May 2010 Archives

Today I finally set up the trellis for the butter beans.  Some of the butter bean plants were waving around in the air, and one of them had a stranglehold on a neighboring edamame.

When I put the poles up and looked around, I realized that it was within the grasp of the advancing tide of bamboo + muscadine.  So I grabbed the machete and solved that problem - that's why there are pieces of grape vine and bamboo scattered about in this picture.

I also made some twine cross ties for the cucumbers.  I think it might need more, but I was tired of standing out in the heat tying knots, so I left the rest for another day.

I picked a bunch more snow peas.  I think this is probably it.  Some of the plants are looking sad, and I don't see any more blooms.  It also looks like the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar has been munching on the snow peas - I found several pods with a single hole gnawed right through them.

Here's yesterday's snow pea harvest:
It's about a handful and a half.  I picked another half a handful the day before.

The peas are kind of hard to spot on the vine.  There are also daddy longlegs crawling all over them.  I definitely don't want them crawling all over me, but I'm glad to see them because hopefully they will keep the peas safe from pea-munching bugs.

I'm never as on top of record-keeping as I wish I was.  I should just accept this and move on. :P

Today while madly planting the calendula and the rest of the peppers before it rains all weekend, I realized that I'm not really sure what I did with the cayenne peppers.  I think I know, but that was determined by process of elimination.  For the record, I think they're parallel to the edamame. Heh.  But that means that I don't know where the Hungarian Hot Banana peppers are - unless I alternated the two.  Luckily those two varieties should be easy to tell apart. But I might have put them with the jalapenos.  Hmm ... I guess time will tell ...

The jalapenos are interspersed with the tomatoes.  And the tomatoes ... well, I made up a little acronym so that I can remember what is what.  It's LAG, which stands for Lollipop, Amish Paste, Gold Medal.  Except there are three plants that aren't either of those.  Isn't that always the way - all these exceptions ... Anyway - I also have a German Pink, a Black Cherry, and a Mortgage Lifter.  The German Pink and the Black Cherry are the western-most tomatoes, and the Mortgage Lifter is the Eastern-most on the southern side.  Yeah, that's not complicated.  Maybe I should make a little coordinate grid for them!

I had a similar problem with the peppers.  I had three varieties left.  So, facing north, the peppers are TOY.  That's Thai Hot, Orange, and Yellow.  ("Yellow" is actually Doe Hill Golden.)

Alright, that's duly documented.

I think the chard are finally deciding to sprout, maybe.  And I'm very excited to see that I have baby cucumbers forming, yay!

Oh! And the Nikko Blue hydrangea is blooming!  The ... one next to it should start blooming any day now, too. ^_^

And I noticed that valerian flowers do have a very faint, delicate smell.

I went home for lunch today and noticed that the edamame are sprouting. Yay!  The leaves are pretty huge compared to the little spherical seeds I planted.

It's been raining off and on all weekend, and I still only have one confirmed chard sprout. *sigh*

This morning I wandered out to check on the chard sprouts and was startled by an unexpected member of the kingdom Animalia.

The turtle is camped out next to the tomato/pepper bed.  See the pile of dirt behind it?  I'm wondering if the turtle is a girl and she's laying eggs?!  I didn't see any eggs, but I can't help but wonder.  Why else would she be digging next to my garden?

Here's a view of him/her from the other side:

I have no idea what kind of turtle this is, so I made sure to take a good picture of the shell for ID purposes. 

My husband's iris bloomed!

As usual, that isn't exactly the color that it appears to be in reality.  But in both the picture and the real world, it's complimented nicely by the red veins in the bloody dock that is next to it.  (It's in the bottom left corner.)   This iris is the variety Red Hawk, and we weren't expecting it to be quite so purpley. I noted that it is red for the same reason that we call wines "red" instead of "purple."  He wanted a red iris because it's pretty notable in the beginning of the video game Guild Wars.  Now that I look at a picture of the flower from the game, I'm thinking that the color match isn't so bad, after all. :)

The snow peas also have pretty little blossoms in a cool burgundy shade:

(If you look closely you can see that they're also under attack by some sort of bugs!  I didn't notice until I downloaded the picture - oops!)  I noticed that a few little pea pods have already formed.  Yum, snow peas! Those might be the first veggie I harvest this year. (If those bugs don't destroy the plants ...)

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to upload pictures.  These are two days old.  And now I'm so tired that I just closed the browser before saving this entry, so here I go again ...

This is what the bamboo looks like when bamboo sprouting season is in full swing.  When this picture was taken, it had been about a week since I mowed the grass, so that should give you an idea of how fast it grows.

Beans and peas also sprout quickly, but I'm OK with that. :P The butterbeans are exploding out of the ground.  I'd better hurry up and set up that trellis for them. 

Speaking of beans, peas are kinda like beans, and the snow peas started blooming today. Unfortunately by the time I noticed, it was too dark to take a picture of them. 

My husband and I are very excited about his iris.  (My husband wanted a red iris like the ones in the game Guild Wars.)  It didn't bloom last year, and I thought I'd have to move it.  I guess not, yay!

So far the tiny bit of petal that is showing looks black, not red.  Eh, black irises are cool, too.