Fruit and flowers and critters.....

 August 5, 2024

It is raining, and much cooler today...thankfully. It has been a longish haul through some hot, sticky, sweltering days. I had to uncoil the hoses and do some serious watering, earlier in the week. Hopefully Mother Nature will now take over the watering, at least for a while.

Several big heads of broccoli have been harvested, processed and are in the freezer. I have never grown such big ones before! I am so glad I staggered the planting. Well, the deer helped with that! There are more heads to come and lots of side shoots forming already.  Cucumbers are coming in droves, and with 3 batches of pickles in jars so far, and just a batch of dills left to fill my quota....cucumbers anyone?

Everything is thriving, except for some blight in the potatoes, but they are well past time when that is really an issue. Yesterday I did discover some potato bugs....Yikes! We have never had them before, so will be re-thinking next year's potato rotation, or even if there will be one. 

There are lots of pumpkins and squash growing larger in this mess of vines, and the poor beans that were supposed to climb the teepee in the foreground, are just barely getting their shoots above the mass of squash leaves.

We are really enjoying the new bed in front of the verandah.

This year's Hummingbird youngsters are using the plants to play hide and seek in as they jockey for turns at the Hummingbird feeder that is just out from the garden. Chipping Sparrows hop up over the edge and disappear into the middle to forage among the plant stems. Yesterday there were 5 Monarch butterflies nectaring on the blooms of the big milkweed bush, and all the blooms of all the plants are literally buzzing with insect life once the sun is fully out. Now that the plants have reached their full size, I am seeing where I want to move some around a bit, and of course add others!

We recently made a trip south to procure another 1000 litre IBC tote for setting up a watering system for other garden beds down by the barn, and the new hot frame.

We had thought of trying to collect rainwater off of the barn roof, but winter's snow load perpetually sliding off precluded that idea. The eaves are too high to safely reinstall the equipment each spring. Hubby is planning the raised platform to mount the tank, and we'll pump it full in spring, from the pond, like we do our existing one.

This week's trail cameras gave us a few shots. There seem to be more deer showing up in daylight hours,

and pretty sure this is the guy who made big inroads through the wild raspberry patch just to the west of the house. One evening there was a bit of 'pong' in the air briefly, when the fan was wafting in some cooler evening air.

Late July, flowers and fruit....

July 28, 2024

Glads starting to open...

Sunshine incarnate....

Monarchs are loving the tall milkweed...

I've found two so far!!!!

Getting rosy cheeks...

Pumpkins, at least 10...time to trim the vines.

Pretty Sweet Mama squash...

Acorns...

Brandywines...

Sweet, sweet Rapunzels...

This is turning out to be an amazing summer for growing. Another two and a half inches of rain early in the week, then sun, sun sun. A gardener could hardly have ordered better growing weather! The trick is just to keep up with it all! Beans and broccoli processed, garlic dug and drying on screens, buckwheat planted in the empty space, onions about ready to be pulled, blackberries ready for picking, cucumbers starting to pour in...let the pickling begin!

July fruit and flowers....

 July 20, 2024

This afternoon I am hopefully awaiting the forecast rainfall. It has been just over a week since the last soaker, and the sky is greying over. If no rain falls, the hoses will be coming out for the first time this summer.

It has been a busy week, squirrelling away blueberries,

picking, then processing raspberries,

frozen and in jam...

Processing beans from the first planting. Nine pounds so far.

Cucumbers are growing, and soon it will be pickling time...Looks like the slicers will be first though.

Lots of swelling pumpkins, squash and tomatoes...

Peppers as well.

In the 'about to bloom' department...sunflowers. One is head and shoulders over the rest! (The white flags are stinky dryer sheets fluttering in the breeze, to help repel the nuisance deer...may or may not be working, as there has been no sign of her around the gardens for a bit.)

A red (I hope) trumpet vine given to me a few years ago as a sprig...

has two big, fat bud clusters, and many smaller ones. The Hummers will be in heaven.

Borage is blooming...is there any blue as blue??

Echinacea, daisies, liatris, and day lilies are busting out all over.

 All sorts of pollinating insects are swarming the garden blooms, as well as the tall Joe Pye weed that is blooming around the edges of the clearing. There are 4 to 5 Monarch butterflies who seem to be besotted with the tall milkweed plant in my new perennial bed. They are constantly fluttering around it and nectaring on the blooms. I've examined the leaves periodically, and found one very small Monarch larvae so far. 

Colours....

July 14, 2024

Early in the week, remnants of Hurricane Beryl came gently north, dropping a good inch and a half of rain over the course of a day or so. Since then, the sun has been out, the humidity has risen, night time temperatures are staying in the high teens (low 60's F), and everything is putting on a growth spurt.

Cucumbers and squash are blooming, and setting fruit, and the first planting of beans is being harvested. 

In the garden, I made a better cover for the brassica patch, cutting lengths out of the hose left over from setting up the garden water pump. They are secured into the bed by pieces of dowel.

The row cover slides nicely over the hoops and keeps out the white cabbage moths.

After the rain, things are popping up in the woods as well. We came across this amazing blue mushroom that I haven't been able to ID yet.

A little further along was this pretty mauve coral fungus.

To round out the colours...this orange one, 

And of course, lots of Ghost pipes.

This morning we went blueberry picking. There were lots and lots of the bluish-black guys,

but the pretty blue ones were bigger.

We picked as long as our backs could take it, and have a nice little haul. There is enough for eating some fresh, and freezing some for a future blueberry pie.

Buds and blooms, fruit and fungus....

 July 7, 2024

With the over one and a half inches of rain that fell Friday night and during the day on Saturday, the world is clean and green....even the air has an aroma of warm, moist, green growing things. Today, the blue sky is hosting billowing cumulus  clouds, blindingly white on their tops and edges, slightly grey on their undersides. 

I've never seen such big leaves on my cucumber plants.

The vine tendrils are starting to grab onto the fence, and hidden in the depths is this.

The first bloom!

The zucchini has started to bloom as well, both male and female flowers, so there will soon be fruit.

The first planting of beans is blooming, second planting got put in Friday, just in time for the lovely rain we got that evening.

I am getting such a lot of pleasure out of the perennial bed I am creating with mostly pollinator friendly plants. Things are starting to spread out, bud up and bloom. I have a beautiful clump of red Bee Balm that the Hummers are poking their beaks into. The echinacea in the foreground is a rescue from around the pond. It is tall and strong and taking advantage of it's new digs.

We took yesterday's wood's walk to switch out the SD cards on the trail cameras to coincide with the lull between thunderstorms, and we actually had some sunshine. This picture along the trail looks idyllic...you just can't see the hordes of mosquitoes and deer flies that attacked as soon as I took off my gloves to handle the camera! They were brutal!

I checked on a group of Hazelnut bushes, and sure enough, there are a few nuts growing.

Mr. Buckley showed up at the salt block, his growing antlers encased in velvet.

The white blip beside him might be a bat or a flying squirrel, or an insect closer to the camera. It is hard to tell.

All sorts of fungi are sprouting up in the bush as a result of all the moisture. Here a flash of orange drew my attention, as I am always on the lookout for Chanterelles. It is a chanterelle, but not one you'd want to eat...a Scaly Vase or Woolly chanterelle.

They can get quite large. Here are some babies just starting out.

Elsewhere, this white guy stood out from the green.

And this beautiful frilly bracket fungus was surrounding this small dead branch.

Another pop of colour along the trail.

There is always something interesting to see.