Warmer than the forecast

The forecast this week was supposed to be in the 40's, the temps have gotten up into the 50's and may hit 60 today. We still have quite a bit of snow. Our back yard is turning into a swamp. I'm hoping we don't get too much rain this weekend. I've wintersown quite a few more containers: 1 delphinium, 2 bachelor buttons, 1 nigella, 2 cleome, 1 delphinum chinensis, 1 echinacea purpurea, 1 foxglove, 1 cilantro, 1 1/2 lettuce and 1/2 broccoli. I tried putting a container on the deck but the new dog started plaing with it so I had to move it. Maybe she'll settle down by next year. Total container count is up to 45. I went out to the garden this morning and it's possible that the chard survived the winter, it's too early to tell but it looks promising. The picture is of my moms front garden that I "redid" for her. It was tulips, hostas and weeds before. I took out the weeds and added sedum angelina, russian sage, coral bells, coreopsis and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember.

Spring is springing!

Thursday I was walking to the parking garage after work and saw some bulbs starting to emerge from the soil. They were up about an inch- I'm not sure what is emerging, maybe daffodils. I'm moving to a new office next weekend so I probably won't be able to keep track of that little garden going forward. New building is across the street from a church that has a beautiful garden-I need to get a seat by a window! Friday morning I noticed that my Irises on the north side of the garage are poking up 1-2"! After work I went outside to check the Irises that I planted May 10 last year -they are coming up too-YAY!!!! I got a great deal on those (14 rhizomes and 4 Alliums for $8) and was worried that they were planted at the wrong time-I guess nature always tries to find a way.

On a sad note: my 94 year old grandmother passed away this winter. She was a wonderful gardener-lilacs, peonies, irises and incredible dahlias. Her favorite she told me once was the irses; so it cheered me up a bit more than usual to see them coming up. I ordered some dahlia's last week and will try those again(I only got 1 wacky looking flower last year and I'm worried I didn't store them properly this winter-I can't remember where I put them!). I found out my cousin (who bought my grandmother's house) has the dahlia gene so I will try to get some tips from her. My grandmother wasn't very good at giving gardening tips. She always said she just planted things and kept them watered. She didn't think growing things was hard or required any special knowledge-I think she just did it for so long it was second nature to her.

Today I have attached a picture of my ghetto BigLots plant stand and Home Depot shoplights that I have set up in the spare bedroom. Everything seems to be chugging along just fine. I got CRAZY good germination rates out of my tomatoes. Horitculture magazine had an article about starting tomatoes early and altering the microclimate of the garden in the spring to get them in the ground & bearing fruit sooner. I'm trying that. This is what I have going so far 3 of each: Tomatoes (Stupice, Super Sioux, Black Krim, Hillbilly, Cherokee Purple, Boxcar Willie, 2 diff. Brandywine 2 of each(from Cooks Garden and Seeds of Change), Green Zebra, Garden Peach. I also have 6 "mystery tomatoes" from seed I saved from heirloom tomatoes I got at the farmers market. I was just goofing around to see if I could save seed & have it be viable and it worked! They had the best germination rate and have sturdier stems than the "official seed". Unfortunatley my computer crashed this winter and I lost the "control" pictures that I took of the the tomatoes that the seeds originated from. I'm not very scientific. I also have Cherry/Salad tomatoes: Peacevine, Jellybean, Silvery Fir, and Jaune Flamee. Obviously I am going to have way too many tomatoes-I sow too many and then give away the plants to friends and co-workers. Peppers: Anaheim Chili and Mulato Isleno (I should plant some Sweet Peppers too). Eggplant:Rosa Bianca & Violetta di Firenze. I started dill (but it's all floppy), foxgloves from seed I saved from last year-germinated really well too! Coleus and Cilantro are in the guest room. I have butterfly weed and delphinium in the refrigerator, echinacea in the sunroom. I have a spread sheet going (my nod to scientificness) to track what/when/how much I'm planting, etc. DH is very patient!

Woe is me!

Veggie garden is being assaulted on 2 fronts: squash vine borers and powdery mildew! That coupled with the green tomatoes has left me very discouraged. So far we have had 3 ripe (peacevine) cherry tomatoes 4 more are ready to come in. I harvested 1 black beauty zucchini and another cucumer and a green serrano- the serrano wasn't hot at all. We had a couple of cool nights (down in the low 50's) and the garden is starting to look a little sad. The powdery mildew seems to have taken off over night. Yesterday was a very warm 90'F and it's back in the high 80's today. I woke up this morning and the powdery mildew was everywhere! I cut a lot of leaves off the squash and zucchini and sprayed the rest with a milk solution to try to contain the powdery mildew. I've also cut out 5 squash vine borers from 2 plants (the only 2 plants that have produced thus far!) I'm thinking they are so stressed out now they will probably kick it. I hate squash vine borers! One plant that had them was planted early and not covered, the other was planted later and covered with a floating row cover until the week of July 4-obviously that didn't work well!

I broke down and went to the farmers market today and bought tomatoes. The ones in the garden don't seem to be producing much fruit and the fruit that is there isn't growing very fast and it's not ripening at all. I got some heirlooms, some hybrids and a ton of cherries for drying in the oven. I haven't tried them yet.

Good news: Winchester Cathedral, Gruss an Aachen and Sweet promise all have buds. Zinnias and cosmos are blooming-tiny flowers -it's weird! Veronica has sent up a second flush and the cone flowers are going bonkers.

I'm not feeling the garden today so I decided to share a picture of Watkins Glen taken on Aug 1 when DH and I went down there for a hike. A beautiful state park at the south end of Seneca Lake,

Flutter-Bye

I had a visitor in the garden this morning. I was sitting in the sunroom drinking my coffee when I saw it swoop down. I wish my old camera (kodak easyshare) was working, it took great pictures. This is taken as a still from my Canon video camera.

I think it's a Monarch, I looked it up in the image gallery of "Butterflies of North America". He seemed to really like my marigolds in pots on the deck. He also liked the Echinacea. Not the gorgeous deep pink Ruby Star that just started to bloom yesterday but the generic giant monstrosity of an Echinacea bunch at the edge of the garden. My ultimate goal is to attract butterflies, bees and hummingbirds. I think I've seen some honey bees, I've had a ton of bumble bees. No hummingbirds, I have a feeder hung in the garden but it doesn't seem to be attracting anything but wasps I think I hung it too late in the season.

My foxgloves and delphinium are setting seed, so I was out early harvesting the seeds. I'm going to try to start them from seed myself so I can make new flower beds next year and fill them economically. DH will appreciate that.

What I've been up to

I've been away the past 2 weekends. We went up to Uncle's place up on a lake near the 1,000 Islands for July 4. Different Uncle (and different lake) than Memorial Day Uncle. It's beautiful and quiet up there, we usually go up for the whole week but schedules didn't work out for that this year. Then we were at my moms in Syracuse for the rest of the weekend. My husband took on gutter cleaning duty (she had helicopter problem too that manifestited itself in the gutters) I really dislike cleaning gutters so I decided to weed the front "flower bed". Basically it was all weeds so I pulled almost everything out, hit some sales and planted a bunch of stuff. Then I put down a soaker hose and mulched the whole thing. My moms neighbors are very happy they don't have to look at the weeds anymore. I put in low maintenance plants that are deer resistant.

This past weekend I went to see my sister in Ithaca. There was a rose propagation class there that I signed up for given by Lee at http://www.derrosenmeister.com/. It was a wonderful class. He has a beautiful property with an amazing garden that was a hayfield 5 years ago! It was a 2 hour class and we each walked out with 2 cuttings of 5 different non patented roses and with the knowledge of how to propagate roses. It was the last class he offers for the year. I can't wait to take more classes next year. He's got a large selection of cold hardy roses, I'm studying up on his inventory and trying to narrow down my choices to put in the garden next spring!

Gruss an Aachen is blooming right now (see picture), it smells great, it's a beautifully delicate rose. I think the mystery Sweet Promise is actually Sweet Promise. The bud is unfurling as we speak. It's more of a deep apricot than I was expecting. It kind of clashes with the rest of the garden, I'd like to move it at some point to a new location. I'll have to research that and see if it's feasable.

What's blooming now: EVERYTHING! Echinacea, hostas, sweet peas, helianthus, yarrow, stokesia, foxgloves, delphinium, bee balm, cosmos, coreopsis.

Veggie garden update-we have tiny tomatoes forming! I have been harvesting lettuce for quite a while, tiny cucumbers are visible and the summer squash should be ready in about a week to ten days.