Daffodils!

Ours seem to bloom about 2 weeks after everyone else's but spring is finally here!

Snowy Backyard

Late Bloomer

We have a lot of buds and blooming roses on the bushes right now. More than we had in the spring or summer this year, I think!

Tomato, ToMAHto

So, tomatoes are my favorite food. As such, I only eat them in their prime. Which, here in B to the more is August. Namely nearly my birthday (August 19th. I will be 30. Am scared) week. So, why are all of my tomato plants full of GREEN tomatoes? We have some flowers and some tiny tomatoes but nothing ripe. Well. We have had 2 ripe tomatoes since June (both now in quotes "Early" Girls) and one in June (yellow pear) and nothing else. For all of June/July we pretty much had zero flowers so at least these flowers speak of potential but we are going to Belgium for a little over a week in early September and I have horrible thoughts that they are all going to ripen then. Is it in bad taste to ask the neighbors to pick my tomatoes and then hold them for me? We have like 10 heirloom varieties I am dying to eat. This summer was supposed to be the summer of tomatoes, not the summer of suck. Le sigh.

Figs!

Figs are growing on the tiny (under 2 ft) fig tree that we planted this May. Very surprising.

Planting

Planted fairytale eggplant, a Rugters tomato and habanero, jalapeno, scotch bonnet, poblano and carmen peppers today in the space near the house where the pond used to be. I hope they do well! I am also hoping that the fairytale eggplant's small size will prevent it from doing what has happened to every other eggplant we've planted: flopping over with the fruit ending up sitting on the ground after a storm or big wind. Then they never ripen properly and I at most get 1 eggplant per plant.

In other news, the blackberry bush continues to double in bulk every week. By next year I think I will be able to pick blackberries from our bedroom in the second floor.

Blackberry Bush Blooming!

I thought it was May flowers?

I'd take a picture of how tremendously overgrown our yard is but I don't want to shock or alarm any children who might come across this. It has gone way beyond dachshund height and is creeping up to whippet height in most places. But! It isn't our fault. There has been nary a day without rain in over 2 weeks and the few patches of sunshine we have were not enough to dry out our swampy backyard. Even one rain storm takes a few days to recover from, much less weeks of rain. It has been sunny today but now it looks like rain again so who knows when the lawn will be cut.

In good news, we went to Market Day and picked up several varieties of hot peppers, tomatoes and fairy tale eggplants. I am hoping the eggplants diminutive size will be an asset. Perhaps they will ripen more quickly than their larger relatives? Whenever we would grow regular sized eggplants they'd get big then we'd have a big storm or heatwave and they'd droop and never recover. Tomatoes we've had mixed luck with in the past but I have hopes for some new locations this year. Hot peppers grow wonderfully in the yard, we end up with more than we know what to do with.

Trees

Today Matt bought two tiny fig trees. This past weekend we bought two pawpaws. I got to thinking about all of the other trees we have and realized that we have quite a lot of trees! Two dogwoods, a redbud, two crape myrtles, a Japanese cherry, the two pawpaw and two figs, one (or is it two?) mock apples, a fruiting plum (pictured above), a large oak and what I think is an ornamental plum tree, all of which are in the backyard with the exception of one of dogwoods. Today marks the end of our tree purchasing!

Resurrection Lily, Surprise Lily or Naked Lady Lily

This lily really was the most surprising thing in our yard the first Summer we moved in. We didn't see the leaves that appear in the Spring because we moved in in July. Even if we had, we'd still would have been surprised! These flowers are almost eerie, iridescent and a ghostly lavender. They send up leafless stalks about 3 ft tall and then bunches of the flowers appear soon after. Very fun and unexpected.

Blackberry Harvest

Our blackberry bush is huge. Last year it was like a foot tall, now it is over 6 and very prolific. We've gotten about 1 cup of berries so far and lots more are coming ripe. We put a net over the bush to keep the birds at bay and it seems to be working well.

Mammoth Sunflowers

Now taller than us!

Blackberries!

Sorry for the lull in posting, but not much has been happening in the garden lately. A lot of growing, but not a lot of flowering or fruiting. Oddly all of the baby plums on our tree have vanished but the blackberries are going strong.

Peony!

The peonies opened yesterday! I am glad they waited until after the rain.

New Plants!

We got a Home Depot gift certificate as a reward from the bank and we had coupons (one for buy one get one free shrubs, another for $5 off) so we picked up some plants yesterday. Unfortunately, we couldn't find 2 shrubs we liked (we were hoping to buy one $25 shrub with our gift certificate and then get a free one and pay nothing out of pocket) so we ended up getting another hydrangea for the backyard and some Spanish lavender. I don't like the fussy smell of English or French lavender, but I found this one to be pleasant and I think it will attract bees and butterflies.

Our pretty butterfly bush that was in front of our house was uprooted last week during one of the storms and is dying so I think we will put the lavender there, even thought it isn't going to get as big as the butterfly bush would have. We do have a spirea and a hydrangea out there now, and a few other plants (Mexican roses, I think? Maybe not.) that are doing well. It is a small space and I don't think we actually need another large plant there. The hydrangea will probably go in the backyard somewhere. It is already quite large and blooming so that's fun. It's called blushing bride and has white flowers with light pink streaks. It's also one of the "endless summer" varieties so it should have a long bloom time since it blooms on both old and new growth.

One cool plant I saw and liked but didn't get was a Pink Lemonade honeysuckle. It was really pretty but it needs a trellis or something to grow on and we just got rid off all those grapes and climbing vines and are in the process of getting rid of the shed, so I am not sure where we would put a trellis. Plus we'd have to buy a trellis and we've already spent way more than I wanted to on plants this year. So, we ended up getting a new hydrangea, the lavender, fill dirt and a tomato cage for only about $7 using the coupon and our gift certificate. Not bad! I'll post pictures once they are in the ground.

In Bloom Today

Here's a picture of most of our yard. It's actually 90% green and in bloom now.

Mock Apple

After the storms of the last few days (we even lost power for a couple of hours!) we are losing a lot of petals from our various trees. The mock apple is holding strong though, and smells great.

Gardening Update

The cherry blossoms are just starting to bloom. Finally! I remember when we first moved in that they bloomed around March 25th and we had no idea what kind of tree it was, so it was a big surprise to walk out one morning to a tree in full bloom. So it is blooming late but I am glad it is blooming at all, it is pretty old and there is a dead branch.

my favorites

Spring 2008
Originally uploaded by rachel is coconut&lime

Finally, they bloomed! I love daffodils. I really want to plant more-maybe those pink ones I've seen?

Our Yard: Vortex of No Growth?

The most recent signs:

• Our daffodils are just leaves and no blooms while our next door neighbor's daffodils have been blooming for a week.
• The cherry trees in Washington DC are blooming. We have the same variety and it is no where near ready to bloom.

I understand that DC is probably a little warmer (due to being more urban and being slightly further South) than our yard but what is the difference between our flowers and the ones blooming not 3 feet away in the neighbor's yard? Even ones that get the same sun exposure are not blooming. Perplexing.