Bloom Extravaganza

I walked around the garden a few days ago and here's what I saw:

Hollihocks blooming!

Snapdragons... this is my favorite color variation from all that have bloomed this spring.

Yarrow and Hollihocks in the background...The Hollyhock "column" creates an optical illusion on this image - looks like I just put 2 pictures together...

Lavender almost blooming, lilies, violas and Swiss Chard in the background.

First tomatoes ripening in the greenhouse.

Some of the Monkey-flowers have started blooming. I double checked and yes, they are called monkey-flowers.

Grape vine is LOADED with grapes this year. Can't wait to see what kind of grapes these are. It desperately needs an arbor to climb on, which would also form an entryway to the garden...

Savoy cabbages forming heads. I was late getting them in, but ya never know, we may just get a few heads!

Swiss Chard - always charming!

Lettuce mix.

Nasturtiums are among my favorites - beautiful and useful. The flowers and leaves can be added to salads.

A black Japanese tomato variety. Those got tied up and pruned yesterday.

Picknic tables in the back - we now have cool new space to hang out! Those will be useful also for workshops!

It's amazing how much on can get done on a cool overcast day in the garden! I pulled out some seed plants, cleaned the beds, transplanted more cukes, peppers and tomatoes, basil, flowers, celery and repotted more peppers ant tomatoes into bigger pots, tied up and pruned tomatoes, weeded beds and walkways and can't even remember what else...

Try and keep up...

I try to keep up but always seem to end up playing catch up. There is more planting to do... Always, it seems. Weeding is something that can be done in little bits daily - raised beds are nice from that point of view, as they tend to not be overly weedy.

I was happy to see these lilies starting to bloom last week! Love that deep, almost black red.

Here's our corn farmer Evan:)

We recently planted another batch of corn by his house. The earlier plantings are doing great.

This rain we are having now should make them all 'oh s0 happy!' The variety is called "Country Gentleman" - it's a shoe-peg corn... ? I'm curious about it. We also planted a craziness of melons and winter squashes on the rest of the land - in no particular order, as they crawl everywhere anyway. And to challenge my need for order:)

Foxglove is almost done blooming. So pretty!

Here's a view of the CSA mornings - on Wednesdays and Fridays my wheelbarrow gets loaded up - sometimes twice, then all the produce is divvied up, sometimes washed and then bagged.

I don't USUALLY wash the produce, since we don't have adequate refrigeration, and tender greens don't keep too well when they get soggy and are not refrigerated.

There are some green tomatoes on the vines outside already, even though the plants are still pretty small. Peppers are starting to bloom...

Our CSA may end up having a week here and there with only tiny offerings between the abundance of greens, tomatoes, then greens again. I hope ya'll don't mind.

Happy rains:)

Planting ideas...

Last Friday STARworks Garden hosted a planting workshop for Star Elementary First graders!

Oh boy, the energy, questions and enthusiasm!

Huge thanks to Adam and Tony for helping me out. Adam has posted a great blog entry about all we did and more HERE.

There had to be lots of "wiggle releasing" in addition to planting flowers and herbs that I started in the greenhouse, and cotton and sunflower seeds...

After planting we had a little arts and crafts session, where every kid painted a little sign for their garden at home. Yesterday I dropped their dried signs along with a "mystery seed" packet at the elementary school and received lots of hugs!

As always we talked a little bit about recycling, composting, growing your own food and eating vegetables! We identified carrots, onions, cooking greens and some herbs, like basil and chamomile.

We love having kids in the garden!