A gentle soaking rain...

Last night we got a wonderful soaking rain, which saved me from watering the vegetables this morning. I went out and harvest three zucchinis and one yellow squash, as well as three beautiful golden wax beans. I also planted some more bean seeds hoping to get a late harvest. We'll see if it works out! Also, the sweet potatoes seem to be bouncing back vigorously from their deer-inflicted defoliation. My dad says it might even help them to put more energy into the roots instead of the greens. Time will tell.

Hummingbird Moth

The day that I took pictures of the butterfly bushes I saw the strangest thing... it was about the size of a hummingbird but it was striped almost like a bee and had antenna. I think it was a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth. I could hear it's little wings humming just like a hummingbird! Sadly I didn't get the camera up in time to snap a picture, but it was one of those moments that stopped me in my tracks and I just stood there, staring.

On another note, the deer discovered my sweet potatoes last Friday night and mowed most of the greens off one of the tires and found the other one the following night. I don't think they're dead, just pretty defoliated, and after research online the quickest solution I could come up with was stringing baling twine and hanging pie plates over them. It looks... ummm... well... very rural... but so far it's working. *giggle* Next year my husband says he's going to help me to put in a more formal garden space including some kind of fencing, although I'm not interested in traditional row gardening. I'm sure that'll be a great research project for the cold winter months.

Pictures from July 8, 2008

I finally managed to get some pictures of my plants uploaded!



Here's the biggest grouping of plants. From left to right, orange tomatoes, sweet potatoes, yellow squash, and wax beans.



This is the same grouping from the back side. From left to right there are sweet potatoes, wax beans, dianthus, yellow squash, lobelia, banana peppers (which I don't think are going to produce anything), and orange tomatoes. I put the tomatoes and banana peppers in very late after buying them on sale, so I'll be surprised if they produce, but you never know!



These three watermelon plants were almost demolished by bunnies, so I planted three marigold plants and they seemed to do the trick. I don't think we'll get any watermelon because it's so late in the year for it to bounce back, but I like it all the same.




This is one of the blossoms on the watermelon vine.




I planted two zucchini plants in this tire and we've gotten a couple of decent-sized zucchinis from it (one is pictured below).

I also planted some cherry tomatoes in a planter on the deck, as well as some bell peppers that didn't flourish at all. They made tiny oddly-shaped peppers that never developed and fell off.



That's about it for vegetables and the tire gardening... my next post will be pictures of the butterfly garden that I add to a little every year. I put it over the graves of the animals that we've lost: two miniature horses, L'il Bit of Sass and Denny, my 31 year old saddlebred gelding I had for 23 years, Petite Jean's Fantasy, my son's cat Kailey and my husband's Great Pyrenees, Buddy.

How it all began...

In the spring of this year I was walking through the little nursery in town with my seven-year-old son and he stated that we live on a farm, so we should become gardeners. I smiled and said that was a great idea, since we've lived on our farm for almost 5 years and haven't grown any of our own food to date. I've planted flowers, but hadn't ventured into anything edible. The truth is, I grew up in a subdivision and the thought of gardening intimidates me because my only memories are of a huge tomato patch in the back yard that my Dad made us weed... and the night the June bugs came up at dusk and got in my hair *cringe* It's very much possible that I only had to weed once, but growing up in suburbia, I was totally out of touch with the food chain. Food came from the grocery store, right?

As I grew up and realized the implications of the chemicals we ingested, the artificial flavors and colorings, the impact of factory farming, I not only became a vegetarian but I also started trying to support local, organic farming. I live in a very small rural town so the farmer's market is pretty small, but every year I do what I can to support its growth and I thoroughly enjoy the delicious vegetables and baked goods!

So, I decided to start this blog to track my venture into gardening. Yesterday I took some pictures of my strange little tire plantings (a tire place cuts the sides out of old tires and you can take them for free, so I grabbed a few the year we moved in and only now put them to use). Sadly I don't have the cable that's needed to get the pictures off the camera, but I'll try to do so this weekend and post them.

Anyone who lives nearby or is in the same area, please say hi; I would love to talk to other gardeners!