Take Joy!

Things we have growing . . .

Just out of curiosity (and because I ought to be outside weeding, but it's hot and icky), I decided to make a list of things that are growing here, either planted or discovered by us. In no particular order at all:

Vegetables
Potatoes (several kinds)
Peas
Corn
Okra
Beans (several kinds; mostly greasy cut-shorts, but some bush beans too)
Spinach
Lettuce (leaf & head,several varieties)
Radishes
Beets
Carrots (not doing well; we may give these up)
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Peppers (sweet and hot)—some in the garden, but most in empty cat litter containers on the warm side of the house
Celery
Cutting celery in pots (I dry the leaves for winter use in soups and whatnot)
Celeriac
Garlic
Onions
Asparagus
Rhubarb
Tomatoes (again, in the garden and in pots)
Cucumbers (most in the garden, but I have a couple of buckets with bush cucumbers in them)
Mustard greens
Chard
Japanese greens (several kinds)
Summer Squash
Zucchini
Winter Squash (various kinds)
Melons
Jerusalem artichokes
Ramps
Cardoons

Flowers/flowering shrubs/ornamentals
Flowering almond
Spirea
Pyracantha (firethorn)
Lilac
Gladiolus
Crocosmia
False indigo
Zinnias
Marigolds
Heirloom roses (a polyantha, two apothecary roses, a rosa mundi, and an 18th-century double white)
Mexican marigolds
Hostas
Mexican sunflowers
Sunflowers
Dyer’s chamomile
Cowslips
Daylilies
Peonies
Tree peonies
Spiderwort
Thrift
Candytuft
Phlox
Shasta daisies
Sneezeweed
Tiger lilies
Leopard lilies
Oriental lilies
Coreopsis (tickseed)
Four o’clock
Morning glory
Columbine
French mulberry (beautyberry)
Foxglove (the large tame variety and the smaller wild ones)
Iris
Bleeding heart
Lilies of the valley
Violets
Brown-eyed susan
Moss roses
Petunias
Lantana
Dogwood
Redbud
Dames rocket
Cleome
Shooting star
Lungwort
Galax
Hepatica
Wood betony
Geranium
Scented geraniums
Spider plant
Ferns (various)
Azaleas
Rhododendrons
Pansies
Violas
Asparagus ferns (inside)
Moonvine
Nasturtiums
Butterfly bush
Hyacinths
Mayapples
Daffodils
Bloodroot
Trilliums
Virginia bluebells
Dianthus (several sorts)
Lunaria (money plant)
Nicotinia (flowering tobacco)
Begonias
Annual daisies
Persian carpet (something new; it’s an annual, it’s purple, and I just liked it)
Lithodora
Turk’s cap lilies
Species tulips
Lupins
Something blue and spiky that I’ve forgotten the name of, but I planted it last  year
Russian sage
Crocus
Daffodils
Tulips
Astilbe
Clematis
Geums
Grape hyacinths
Siberian iris
Louisiana iris
Autumn cyclamen
Spotted dead nettle
Sedum (the tall one that has red flowers in the fall)
Hen and chicks
Verbascum (purple-throated mullein)
Something that is obviously from a bulb, but I have no idea . . . it’s small, pretty and blue.
Another thing that has claret-colored leaves and tiny pink flowers on a stalk, that I planted but cannot for the life of me remember the name of.
Something else that looks like a peony but isn’t, and that no one remembers planting.

Herbs
Boneset
Catnip
Borage
Catmint
Soapwort
Marsh mallow
Thistle (the huge one the goldfinches love)
Fuller’s teasel
Milk thistle
Sage
Aloe
Oregano
Anise hyssop
Pineapple sage
Parsley
Lavender
Lemongrass
Queen Anne’s lace
Chicory
Rosemary
Costmary
Dandelion
Beebalm
Valerian
Comfrey
Lemon verbena
Chinese orchids
Garlic mustard
Evening primrose
Fleabane
Santolina
Woad
Rue
Pennyroyal
Motherwort
Hops
Butterfly weed (pleurisy root)
Elecampane
Goldenrod
Basil (several sorts: Genovese, Thai, lime, and some oddments; i.e., what came up out of ancient package of assorted basils. I usually grow a couple of African blue basils, but I didn't see any this year.)
Tulsi (holy basil)
St. John’s wort (the wild medicinal and the tame bush)
Southernwood
Wormwood
Other artemisias (silver king and silver queen)
Apple mint
Mugwort
Yarrow
Red clover
Clary sage
Pokeweed
Horehound
Purple basil
Peppermint
Julep mint
Beebalm
Orange mint
Ginger mint
Chives
Garlic chives
Thyme
Lemon thyme
Nettles
Sweet woodruff
Skullcap
Tansy
Echinacea
Lemon balm
Plantain
Dock
Sorrel
Burdock
Feverfew
Lamb’s ear
Mullein
Lady’s mantle
Our lady’s bedstraw
Lobelia
Horseradish

Fruit/nuts
Apple
Crabapple
Apricot
Bush cherries
Persimmon
Peach
Chestnut
Fig
Hickory
Black walnut
Cherry
Grapes
Strawberries
Blueberries (not bearing yet; I think they need more sun)
Black raspberries
Blackberries
Wineberries
A couple of tiny huckleberry bushes, with actual berries on them!

Plus the chickens/turkeys/guineas, and the goats, and William . . .

Monster in the Garden

. . . if you're a smaller insect, that is. This is a good-sized mantis, longer than my index finger. It's been so hot most of the summer I haven't seen many, but they seem to be emerging now that things are cooling off.

Peppers

Lilies

 

 

Before the Frost

Pineapple sage (one plant!)

Pokeweed, just waiting for the birds

 

The Cabbage Experiment

 

Chrysanthemums

 

Goldenrod

Now that we've had a couple of nights of frost, things look a bit different  . . . except for the cabbages.

Anyone Want Some Seeds?

My cleomes have done beautifully this year, probably due to all the rain. I've harvested some seeds; if any of my six regular readers (or anyone else, of course) would like to have seeds, let me know. The bees have really loved them this summer. They get big, though; these are 4-5 feet tall, and spready. Of course, there's that rain . . .

I also have some seeds of what I think is garlic chives (I usually grow some in a pot, and they never flower, but these are out in the yard. They smell garlicky, and I'm pretty sure they're the same thing.), and a few from the crocosmia. Both of those last grow from bulbs, so I have no idea whether they would flower the first year or you'd have to wait a couple of years to see anything much—but if you're interested . . .

 

These are crocosmia; they get three or four feet tall (here they do, anyway) and have a regrettable tendency to flop about, but they're very pretty in midsummer.

I don't seem to have ever taken a picture of them (I find that difficult to belive; more likely, I filed it somewhere that made sense at the time, but no longer does, and I'll never find it again), but there's one here, along with growing instructions.

Harvest Time

So here is my fig harvest for the year (minus the one that either fell off or was eaten by something)—four whole figs! There are a few more on the tree, but they will probably fall victim to frost before they ripen. Perhaps next year . . .

And there is the sum total of the hickory nut harvest, too. For us, that is—the squirrels got a fine harvest indeed. We should have been out there a week earlier.

Oh, well. I had hoped for chestnuts, since the trees were full of bloom this spring, but the summer's drought did them in. There are a few, but the squirrels can reach them better than I can. However, we have four bushels of potatoes from the garden, a bushel and a half or so of onions (small, but good), another two bushels of apples yesterday from a friend's trees (we have plenty of applesauce and dried apples; I think we will just can these for pies and whatnot this winter), and I am working on my stash of winter squash. Ours did nothing for lack of water, so I have been buying a few here and there at the Saturday market, and now I need to find something to store them in. I think an extra clothes basket or two next time I am down by the dollar store will do nicely.

And look here . . .
Three persimmons! These are on my two-year-old tree (actually probably five years old, but we put it in two years ago), which is now nearly five feet tall. In a few years I will have persimmons right here in my own yard!

It's warm today (or will be soon), but I think it's supposed to turn colder this weekend. I've brought in my geraniums and cut them way back, all but this one—

This is my peppermint geranium; it has been happily living out on the deck all summer. (That other little one in the pot—the different green leaves on the left—is a coconut geranium.) I'll have to cut it back, of course (in fact, it's already dropping leaves), but I'm enjoying it for a few weeks before I do.

Here are a couple more pictures from outside:

Chrysanthemums, pineapple sage, parsley and lavender in the small bed around the tree stump.

Beggars' lice—an unintended harvest on my part. I spent some time yesterday pulling up Japanese knotweed and other weeds for the chickens and goats, and ended up with these all over myself. (So I was forced to go sit in the goat lot for a while, picking beggars' lice off my shirt and eans and petting goats. It was terrible . . . )

Black walnuts, in the midst of what was meant to be a patch of mustard, but seems to be mostly morning glories—I believe the escapee chickens have eaten most of the mustard. But there are plenty of walnuts, inside and outside the garden fence. We'll gather them up in the next week or so and put them in the driveway so the car will run over them and loosen the outer hulls, then John can crack them this winter.

And now I must return to the sewing machine: I am in the midst of the Wonder Woman costume (I have reached the part where I get to set in the zipper, oh joy, and the top is satin . . . ), and I have cut out Riley's Spiderman outfit, after an emergency run to the fabric store yesterday when I realized that the costume is made of dancewear stretchy stuff and I had no ballpoint pins. So I suppose we all know what I'm doing today, don't we? Besides pulling my hair out and cursing, that is . . .

Harvest

This is why I have been . . . well, pretty much absent lately. (This and the tailgate, which is, thank heaven, half over!)
Since I took these pictures last week, that empty space is half full . . . we may not have any money this winter, but we won't starve! And at the price of feed (which has doubled since last year) we are about to begin butchering some unproductive chickens, I think, so we'll have canned chicken. (A friend of John's has offered him two dozen laying hens that he just doesn't have time to care for, and I really hate to turn down free chickens; I'm thinking we could butcher some of our older ones and replace them with these.)

And there's still the fall garden: we have fall greens, broccoli, cabbage seeds planted. Now if it will only rain! The summer harvest wasn't so good because everything was so, so dry. (I mean, when was the last time you heard of winter squash not doing anything? Not one lone squash! I hope someone at the tailgate has some soon.)

Fuller's Teasel

The teasel is blooming, and being visited by all sorts of insects . . .

Look! Figs!

There are actually nearly a dozen of them, all on the tree's old wood—I don't hold out much hope for an actual harvest this year, for we cut the tree back severely this spring (two years of frostbite had taken their toll), but perhaps next year . . . as gardeners always say.