Late summer pics

Just a quick recap of what is going on out in the back yard in mid-September (need to weed!):
Vegetable garden with the last of the tomatoes, marigolds, rosemary and broccoli and beet seeds. B7

Front porch garden with marigolds, sedum, and rose of sharon still blooming.  Red gaillardia still hanging in there. B6

 Garage side garden - needs some serious weeding, but the hostas are doing well. B4

 Daylily bed B5. It really was just all daylilies!

 Back fence line - B10

 North fence line B11. After I removed some thorny shrub.  I thought it was a rose of some sort, but the blooms were just tiny white flowers - definitely not worth the thorny mess. 

 Screen porch ferns B1

 New japanese holly and chysanthemums. B2

 Family room bed B3

Lily seeds thrown in

As an experiment, I scraped the seeds out of the lily seed pods that Julie gave me.  I threw some around the lily plants that Ann and Mac planted, then some around the newly planted Japanese Holly.  I just need to remember that come spring so I don't yank them all out as weeds.

Summer Vegetable Recap

I thought I'd recap what went wrong and right this summer with the veggies:
Yellow straightneck squash: planted 2 plants from Home Depot.  Yielded 2 lovely little straightneck squash.  I definitely did not have enough room for these since the tomato plants just took over EVERYTHING.

Red Bell Sweet Pepper: planted 2 plants from Home Depot. These totally got overshadowed (literally) by the tomato plants.  We got one pepper.  Unfortunately I picked it too early - I forgot they were supposed to be red peppers.  Next year, I'd like to so a separate bed with sweet and hot peppers.

Black Prince Heirloom Tomato: I guess these are heirloom for a reason.  They tasted awesome, but we had trouble with these tomatoes being deformed, split, or hole-ridden.  We didn't get many perfect ones, the rest I just incorporated into sauces.  Not going to do this one next year.

Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato: This plant went crazy.  Good yield, good taste.  Would definitely plant these again. Next year I need some better and taller supports.

Orange cherry tomatoes - GREAT SUCCESS.  June loved picking these and eating them.  Huge yield!  There are still lots of green tomatoes ripening on the vine now in mid-september.  Again, next year I need better supports - the plants grew to about 7 feet tall before slumping over and shadowing all the herbs.

Rutgers Heirloom Tomato: Tasty, but unfortunately the deer and rabbits took a lot of these.  Next year - fencing!  These grew pretty big and we didn't have too many problems with splitting or disease.  I might stay away from the heirloom varieties next year and stick to the hardier types.

Sweet Basil - total success!  No deer or rabbit trouble.  but gone now :(
Oregano - success - gone now
Parsley - success - gone now
Rosemary - success- still going strong
Mint - in pot, could use a sunnier location next year

Fall Vegetable Planting

I cleared out the weeds and low-producing tomato plants yesterday.  I added some peat, and churned up the soil.  Today I sowed seeds for:
Touchstone Gold Beets:

and Nutri-bud Broccoli:

I've read that these can be harvested through the fall.  The broccoli is 55-70 days to maturity.  The beets are 45-60 days to maturity.  It is an experiment. Cross my fingers!

Ann and Gramps add some Blackberry Lilies to Bed B3

Julie generously dug up some of her Blackberry Lilies to donate to our garden.  Mac and Ann came by this morning, dug up a burned out hosta (the previous owners disregarded the shade requirements of yet another shade loving plant!).  The hosta was brought over to the back fence under the mini maple tree.  Ann (sister in law AND former Martha Stewart Horniculturist) expertly planted the transplants.  My only concern now is the downspout location which might erode the soil in a major downpour.

Added some asters

I moved another misplaced shade loving hosta out of the full sun bed and replaced with some shorty purple asters (Aster Dumosus).  I'll still need to move a couple more hostas from that bed, and fix up that wacky downspout and relocate that lavender a bit, but overall, once i weed out that morning glory, i'm pretty happy with this bed.  I'm thinking of adding some tall spiky perennial flowers.  Maybe....hollyhocks or monarda?

Finally moved those ferns

And replaced them with Compact Japanese Holly (Ilex glabra) and accessorized with red and orange chrysanthemums.  The ferns moved into the shade by the sandbox. Much better!

Gold finch

One more wildlife post:

We have been spotting gold finches (both male and female) eating the seeds out of the new black-eyed susans.  I added the BES's because they were on sale at Home Depot (end of season sale) and we had a bare spot in the flower bed at the family room window.  The choice of plant and location couldn't have worked out better. I now consider this bed B3 the cutting garden.  I love peeking out the window at the blooms, but I was totally thrilled to find out the the gold finch enjoys perching on the flowers and eating the seeds.  Very exciting!

Butterflies

I found this Tiger Swallowtail on - where else - the butterfly bush! I have also spotted a couple Monarchs and of course the Cabbage butterflies which seems to be everywhere!  (stock photos below)

Hummingbirds

I am happy to report that we spot hummingbirds at least once a day in the backyard.  I bought this beautiful glass feeder from etsy and put in a 1:4 mix of sugar:water and voila  hummingbirds!  We have the feeder right outside the family room window and June gets a kick out of spotting the "hums".  We only get the ruby-throated ones here in SE Pennsylvania, but they are endlessly fascinating.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/62566211/the-kennedy-feeder-the-original-one

Praying mantis discovered!

I was happily surprised to find a small praying mantis in the backyard yesterday.  Then I saw this:
http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/learn/hummingbirds/mantis-hummer.php?sc=migrate
A mantis kills a hummingbird!?!? Uh oh.

Sandbox for the toddler

When we moved into the house, a sad little rotten sandbox sat in the backyard. At first, I thought I would just replace the sand and add a cover, but on closer inspection, the whole thing had to go.  I searched online for a simple sandbox project and found this one at This Old House.com
http://www.thisoldhouse.com
The project looked simple enough so I decided to take it on.  I went to Home Depot and bought 6 cedar 4x4s which I had them cut in half at the store.  I couldn't find the screws specified in the instructions, so I got 6" lag bolts instead which I countersunk so that the bolt heads wouldn't poke out.  Otherwise, I followed the instructions exactly.  I couldn't be happier with the results, and June LOVES it!

I have a temporary tarp cover over the box now to keep animals from using it as a litter box.  I think I'll make a simple cover out of marine grade plywood.  Eventually....

If these deer weren't so cute....

Yesterday, I awoke to discover that deer had chomped off the tops of all four of my tomato plants!  It looks like they were just going for the new leaves.  Luckily, they didn't touch the perfectly ripe green pepper or budding green tomatoes.  These are the culprits: Mama and her two little babies.  They are lucky they're cute.  I decided another spray with "Liquid Fence" was the way to go.  It stunk for a few hours, but hopefully it will keep them away.  Sorry, deer, no more tomatoes for you!  But there is some tasty bamboo in the back yard!

Daylilies are blooming

Finally, our first daylily has bloomed!  We have an entire bed (B5) of daylilies (or rather, they are our neighbors', but our large family room window overlooks them).  It looks like the first to pop  are double orange daylilies.  Very pretty.The rest of the neighborhood's daylilies have come and gone. I guess our bed is shaded enough to delay the bloom,  I was getting worried that they wouldn't bloom at all.

Bamboo Be Gone!

Today I sprayed roundup on the invasive bamboo creeping in from our neighbor's yard.  Ugh, so annoying!  Why do people plant this stuff and let it run rampant!  I knew what I was getting into when we moved in.  I saw the stumps, but this stuff is crazy.  I pulled up a net of roots in some of the beds, but against the fences I'm having trouble controlling the stuff.  We'll see what the Roundup does.

Rose of Sharon Blooming!

Finally, confirmation that the shrubs/trees on the side of our house are Rose of Sharon.  They are just starting to bloom today.  We have some in B6 and B4 beds at the front door and at the side of our garage.  I'm not sure why I feel this way, but I think of Rose of Sharon as kind of....low class.  I wish I felt differently because we have a lot of them, and the flowers are quite stunning.

Bed B9 Street side

mid June before new plantings

This bed is boring.  Two hydrangeas, one yew, and some purple low-producing irises. I added some striped liriope, white delphinia, and some cast-off dwarf nandina cuttings from a neighbor.  A couple colorful annuals lighten up the driveway edge (not shown in this picture).  As one of the first thing our guests will see, this bed needs work!

Bed B7 Vegetable Garden!

Mid June

A green pepper grows in mid June

This Bed excites me the most.  We are blessed with a small house on a .42 acre lot (in a great neighborhood too!).  Most of the lot lies between the house's front door and the street.  With a sunny location and nothing but some weedy lawn, I thought this would be the perfect place for a small veggie and herb garden.  The bed is only 4 foot wide by about 10 feet long. I pulled out the first couple inches of weed and dirt and added a few bags of miracle grow garden soil. I put in 4 tomato plants, a green bell pepper, carnival carrots, yellow straightneck squash, basil, rosemary, dill, oregano, parsley.  Some marigolds brighten up the edges, and I plan to stick in some sunflower seeds to please my toddler daughter. Unfortunately, when I tried to expand the bed to the east, I found that there was only about 3 inches of soil over old crumbling asphalt!  Who would do that??  Anyway, I can only go west now, but that's alright.  I'm starting small, next year we'll try some lettuce, broccoli, hot peppers.  I'm excited!

Bed B6 Front Door Bed

Mid June: I added some coreposis and some annuals to brighten up the bed

Mid May: Some woodland hyacinths in bloom, not much else...

Late April

This bed to the left of the driveway and in front of our front door will be gone when we reconfigure the driveway into a courtyard concept.  I'm not going to expend too much money or energy on it, so I put in some annuals to fill it in a bit with color.  The previous owners put these Rose of Sharon in EVERYWHERE! I'm not sure I'm a fan yet.

B5 Backyard Bed

November 2010 - when we saw the house for the first time

late April: Post-bamboo removal.

late April

Early June.  I reduced the size of the bed, and expanded the lawn by putting in sod.

Mid June: Sod has taken, bamboo temporarily under control, I added some astilbe for a little color.

Bed B5.  I consider this the primary backyard bed.  Our main living area, the family room, has a direct view of this area, so it was one of the first areas I attacked.  As spring sprung, we found a net of bamboo runners under this bed. After many many hours of pulling out bamboo runners, we ended up with one fern, a healthy crop of daylilies, a hydrangea tree (Peegee?) , and a couple heavily pruned butterfly bushes (color yet unknown).