Triple Digits

Poppies in the 'maple garden' May '12

Holy cow! It feels as if I'm living on the surface of Mercury over here!  This last week has been nothing but triple digit, sticky-icky heat even at night.  Except for some shady spots, all the grass in the yard is that nice dead straw color as well as texture.  You know, the kind that crunches underfoot.  But the gardens are staying hydrated even as the rest of the world melts.  The beautiful spring blooms (like the poppy to the left) have all died back giving way to our summer blooms announcing summer in bright yellows, pinks and even subtle shades of black.

Repopulated 'chocolate sunflower'

Even now things are changing in the gardens.  The sunflowers from last year repopulated their garden bed, except they're more yellow this year....The black petunias are doing wonderful with their orange pansy buddies on the front porch.  The citrus trees are loving their front row spot in the sunlight and their friends, the strawberry plants.  When I first transplanted the strawberries I picked away the buds so the plants could focus on growing a little bit.  Since then, I've let them have their fun in growing mini fruit.  It's that or let the squirrels get to them...

First harvest of strawberries

In addition, the white pumpkins, cantaloupe, butternut squash, and pickle cucumbers are running amuck. The cucumbers have taken nicely to their trellis but the rest of my little cucurbitaceae (aka the melon & squash family of plants) friends will have to be wrangled up too before they get more ambitious.  Cutworms got to my red bell pepper plant not too long after transplant.  However, some soap spray and cornmeal later I got rid of the pesky things before they got to the banana pepper plant.  And we have mystery corn in the yard.  I wanted to plant bicolor sweet corn in my container garden this year; however, the birds were gracious enough to spread their corn seed about the front yard.  Now there's corn growing in front of the driveway in random spots.  The boy blamed me for a millisecond before we noticed the culprit of the bird feeder.

Planning for the garden expansion

Not only have the gardens been busy but we have as well...Next to the maple garden we began to plan out the newest feature to the backyard...a mixture of herbs and decorative plants. So far there are black viola, echinacea, chives, oregano, apple mint, and lavender in that new spot with room for other perennials and maybe some annuals.  In the left hand side of the picture (which you can't see), I think I'm going to put a few Asiatic lilies that we have cooped up in a pot and maybe next year get a different variety of day lily.  I blame our trips to the Botanical Gardens for all these wonderful ideas....

That's it for now, classes have taken up ludicrous speed as I try to finish my graduate program in under a year before my funding runs out...talk about fun...but! Don't let the heat keep you from going outside!  Remember give water to yourself and your plants, wear sunglasses/hat/sunscreen, and stay cool!  Now go play in that dirt :)

But they're so tiny!

As a few of you know, I ordered citrus trees a few months ago to add to my growing collection of container garden items.  Well, I'm happy to announce that they're here!!

L-R: orange, lemon, and lime trees

I just potted the three little citrus trees in their own ginkgo fiber pots (which makes them eco-friendly and biodegradable).  The pots should last them for a year or two.  And as you can see they're still tiny so the small pots aren't going to be a problem (they're only 7" diameter). Lucky enough our local nursery had soil for cacti, succulents and citrus so I didn't have to guess on the mixture, which could've been a hazard.  Hopefully these lil' guys do well so we have fresh citrus next year!  On a side note: the blueberries aren't looking too happy with me so I doused them in vinegar water in an attempt to keep them alive...if anything I'll pay a little more for 2 or 3 year old plants.

In addition, talk about a whole front yard make-over.  Last year, we talked about transplanting the two bleeding hearts in the front garden and a few of the hosta to the side yard where they'll enjoy more shade than sun.  Well by the time we got to it they were all huge and it was too late in the season to move them.  Finally, we caught them before they're growth spurt.  Now the bleeding hearts are on the north side of the house with a neat row of six of the larger hosta.  They all have room to grow into their full potential unlike the cramped space in the front porch garden.

On top of that we moved around the remaining hosta in the front garden, moved in two more dianthus, planted some 'Sweet William Dianthus' on the side, moved a 'Black-Eyed Susan' and got stabbed to death by the climbing roses in the back.  I'm sure there are other things that we accomplished during our venture into the small gardens surrounding the house but it's getting late and the glass of merlot is kicking in.

If you haven't already: make sure to plant potatoes (I've got mine curing), start tomatoes and basil indoors for a better start outside.

Daydreaming of Spring

After my last post we got a decent blanket of snow (by decent I mean barely an inch), which only lasted until that following morning.  A for effort I guess.  However, the temperatures did drop quite a bit making me finally pull out the puffy winter jacket.  Bundled up like that kid from A Christmas Story, my boyfriend and I ventured out into the world to check out the New Year sales.  First stop the local nursery.  The place is practically empty.  There's glitter from the Christmas decorations everywhere as if an ornament exploded.  The shelves only house the leftover stuff that 80% clearance cannot get rid of.  While tucked away into a dark corner are the rakes, shovels, fertilizers, everything that speaks of *gasp* SPRING!

But there is some hope...Near one of the registers they had boxes of grow your own mushroom kits as well as mini starter kits for slow growing herbs like parsley, dill and chives.  I eyeballed the mushroom kit.  My family loves mushrooms.  Whenever the 8oz packs are on sale for a $1 I grab an armful.  Otherwise, we don't have mushrooms.  I'm frugal like that and really don't like spending out of season prices for fruits and veggies. Yet, I didn't get the mushroom kit only because the things in the box are alive and I didn't want to risk killing the poor things since we had more errands to run.  9 degree weather can't be good for them...Maybe next weekend.

What I did order this week were....*drum roll please*...citrus plants.  You're probably thinking but you live in zone 5 you crazy lady, do you know how cold it gets?  Why yes I do, thank you.  But here's the genius: they're potted and they were only $9 a pop through Michigan Bulb.  So I ordered orange, lime and lemon as well as a few Sweet William and petunia plants just to bump my order up to $40 to qualify for the order $40 spend $20 deal.  Last year, I made the goal to get mini citrus trees and this year I'm following through.  I'm looking forward to this little experiment.  Our summers are toasty and humid so the trees can hang out in the backyard while soaking up the rays.  In the wintertime, we have plant lights taking over the dining room so they should be fine in the house.  Needless to say I'm excited.

That's all I have for the Wednesday's post, stay tuned for Sunday!