.  I had a potting table here until we got Hugo, and then he lived in a cage on top of the table.  And now this.

I'm not sure how one gauges bunny emotions. Bunnies are fairly inscrutable.  But I like to think that Hugo's happy with the new hutch.  He seems happy with it.  He has the run of the backyard when I'm home (we blocked off all the bunny escape routes the first week we had him) and I can leave the little door open so he can hop out . . .

. . . or back in.

The concrete slab stays cool when it's hot. He also always has a frozen water bottle or two to keep him cool.

He explores a bit when he's out, but mostly he like to sleep in the cool dirt under the hydrangeas.

Sometimes when I'm in the kitchen, I feel something watching me.  His stare is persistent and unblinking.

"Let me in, mom!"

(He likes to come in the kitchen to take a nap behind the washer and dryer.)

september garden

I mostly water-and-ignore the garden in August and September, when it is so hot. But the garden stays busy without me, and surprises me every year with its end-of-official-season burst of energy.

There are cosmos and salvia. I usually kill salvia, somehow, but it has taken off this year.  I suspect it likes the leaky faucet.

The little yellow-hearted feverfew are still going.  I have chopped all the feverfew down to the ground a couple times since I planted it, whenever it starts looking quite dead, and it comes right back.

The roses are having their last big flush.  I quit fertilizing them this month so that they can go dormant and build up energy for spring, but because our weather is so mild, we'll have straggler blooms all winter.

The scabiosa just keeps on blooming. Have I recommended this plant to you enough times this year already?

The phlox look so funny and shaggy when they start dropping petals, but there are new buds there ready to go.

And here's a sweet little pink vinca ready to go, too.

dahlias & crepe myrtles

The dahlias are blooming. They remind me of ballerinas in a ballet blanc.  Maybe Giselle.  Cue Chopin.

They are so nice about opening up at the end of summer just as the other flowers are starting to die off.

And the crepe myrtle trees bloom now, too.  They also remind me of ballerinas.  Something pink . . . maybe Sleeping Beauty, after she wakes up. Cue Tchaikovsky.

you barely even notice the gigantic phone pole, right? right?

This year I finally found something that will scramble up the trellis on its own . . . morning glories! I just threw a handful of seeds in a pot and they've taken off. Every morning it's covered in purple flowers.

Can you see me in this photo? I just noticed. :)

i wish you could smell the phlox

sunflowers

I've told you before that I'm easily impressed, so I'm posting a photo of this summer's sunflowers, even though they're pretty much just like last summer's sunflowers. And the summer before that one, too.

But I'm telling you, these guys always just blow me away. You throw some seeds into this little strip of nothing dirt next to the fence, you water them, and a few months later you end up with SUNFLOWERS that are so tall, they're taller than you are. It's a miracle.

feverfew & barbie feet

The feverfew has bloomed, and its cheerful little blossoms make my heart skip when I walk out the front door.

There's a Barbie picnic going on in the background.

Here's something cool you might not know. If you buy the Beach Party Barbies instead of the regular ones, they have big, flat feet instead of tiny, inclining traditional Barbie feet. They can't wear regular Barbie shoes, but the fact that you can hang them from almost anywhere by their toes more than makes up for it.

more hydrangeas

The new hydrangeas I planted last year were all Endless Summer hydrangeas.  Traditional hydrangeas bloom only on old wood, but Endless Summer hydrangeas also bloom on new growth. This means that the hydrangeas rebloom throughout the season.  It also means that if you live somewhere cold (we don't have this problem) and a late frost kills off your new hydrangea buds, it will still bloom later. 

The hydrangeas in the post below were the "Endless Summer the Original" hydrangeas.  As with traditional hydrangeas, you can alter the color of the blooms from blue to pink depending on the pH balance of your soil.  The ones above, which I've planted all along the back wall of our garden (the same wall we painted green last summer), are Endless Summer Blushing Bride.  They range in color from white to light pink.

I don't really have any hydrangea "tricks." They are the plant I do the least to, and are the most successful and consistently pretty things I grow. Perhaps this should be a lesson to me. :D Sometimes if I think about it I throw the coffee grounds on them, but that's about it.

Hydrangeas need shade (the traditional hydrangeas we have here against the back wall of the house are almost in full shade, and the newer ones are in partial shade -- they do not tolerate full afternoon sun) and lots of water, and that's about all I have to tell you about them. Mine have just taken right off without me. Oh, wait, I do have one more thing. Hydrangeas don't really need pruning. You can cut off unsightly dead flowers, but otherwise, leave them alone. If you do have to prune them for some reason (if they're getting too big or something), you need to do it right when they've finished blooming for the summer, and not a bit later.  They set their buds for the following year right away, so if you prune them too late, you won't get any flowers the next year. (This is true of the traditional hydrangeas. You could prune the Endless Summer ones if you wanted to, but again, you don't need to.)

hydrangea

The new hydrangeas I planted last year in the back yard have matured and are blooming this year. I can't help but feel that the secrets of the universe are hidden somewhere in this mysterious and very beautiful section of the color spectrum.

pincushion flower

I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite cottage garden flowers, in case you don't know about it. If you do know about it, please let me know if you are also a fan!

It's lovely, and has a very ugly name. It's "scabiosa." I think this sounds like a Harry Potter spell to kill traitorous rats. (Scabiosa kedavra!)

It's also known more prettily as "pincushion flower."

I just love this flower. It's a perennial, which means it comes back each year. If you leave it be, it will spread out two or three feet wide.  Here is one I planted last year:

If you don't want it to get big and spread, you just divide it up (pull up part of the plant at the roots) and plant what you pull up somewhere else.  As long as you keep deadheading it (cutting off the dead flowers), it will keep blooming for the length of your growing season.

I have them tucked all over the place out front, in the beds and in containers.  They peek through the railings.

And they are really pretty as cut flowers, and last a long time.

They are pinky-purple, lavender, or off white, and butterflies love them. There are lots of different types. :)

I've bought a few at local nurseries (they are common here, and I assume they are elsewhere) and this year ordered a couple through Annie's Annuals & Perennials.  If you think you'd like to try one, check out Scabiosa artropurpurea,  Scabiosa anthemifolia or Scabiosa caucasica.

roses

We got home from vacation last week, and were greeted by our roses, which had opened up. Every single April, I continue to be amazed that they do this. :D

I'm working on the beds in front and back, tucking plants in here and there, mulching and composting a bit, and excited to see what things will look like in June.

ladybug picnic

Claire and I bought a cup of ladybugs to let out in the garden this week. The idea is that the ladybugs will colonize, and eat the bad bugs like aphids.  Frankly, we do this every year and I have absolutely no idea if it makes a difference or not. I mostly do it because Claire gets so excited, and comes up with names for all 200 or so ladybugs, and just loves the whole thing. Here is an actual photo of ladybug-letting-go-induced happiness.

You're supposed to put let them out at dawn or dusk or when it's overcast, because they're more likely to stay and make the garden their home. But we always buy them in the afternoon after school and then can't wait, so they get let out at four or five. I have never noticed that our garden is particularly full of ladybugs in the months to come, so they may be moving elsewhere. I'm not sure.

Sally Cat watches us from inside.

I'm so late getting things planted this year because of jury duty. I did buy some plants locally last week, and have ordered others online. Right now there are some pansies leftover from winter (they'll die once it gets and stays warm).  I also put in some violas and nemesia for spring color, but they don't usually make it all the way through summer here.  I also put a few herbs in, for smell and pretty green color: feverfew, chamomile, and lemon balm. (The feverfew and chamomile will be covered in little flowers come summer.) And then a few different varieties of one of my favorite perennial flowers: scabiosa. (It's also called pincushion flower.)  Scabiosa is tough, and will bloom here into autumn, in pretty shades of purple and blue.

I haven't mulched yet, so it still looks pretty rough.

To be honest, cocoa mulch doesn't do a great job at weed abatement (it's just not heavy enough to deter them from breaking up through), so in the backyard I use regular old heavy bark mulch.  But cocoa mulch is just so easy to work with (the bags are light and it's easy to scatter) and smells so good and looks so pretty that I continue to use it out front. (I mentioned last year you don't want to use cocoa mulch if your dogs can get to it or want to eat it, because it can kill them.)

  

I have some more interesting plants coming in the mail. :)

31 geraniums and 1 Hyacinth

Claire's school's annual silent auction is this Saturday night, so this week I've been getting the table decor together for the 31 tables.  I have a little red geranium nursery out in my driveway, where I'm repotting them. It's kind of fun. :)

Although my own geraniums in the windowboxes are looking a little spazzy.

I had trouble finding enough gallon pots of red zonal geraniums for the table decor. (I ended up getting enough from five different places.  I just bought them all right up.)  I was talking to a buyer at a nursery, and he said he's had trouble finding them this year, because the growers aren't growing as many because they are "kind of out of fashion." What?!?

There was a woman next to me in line at that last nursery, who had placed a special order for 30 red geraniums the week before, and was cancelling it because they hadn't come in.  "I can't find any ANYWHERE," she said. I avoided eye contact with her.

Here's my sweet helper.

Corgi smiles are always in fashion. :)

the garden in early march

Boy, nothing says "Welcome" like a pot of dead pansies, ay? My garden is a mess. I would despair, except that it's ALWAYS a mess in March. I have a lot of cleaning up to do. I'm still sick, so I don't have a ton of energy, and I'm just trying to do a little bit whenever I can.  So far all I have managed to do is fill the pots on the front porch with new flowers, because I thought I was probably depressing the mailman and UPS guy with all the decay. :D

I've just thrown in some violas, candytuft, and bacopa, for spring. The tall purpley flowers are scabiosa . . . also called pincushion flowers. They are very sweet, I think.

I stuck some Primroses in, too, in a shady spot. They are also very sweet. I think they will probably only last another month or so here because it will get too hot, but I could not resist them.

It made me laugh when I looked at this "Bloom!" sign, and the floppy, dying pansies.

So I've managed to repot these, too. I need to paint, but don't want to think about that right now. The purple stuff is Nemesia, and then that's bacopa again hanging off the front of the back pot. (It will spread.) There are some scabiosa in the back of the back pot, too, that you can't see. Most of these flowers (except the scabiosa) don't do well in the heat of the summer here, but should be okay through May or so.

The tulip tree in the front yard is at the end of its bloom.

And so are the camellias out back.

I don't know what is up with this bit of grass out front. It would be cool to have an entire lawn like this, all polka dotted.

One good thing is that the geraniums love the cool and the rain. They're doing great. They are perennials here, and have just been outside all winter, waiting for spring.

But the flowerbeds are pretty yukky. Mostly weeds. It's time for another family gardening afternoon! :)

tuberous begonias

If you like tuberous begonias and live in North America, it's time to start them indoors here in the next couple of weeks. :) The video above, from my favorite online nursery, White Flower Farm, shows you how to plant the tuber and get it going. Their begonia selection online is great. I didn't used to like begonias, but I've been introduced to new varieties that I think are beautiful (some really do look like roses), so now I do. :)

ps This is not a paid endorsement! Ha ha.

spring is sprung. almost.

If you're longing for spring, you can sprout some grass in about three days (no kidding . . . this stuff grows very, very quickly) in a windowsill that gets even a little light. (I have mine in the kitchen window which has a large overhang and no direct sun, but they still are growing like crazy.)

I used a packet of Renee's Garden Mixed Greens.  I found them at our local Smith & Hawken, but I've seen them at regular nurseries, too. It's marketed as "Gourmet Cat Treats," but all it is is a mixture of equal parts rye, oats, barley, and wheat grasses. Sprinkle several seeds in some potting soil (or use Jiffy's Quick Soil Mix, which are the little pellets that expand when you add water, and are perfect for starting seeds), and keep them damp.

Let the kids give them haircuts every couple of days with the scissors. :) It's so fun.

our november house

. . . at that time of year a few weeks' neglect can soon transform a richly flowering garden into a mess of weeds and seed-heads, and the tidiest brick path into a slippery ribbon of moss and algae (Mary Stewart, Thornyhold)

I've just about finished up my crazed flurry of pre-Thanksgiving projects. It's time to just give the whole place a good cleaning and then sit back and enjoy the rest of the week without my silly self-induced stress. Although I got stuff done that needed doing, and I'm happy about that.

The garden is (relatively) weed-free, at least out front, and I'm hoping to avoid Mary Stewart's apt description of November's decay.

The pansies remind me of excited women doing holiday shopping.

I cut back the roses in front of the bay window because they were up to the top, and needed a rest. I like the hips, which come in round and orangish-reddish and offer interest when the roses are gone.

But there are still blooms on the fence.  They glow at dusk, and almost look blue.

The fountain used to be out back, but we see it more out front, so now it's there. The pansies keep leaning towards it for a drink, I think.

The bunny photos I posted the other day were overexposed, so here are a couple more, taken later when the sun wasn't beating on the porch.  Alas, the original bunny was decapitated in a fall onto the sidewalk (let us never speak of it again), so this is a replacement, brought around from out back.  I do miss that first, terra cotta bunny, who always looked so wistful and sweet to me. 

I made the bloom! sign at a trip to Color-Me-Mine a month ago or so.  Do you ever go there, or to a similar paint-your-own-pottery studio? It's so fun. I could sit there all day painting.  It's way too expensive (so we only do tiny projects about four times a year), but so fun. Claire and I paint, and Bob, who is the best painter in the family, watches. It took me awhile to realize that he doesn't paint so that he can help Claire so that I can paint. (I get completely absorbed in what I'm doing and don't hear anybody talking. "Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama?") When I realized what he was doing, I thought it was so sweet. Next time I want him to paint.

My sign kind of reminds me of something out of Beetlejuice, like stripey witch stockings. I'm not sure what I was going for. Maybe an inchworm? But it was fun to do, anyway.

Inside, I am so pleased to have finally hung up two prints of some original paintings our Catherine did. I'm a very slow picture-hanger-upper.

They are exactly the punch of color on that wall that the dining room needed. (The piece we had there before has found a nice home in our bedroom, where its subdued color palette works better with the bedroom's light green walls, and shows up better than it did against the yellow.)

And finally, here is my favorite pilgrim (squinting into the morning sun), ready to go to school last Friday and enjoy the Thanksgiving party. (Her hat was at school.)  She has had stomach flu this weekend (last night was a long night), but seems to feel better this afternoon. Hooray.

garden work

Gosh, I haven't posted in awhile. My aunt and uncle are coming out from Kansas City for Thanksgiving, which we'll have at my sister's house. We're having a little brunch here on Tuesday, so I've been straightening up outside so that the first time they see my house, their initial reaction (inside their heads) won't be, "Wow, a bunch of weeds!"

It's also just fun to get ready for them . . . I love my Uncle Keith and Aunt Lucy, and their own home is so lovely and gives so much joy, that I want them to feel happy here. But I have a tendency to go crazy.  I hate that tendency.

So out front I weeded and mulched, and planted some stock, and painted the porch floor and the front door and the threshold, which were all three looking shabby.

Out back I ripped out the dead impatiens and put new ones in some pots, and emptied, washed, and stored the rest. I got a few cyclamen planted, too. I like to see that red when I look out my kitchen door. 

It has also been good motivation to get some stuff done inside the house that has needed doing for awhile.  I'm thinking about painting our hallway and hallway cupboards. I got the supplies yesterday to do it, but today I'm more inclined to just clean house, which has become a disaster the past couple of days while I've been working outside.  I could probably get the hallway painted tomorrow morning, before Claire's class Thanksgiving party. 

We leave for Germany the day after Thanksgiving, and I've been getting ready for that, too. We're still wearing warm-weather clothes here, so it's strange to pack for snow and cold. 

I feel a little flustered with everything on my to-do list, and I got a jury summons for the week of December 15th, which I'm hoping won't turn into a trial a week before Christmas. Hopefully I'll get caught up the next couple days and will calm down. :)

trader joes ivy topiaries

I can never resist grabbing one of these ivy topiaries at Trader Joes when they have them in.  They are less than seven dollars, and come in the terra cotta pot.  I have never succeeded in keeping them alive more than maybe six weeks, but this year, I'm determined. :) My goal is for it to stay alive through Christmas. Cross your fingers. :D

good morning, glory!

phlox

The front garden is suddenly shaggy-looking, and I need to do some cutting and mulching.  But in the past couple of weeks the phlox have bloomed, which makes me so happy, because these are my favorite flowers in our garden. I wish (not for the first time) that TypePad offered smell-o-vision, because they smell very, very good. 

The one above is Phlox Paniculata David's Lavender. (I get mine from White Flower Farm, but they're out right now.)  I planted them last year. 

This year I tried Phlox Paniculata Blue Paradise, above.  They're a good foot shorter than the David's Lavender, and I'm not sure if this is because they're babies, or if it's the sport.  Not quite as stunning yet, but I love the color . . . we'll have to see what they do next year.

Even for me, who loves carefree, unplanned-looking cottage gardens, this is a bit too messy.  The zinnias are taking over.  But I do love the colors.

backyard beautification '08

I worked out back on Tuesday for seven hours straight. (I got a babysitter to come in the morning for four hours, then Claire took a two hour nap, and then she helped me for an hour.)  Then I spent a couple more hours out there yesterday.

My most recent frenzy for backyard improvement is because Joe and Lorraine replaced the bit of fence between their backyard and our driveway.  It's so fresh and pretty and new that it made me want to work on the side and back, which I've largely neglected this season.  (We've got sunflower seeds and cosmos planted in front of the fence, so hopefully we'll get some of those in a few weeks.)

First of all, I painted the wall out back.  I've planted Blushing Bride hydrangeas to replace the old sombreuil climbing roses I finally pulled down because they just didn't get enough sun in the backyard to do well.  The hydrangeas will eventually get four or even five feet tall, and obscure most of the wall, but that will take a couple years.  In the meantime, I was tired of looking at the gray cinderblocks!

The gallon of paint the kids used up on Monday didn't cover the entire wall, and as they painted I realized I'd need to go two shades darker . . . it was too light and institutional-looking.  (But they had so much fun painting. They were hilarious.)

When I finished I was afraid it was still a bit too light, but it's grown on me and now I like it. It's actually a sage color called Shy Blossom.  This is off a Glidden paint strip I go way back with. :)

My last bedroom and my current bedroom are painted Morning Blend, and my old craft room in Virginia had a gingham wall that was Pastel Sage and Shy Blossom.  They're all greens off this same paint strip.  Our family room in Virginia and our dining room here were also each Pastel Sage for about 24 hours each.  (They both ultimately ended up yellow!)

The first gallon we stuck on the wall Monday was supposedly Pastel Sage, but I really think the guy gave me Morning Blend.  (I may have mumbled my order.)  Anyway, now it's Shy Blossom, and it's done, and yay.  It looks sage-i-er (less minty) in real life.

Then I ripped out the roses in front of this other wall and did a bunch of weeding and pruning and put down mulch.

I still need to plant hydrangeas over here in front of the other wall and paint it, but I can't do much until the peach tree stops peaching and we can either prune it or cut it down, because I can't get back there to do the wall.  And I need to cut back the vine crawling over from the other side of the wall. So for now, mulch it is.  I got the color-enhanced mulch that won't turn gray. (I didn't want to use cocoa mulch back here because of the dog.)

So I'm kind of back to where I was two (or was it three?) summers ago, when I ripped everything out. But that's okay. Live and learn. :)

Then I turned my attention to the small yucky scary alcove behind the garage and telephone pole. I've never shown it to you before because it's small, yucky, and scary. :)  Claire and I are turning it into a little secret garden.

Here, let me orient you. This is coming into my backyard from the driveway. The detached garage is on the left, and the house is on the right.

See the phone pole ahead? It's hard to design around a phone pole. :)

But I try. I will train the mandevilla vine on the trellis.

The yucky scary alcove behind the garage (to the left of the phone pole) was full of some rickety old shelves, a big bag of leftover pea gravel from a different project, some used paint cans, a bunch of ivy that crawled all over the walls, the cast-iron sink we removed from the kitchen when we remodeled it, and some of my favorite little garden friends, black widows. So I put on my thick gloves, got a spider-smashing shoe and some spider-killing spray (one can never be too prepared), and cleared it all out. Then I painted the wall.  Then, feeling too lazy to move the bag of pea gravel, I just decided to use it. First I put down three stepping stones, and then poured the pea gravel around it.  The sink wasn't going anywhere, either (it weighs over 200 pounds) so I used it as a planter.

I think we'll paint some little things to decorate the walls this coming week. I think it'll be cute when it's done. I'll have to spray for spiders every week (I know they're hiding back there in the ivy) but it'll be a good little place for Claire to come water her impatiens.

And now when you're sitting in the chairs, the view behind the phone pole isn't so ugly.

I also tidied up the driveway a bit (this is the other side of the gate you came through a minute ago). That's the other red adirondack chair and little side table, which I just sprayed with clear enamel this morning.

And I hung some flowers off the shower's soap dish.

For the record, I should mention that when I woke up Wednesday morning after seven hours the previous day of painting, weeding, mulching, planting, and working up a sweat, I could barely get out of bed.  Did you know I'm an old lady?  It's true. 

:D

my painting crew

the blueberry vase

My sister recently mentioned what cute vases Oregon Fruit Products Co. cans make. I've always loved those cans. And I always like to buy Oregon when I'm able. :)

So last time I was at the grocery store, I bought a couple cans.  I'm happy with my blueberry vases.

And Bob is happy with his pie. :) 

in the garden lately

The hydrangeas out back make me happy. These are the ones I grabbed at Home Depot (I don't know what kind they are) and planted a couple summers ago.  I've totally ignored them, and they're the nicest things in the backyard.  The sombreuil climbing roses, which I have fretted over for three years as if they were my babies, had one short spring flush this year and have looked awful ever since. I had given them an ultimatum :), and they did not listen, so I've ripped most of them out in back and replaced them with hydrangeas.  It was very satisfying, but now I'm back to having a big old ugly gray wall out there.  Hopefully next year it will all look nice.  The backyard could be nice, but really isn't.  Out front is better.

The phlox paniculata "blue paradise" has bloomed.

And so has the liatris spicata "kobold".

Queen Anne's Lace is probably most effective en masse, but I wasn't sure if I'd like it, so I didn't plant too much. It's actually wild carrot, and considered a weed in many places. (Some famous gardener said once that every flower is considered a weed somewhere. Ha.)  I do like it, though, and it shot right up . . . it's lacy and soft . . . so I might stick a bit more in next year, to break up all the purple.

The Franz Kafka dahlias and cosmos are still in a big glorious tangle together.

The Eveline dahlias have bloomed.

So have the zinnias. There is something so sweet about zinnias.

It's all kind of messy, which makes me happy.

I like it because every morning when I go outside in my pajamas and water everything and say "Hello, garden! Hello, world!" something new is happening.

millions of peachespeaches for freemillions of peachespeaches for me(and anyone in the whole world who wants any)

I have fertilized our peach tree pretty faithfully this year for the first time. We woke up one morning last week to discover that the weight of the peaches had snapped a big branch off.

Bob cut the big branch into smaller sections to fit it into the trashcan.  He is in good shape. He works out, lifts weights, and rides his bike to work. Yet he said it was a tough lifting job, because even the smaller branches were heavy. It was also a messy job.

This is the branch that fell off. It's a shame these had to be thrown out, but they wouldn't grow once the branch was broken off the tree.

There are about four times this many peaches left on the tree.  They will be ready to eat later in July. If you come by my house in a few weeks, you shall go home with a big huge gigantic bag of peaches. And maybe some Amish Friendship Bread starter. :)

bouquet

I'm so excited. Last year I could only make little poseys every now and again from the flowers we grew, but this year I've managed to throw together an actual bouquet.  A bouquet that an earwig crawled out of. (They like the dahlias.) But still, a BOUQUET! :)