In The Garden - June 28

The garden is growing like a, well, weed. Thought I'd post an overview picture to show just how grand this gardening season is.

The chili pepper plants are still a bit wussy even though I've been giving them the every-other-week Miracle-Gro treatment.  There are, however, a few tiny peppers, so I will be making something a bit spicy soon!

This is not a pic of some lovely new perennial flower, although I do have a few of those, too.  This is my potato patch.  I've grown these 'Carola' potatoes before, but they have never, ever looked like this before.  I'm just hoping that the potatoes under the ground look as good as the vines and flowers are looking above the ground.

This picture doesn't really begin to portray the size and scope of the the pumpkin/corn patch this year.  Those pumpkin leaves are about a foot across.  Every morning, I spend some time heading the pumpkin vines back into the bed.  Pretty soon, they'll be all over the whole garden at this rate!

This is one of the lovely 'Moulin Rouge' sunflowers that I have planted every year for the last several years.  Last year, the volunteer sunflowers were just a bit red with lots of yellow as they had crossed with the native sunflowers.  I was very dedicated in removing the volunteers this year, so thus far, the sunflowers are all very red.  However, they are also incredibly early.  The main reason that I plant this type is that they seem to attract some small orioles that are traveling south every year in September.  I'm worried that the flowers will be completely done with blooming and will have dropped all their seeds long before the little yellow visitors get here this year.

A new perennial, planted last fall.  I really love yarrow, but often have a hard time keeping the colored flower forms alive.  They quickly revert to white-only flowers.  We'll see how this one does long term.

A brand-new conflower (purchased from Willard Bay Gardens and planted yesterday).  Called 'Secret Romance' it is very double and very pink.  I love coneflowers and have several types:  tall ones, short ones, pink and other colors, big-flowered, small-flowered and now double flowered.  I love these for many reasons, not the least of which is their ability to attract butterflies and hummingbirds.  This new lovely is going to live in the bed near the deck, so I hope that it will attract many visitors to the yard.

Firsts of the Season

We've had a few firsts of the growing season this week.

I ate the first tomato of the season on Thursday.  No picture as I pounced on it and gobbled it up before I even thought about taking a pic.  It was delicious, a little 'Sungold' cherry tomato from the plants in the barrel on the patio.

I also ate the first ripe apricot of the season on Thursday.  I've eaten about a dozen since.  They are very good this year and a good size, too.  I'm either going to need a ladder to pick some of them or need to find a tall boy to help.  Oh, Ben....

Jess brought over a large bag of very delicious sweet cherries this week, so we've eaten our first cherries of the year.  Thanks Jess for sharing!

Last, but definitely not least as this will last all year, I did the first canning of the year.  I made 7 jars of strawberry currant juice yesterday and another 7 bottles of straight currant juice today. 

Between the two batches, there was about a pint leftover that Mike made into strawberry currant lemonade.  He and Ben seemed to have enjoyed it, so I'm guessing that it's a good year for juice.

It is also an early year for juice.  I made juice about a month later last year and almost two weeks later the year before.  Our mild winter and very warm spring apparently got the currant bushed working hard to finish their crop before the real heat hits.

Going Retro or...

how everything old is new again.

I have wanted a clothes line for years.  First, I couldn't think of a good place for it, then not all family members thought it was a great idea.  Finally, once we got the deck and pergola finished, I had a great place.  I researched retractable clothes lines for quite a while before just picking one.  So far, I'm really loving this one.

For the past month, I've been using the line for more loads each week.  It is NOT big enough for all the laundry at once, but I can get about 1 1/2 loads on it at one time.  Now that the weather is quite warm, I can dry a load on the line outside almost as quickly as I can in the dryer downstairs.  I do need more clothes pins, too, as I run out of those before I run out of things to hang.

I still dry our bath towels in the dryer so we're not sandpapering our skin when we dry off.  I also tumble dry most of our colored clothes so that they don't fade, although I'm not sure it would make a big difference as most of the drying time is in the morning when the sun is blocked by the house.

I'm not sure how much money this process saves me.  I'm not sure that saving money is the point anyway.  I know I do look forward to laundry day in a way that I haven't before.  That's probably just because I'd always rather be outside than in.  lol.