[gardening] Daylilies

The daylilies have started to pop open at home and it seems like there's a new one every day. I was pretty worried about how they would fare after the drought but I'm happy to see at least one scape is coming up in each type. Some are looking a little thin this year, which could be weeds as well. I've spent more time in the vegetable garden than I have the flowerbed this year.

[gardening] Vacation

And just like that, it's June.

I took last week off- my annual week to work in all the flowerbeds. This year the week was mostly devoted to the vegetable (victory) garden.

It went from:





To this:



Radishes were coming up quickly:



I started adding weed fabric:



Which I ran out of and I started using cardboard:



I added some shorter, finer mesh fencing around the perimeter, to keep out woodchucks:





The radishes had to be thinned:





I washed the microgreens and had them with my lunch. I was happy to already be eating from the garden.

I'm still a little nervous about the woodchucks- esp since I've seen three little babies running around with their mama...



I think there are a couple more fence spots I can reinforce.

I planted: radishes, scallions, leeks, strawberries, tomatoes (orange, green and red zebra, purple), Asian eggplant, watermelon, yellow squash, carrots, cucumbers, jalapeno and poblano peppers. I have a few areas that I'm covering up to keep weed free- I want to do some diakon radish and kimchi cabbage from seed in a while.

The flowerbed bed did get planted:



90% marigolds this year. There is a perennial poppy in there that looks nice and healthy this year.

The wash tub was planted, as well:



And as I was walking the perimeter of the lawn, looking for mushrooms, I saw another matching washtub over the bank by the brook. I should see if we can drag it up so I can use it!

The days were sunny and hot, which meant lugging around lots of watering cans, but I made time to relax- it was a vacation, of course.



We ordered a chicken coop and a chicken run. We're going to try raising a few chickens. Got supplies to build a couple composting bins, as well.

I did a lot of crocheting. Not a lot of cooking/baking- was too busy working outside.

I'm already planning for the next vacation. Is one week off every month too much?

[gardening] First Iris

The first iris of the year has popped open:

I received this from one of my coworkers. I love the dark color.

I checked on the phoebe nest under the desk. A week or so ago there were no eggs. Now:

I planted some bulbs of anemone blanda many years ago. There's really only one spot that took hold and flowers.

I love that this is one of my earliest spring flowers and I have another type of anemone that is my latest late-summer flower.

My sage always looks so sad in the spring and I'm always sure that the winter killed it. But I see new leaves:

So far chives, oregano, sage and mint are my hardy herbs that come back every year.

Vacation starts this afternoon!

[gardening] Starting a victory garden

I'm trying a vegetable garden again this year. It's been a few years since I've used the garden (I'm better at growing zero effort perennial flowers). My uncle dropped off a load of horse manure and rototilled it all in. I'm raking up beds and pulling out the weeds, roots and sod clumps.

I've planted a couple types of grapes, several strawberry plants and some asparagus. All perennial (I hope). I have some seeds to start and I'll add some tomato plants. 

I also have some weed fabric to put down on the walkways and some finer fencing to put down along the bottom of the perimeter fence. One of the problems I had with this garden was that something would get in and eat stuff. I blame the woodchucks- I never saw any deer prints in the dirt.

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The three day weekend was great- better weather than I thought. It's like mother nature flipped a switch- snow, cold, snow, cold, snow, cold, okay summer. Dollar mowed the lawn for the first time. It's getting very close to hammock-lounging time. 

Sewed a good amount- lots of medium sized face masks. Just have to pin a bunch of small masks and sew. Did some knitting. A little baking. But mostly gardening.

[gardening] Rhubarb

I uncovered my rhubarb (growing since the days my grandmother lived on the property, maybe even since my great-grandmother) a couple days ago. It's so alien looking:

It looks like a brain hatching from a red egg, right? 

I brushed aside all the dead foliage from last year and they were all closed on Sunday. After the rain Monday and sun yesterday, leaves have started to break out of almost every egg:

I've made rhubarb muffins in the past, some rhubarb-strawberry shortbread bars. My favorite method is to just make some simple syrup with it and enjoy in cocktails.

[gardening] African Violet

I have an African Violet plant given to me by a friend more than a year ago. I had it in the upstairs bathroom for a long time. It got nice and leafy but never bloomed. I repotted it and moved it downstairs to the entryway. Now it's flowering!

It's so nice to have something blooming in the middle of winter.

I received a hydroponic self-watering garden kit for Christmas and I started some cilantro seeds last night. I think I'll be able to harvest cilantro in... a couple months? I should start some microgreens- at least with that, you're harvesting in a couple weeks.

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TGIFFFFF. I organized some things in the craft room last night so it should be easier to finish and start a few things this weekend. I think we're going to go to a Super Bowl party that I'll make bean dip for.

I saw that a Locke & Key series is coming to Netflix on Feb. 7. Can't wait to see this Lovecraftian series on TV!

[gardening] Monarch Butterfly

Saw my first monarch butterfly of the summer on the (aptly named) butterfly weed plant yesterday:

And as I was standing there, trying to get a good picture, I looked down and saw a monarch caterpillar on a stem:

I really hope this caterpillar makes it's chrysalis where I can see it and watch it while it... incubates? Gestates? Transmogrifies? Turns into a butterfly.

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Another night of no knitting and I'm starting to lose my mind. I had to clean up my craft room. It was already in an embarrassing state and I got home to find that someone (my money's on Santana) had jumped up onto the table and knocked alllllll kinds of stuff off. There it was- patterns, fabric, knitting needles, yarn- strewn all over the floor and I was like, "You can't really even tell there's extra mess. I gotta clean this shit up."

The room feels fresher and more inviting to finish up projects.

Also, I ran out of space on my phone and had to start moving pictures to my computer. Dollar asked what I was doing (I'm never sitting at the kitchen desk, looking at a laptop) and I said "Downloading pictures, I have too many on my phone. Guess how many I have." He said, "Oh god, 3000?" I frowned. He said, "10,000?" I looked down and shamefully said "21,000" and covered my face with my hands. It's so many photos, I can't even download them all at once. I spent hours trying to get the last 12 months of pictures moved to an external harddrive and deleted from my phone. And there are still a couple more years to do...

But it was nice to look back- see all the nice memories over the last year. I should start compiling and ordering photo books.

Lots to do this weekend- baking and cooking and pickling and knitting and sewing and gardening... and maybe some chores. TGIFFFFFF.

[gardening] Polymerous Daylily

I know I just posted a million pictures of daylilies but this one is different, I swear:

It's the bottom bloom... It's polymerous- it has four petals and sepals instead of three. This only happened once last year (that I noticed) with a different variety. It's so cool when I see it- like finding a four-leaf clover. Maybe one day I'll catch a super mutant one with five petals and sepals. I'd probably immediately drive to the convenience store for a lottery ticket.

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I have nothing new to show other than flowers. I haven't even knit for the last two nights. Last night I got distracted with laundry, dishes and making new flower bouquets. It sounds so frivolous... "Oh, no, I can't clean the litterboxes, I have to arrange all these flowers I just pranced around outside collecting- tee hee!" But this is only the fourth time I've had time to do this since spring and it is kind of becoming a chore. I have no issue leaving the old, dead, dry flowers in their vases forever- but after a while I start to get paranoid that it's bad luck.

The bucket of flowers I collected:

It was close to 8pm by the time I was done making bouquets and the night pictures I took aren't the best. I'll take a pic later today. 

Then at the very end of the night, I sat on the couch with dried lavender bundles and rolled them upside down between my palms over a big bowl to collect the buds while I watched the finale of the "will you accept my rose" show. It is my guilty pleasure only because I get to think things like, "Girl, he is trash. You are so stupid."

Tonight, hopefully I'll make some lemon lavender cookies.

[gardening] Daylilies

This post is just going to be pictures of daylilies.

Gold edge to the above daylily:

I love daylilies so much. There are at least 6 different varieties that haven't even started blooming yet.

I know that I have at least 30 different kinds but I'm sure it's actually closer to 40. They are hardy and need little care other than keeping weeds away. And they are so beautiful- I feel so lucky to have a special daylily garden/grower so close so that I can get interesting new specimens every year.

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Made some kimchi stew for dinner last night. Vermont Curry is the plan for tonight- with Avengers: Endgame. 

Just found out that the American Cheese Society Conference is happening this week in Richmond, VA. The winners will be announced this weekend and then I can go on my annual cheese scavenger hunt next week!!