Sunday, August 12, 2007
Grape Harvest
We noticed that our grapes are suddenly ripe. Last year they died before we could pick them, but now we have a ton. I can't imagine what we are going to do with them all.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Tomatoes!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
More Squash
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Produce update
So far: blackberries, 1 zucchini and 2 patty pan squash. It has been in the upper '90s for a few days now-not the best weather for gardening!
Monday, July 2, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Waaataaamelllooon
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Take off your shoes, we have some stomping to do!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Garden Bloggers Bloom Day!
We have a circle of yucca in the backyard that we uncovered when we moved in. It had been completely overgrown. Now they are healthy and blooming. You can't tell in the picture but the shoot with the flowers on it is over 5 feet tall.
Our first blooming hydrangea. Matt thinks it was blue last year, but I am not sure. It is the "endless summer" variety.
I think this picture came out pretty. It's the redbud tree we planted last year-raspberry sundae.
And last: the coneflowers Matt planted last Saturday to help fill in the hole that was left after taking out an old clothes pole.
This is my first participation in Bloom Day! I just took these pictures less than 10 minutes ago, so it is literally what is blooming right now.
Also: please vote for my cooking blog, Coconut & Lime in the GrillMe contest. By voting for me you are also entering yourself in the same contest-a trip to Napa Valley! Click here to enter.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Tomatoes!
Also: please vote for my cooking blog, Coconut & Lime in the GrillMe contest. By voting for me you are also entering yourself in the same contest-a trip to Napa Valley! Click here to enter.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Friday, June 8, 2007
Red Lilies
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Pink Carnations
Monday, June 4, 2007
Bloomscape
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Greenwood Nursery Woes
The first problem we had was that they had sent us less hibiscus than we ordered. This was troublesome, but when we notified them of the problem, they sent more to us and they actually looked better than the ones we received in the first place.
The second problem we have had is with the golden raspberries. We ordered 6 bushes. They told us that they would arrive looking like sticks but to plant them and they would be fine. They looked dead but we believed them and followed their instructions and waited for them to grow. And waited and waited. We kind of half wondered if they were just slow growing (it has been sort of unseasonably cool this year) but when we went to Matt's parent's house in the slightly colder Staten Island and saw that their (red) raspberry bushes had leaves and were quite large we really started to think ours were just dead.
Do you see raspberry plants? Nope, me neither.
*Just as a rough guide, the blackberry plant I picked up at Home Depot this Spring and planted around the same time as the raspberries has already flowered and is starting to berry.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Sherwood Garden Tulip Dig Results
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Sherwood Gardens Tulip Dig
Go early to get the best bulbs!
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
And we have blooms!
Monday, May 21, 2007
Peonies are Coming!
They are so lovely and smell beautifully. I'd love to get more, but we haven't seen them at our usual online shops or in person any where. Matt actually moved the above plant from a different location in the yard to a spot near the fence. We had heard that peonies don't always transplant well, but he just dug it up (a rose of sharon had grown up in the middle of it) and replanted it. It came back bigger than ever and looks great.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
The First Rose of the Year
Isn't it pretty? I am not sure what variety it is, the bush was here when we moved in. Like I mentioned before, when we bought the house (July '05) there were a lot of existing plants and bushes but they were oddly placed. Last year Matt dug a lot of them (roses and peonies mostly) up and rearranged them. He transplanted the roses to a clump all together on one side of the yard and they all are doing well. Lots of new growth and blossoms, including this one. It is great gardening with what you have. It is cheaper (of course!) but you are also making the the yard really "yours". And now that the bushes have moved, we can actually see and enjoy them without having to duck behind a shed.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
More plants...
Thursday, May 17, 2007
azaleas
Azaleas may be considered "the royalty of the garden" but they are not my favorites. Matt likes them and we compromised last year and bought three hot pink bushes. This year only two came back. They are both still pretty tiny, but they really had a lot of blooms. Now he thinks he might move them to somewhere else in the yard, they are sort of out in the "middle" on the back quarter of the yard. Which may or may not have been something I suggested last year (before the initial planting) and was ignored.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Walther Gardens & Vegetable Plants 2007
This year I bought: 1 cloud nine eggplant (white eggplants!), 1 dusky eggplant, some tomatoes (better boy, early girl, beefsteak and sweet 100s), scotch bonnet peppers (very exciting-they are hard to find in stores and a lot of Caribbean recipes call for them), and two zucchini plants. I am tempted to go back and get some more cucumbers or a different variety of squash, but I am undecided. The woman who checked me out said not to put the squash or eggplants in the ground yet anyway, as it has been getting down to almost freezing the last couple of nights.
I am excited to have some more varieties of tomatoes (or as the lady at the nursery called them "toe-may-dahs"-okay, when I lapse into Baltimore-ese I call them that too) we already planted a variety that are supposed to be super producers (50-100 lbs of tomatoes each or something like that) but I really love tomatoes. What if I don't like the super producers? And early girls are, well, early producers, beefsteaks are big and the sweet 100s are cherry tomatoes. So you can see that I really do need about 7 tomato plants to adequately feed 2 people.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Project Budburst
Monday, May 7, 2007
Lilacs
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Garden Surprises
When we moved in to our house it was July (2005) and we had only looked at it once in late May, so we had no idea what the yard looked like in Spring until nearly a year later. The previous owners were sort of a "buy whatever we like and plop it where ever" couple so we had some oddball plants (giant grasses in the middle of the yard, a dead fig tree, random bushes) randomly placed all over the yard but the owners before them were much more careful. They had planted a lot of old fashioned bulbs and things (fancy daffodils, snowdrops, resurrection lilies) that were exciting to come across when they bloomed. Most of them we saw last year, but a few were new this year-parts of the yard were very overgrown or had large bushes blocking them, so since we rearranged and replanted a lot of things last year we uncovered a few plants and flowers (particularly bulbs) that we didn't know were there. But my favorite surprise came last year. I had spent our first summer telling Matt that we needed to get a pink cherry tree. We couldn't find one that was both healthy and under a $140 so we didn't get one. Then on March 30th, the bare tree we hadn't identified bloomed, literally overnight. It was a cherry blossom tree! This year, due to the freakish cold, I was worried it wouldn't bloom, but it did, about 3 weeks late. It really is my favorite thing in the yard.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Tulips!
He planted about 60 bulbs in November and we plan to go back this year for more. It has been a lot of fun seeing them bloom this year-I especially like the black tulips. Ironically, I heard that not many of the tulips at Sherwood Gardens came up this year due to the freakishly cold weather in April, but all of ours did.
Black tulips with ruffly edges near the cherry tree in the backyard.
Pink tulips near the center of the backyard with wedding gift flamingos.
Pinky lavender tulips and green and white striped tulips around the new dogwood in the front yard.
Purple tulips along the front walk.