Irises and Almost Every Square Filled!

We've been busy! My wonderful husband built me another bed beside the house, so I can grow things that like, or at least tolerate, shade. I transplanted some of the mustard I'd started in pots on the deck and we put our cilantro in there, which will hopefully slow down the bolting process. We also got some herbs which I potted on the deck (dill, fennel, summer savory {which has the pretty tiny purple flowers!}, and tarragon), and I fear that I once again bought more tomatoes than I have space for in the garden, so two of them went into great big pots. We bought four little peanut plants too and put them in big tubs on the deck, and amazingly they're already visibly growing! Sadly I didn't get the pictures on Flickr over the weekend, but I promise to post them soon.

Every spring I find myself smiling at the sighting of daffodils dotted around our little farm and it makes me so happy to see the irises bloom. I went around and took pictures of some of them Sunday, although I didn't get any of the lavender patch that is being overrun by blackberries. I love the deep purple patch at the end of our driveway. We divided them three or four years ago and this is the first year they've really bloomed fully. They were even more dense this morning! Hopefully I'll be able to get a picture of the full blooming patch, but just in case, here are some from Saturday. The last one is my favorite! The sun made the interior of the flower glow, although I'm not sure the picture does it justice.




These two are blooming beneath the butterfly bushes so I need to move them. I don't know if you can see the full range of color in the peach bloom... peach, yellow, vibrant orange, lavender... they're gorgeous!




The last one is a Mother's Day present from my husband. We were at the greenhouse buying compost to put in another raised bed Square Foot Garden and this beauty took my breath away.


I hope everyone is having a lovely spring!

An update on the peas, greens, and the Square Foot Gardens

One of the pea varieties (Alaska, I think) has flowers on it today! They're so pretty when they flower. I took a couple of pictures, although I'm not sure you'll be able to see the flowers very clearly.

As you can see they're doing pretty well and I'm hopeful about getting a good harvest as long as it doesn't snap super-hot.

The greens, on the other hand, aren't doing as well. I think the problem is that I was lazy when I planted them and thinned them out too late, so the plants aren't flourishing.

I don't hold out much hope for getting a harvest from any of these this year, but it was instructive and I'll likely try again in the fall.

The Square Foot Gardens are doing great! We're slowly filling in the empty squares, although the fourth one is still empty at this point. We've added a couple of different varieties of tomatoes and the most up-to-date diagram of each garden is available on my Flickr photostream.

I didn't snap pictures of the zucchini and yellow squash in the front yard, but they're doing really well. Everything is growing like crazy, thanks to all of the rain we got! My irises are blooming and they're so beautiful, I'll try to get some pictures of them for my next post. I hope that everyone is having a wonderful spring!

Enticing Butterflies and Hummingbirds (and other flowers)

I love butterflies and for some reason just seeing flowers has always made me happy, so when we bought this farm I decided that I would add a little bit of floral delight each year. I know it's not about gardening, per se, but attracting pollinators is as important to me as growing food, so I'm going to share.



This is the butterfly garden I mentioned in my previous post; the one that's over the animal cemetary.



Another view of the butterfly garden.



Some daisy-type plants I put in a couple of years ago. They were standing tall under they got beaten down by rain. Even growing along the ground they're still going strong.






Last year I bought a single monarda plant that I thought was Jack Kline (which is red), but turned out to be Raspberry Sorbet (which is hot pink). The plant had one flower stalk with a gorgeous single flower when I put it in, but this year it came back with a half-dozen gorgeous flowers! I went to the feed store about a month ago and they had red, pink, and white monarda so I bought a pink one and a white one, thinking the one I had was red. When I realized my mistake I planted the new pink one with the one that was already there, put the white one between two of the butterfly bushes, and returned and bought two red one, which I put between two different butterfly bushes. Unfortunately the red one had already flowered so I don't have a picture of how pretty the red ones are. Oh well, next year!









Last year I bought a bag of Butterfly/Hummingbird seeds and planted them, and some came up again this year! I also bought a couple of random plants (the names of which I can't recall, so if you know the name, please let me know!) and put them in because the tag said butterflies liked them.



These are two astilbe plants that were in pots for months after I bought them and appeared quite dead, but I put them in the ground anyway and they bounced back! They're beside the driveway so when they flower I'll be able to see them clearly.



This is sweet basil that I planted two or three years ago in a planter beside the driveway and it keeps coming up. The butterflies love it. I'm afraid to plant it in the ground because I suspect it'll take everything over, but I'm looking around the yard and figuring out where I don't mind of something takes over, such as along the edges of the property, thinking that I'll plant such things there.

I'm going to put the butterfly bush pictures in a separate post because there's quite a few of them.

When we bought this farm 5 years ago there was a newly planted patch of irises beside the driveway that bloomed so beautifully; they were lavender and there were a few tulips and gladiolas mixed in. Sadly, we were too caught up in other things to pay much attention to it and in the last two years blackberries have seriously taken it over. I'm thinking that this fall I need to move the irises, because they're going to get choked out completely before long.