These are some of the flowers currently blooming in my garden.
The first three pictures are lilies.
This is the petite butterfly bush that is now much taller than I am. It is huge and beautiful.
Marigolds are blooming in my vegetable garden.
This is monarda.
This is a trumpet vine bloom.
I forget what this perennial is. I’ll update it with it’s name when I find out what it is called.
That’s it for now. It’s been a very rainy week.
My vegetable gardens are overflowing their bounds. The cucumber plants are enormous and are flowering like crazy. It is hard to find any cucumbers. I don’t have any full size cucumbers yet, but there are many tiny cucumbers growing.
The zucchini, pumpkin, and tomato plants are also huge, but I’ve only picked one zucchini so far. There are many small tomatoes, and a couple of tiny pumpkins. The borage around the tomato plants are tipping over due to the heavy rain we had yesterday.
The tomatillos are growing well and are getting much bigger.
Overall, I feel as though my garden is a bit behind schedule, but it is still growing well. I’m fighting a fungus (black spots) on the tomato plants, and there is one zucchini plant that has some whiteish crispy leaves. Other than that, the plants are doing very well.
There are many blooms on the zucchini and pumpkin plants in my garden, but they’re all male flowers right now. That’s okay because that is what usually happens for the first week or two of blooming. Then the female flowers bloom and grow fruit. I hope to have a highly productive crop of zucchini and pumpkins this year. The plants have been covered day and night to keep the SVB (Squash Vine Borer) away and the plants are quite huge already.
This is a three lined potato beetle larva. I found these on the leaves of my potato plants. This is a magnified picture. They are about 1/4 inch in size. The larvae carry their own “poop” on their back. Can you guess why? It’s to keep them alive. Predators don’t like to eat their toxic poop. You can read about the interesting research regarding these larvae eating nightshade plants and excreting toxic poop to keep predators away at Penn State Agriculture Magazine.
I don’t like to waste my money buying plants that I can easily grow from seed by myself. But there are some kinds of plants that are difficult or impossible for the home gardener to grow from seed. These are the kinds of plants I like to occasionally purchase at a reputable garden store when plants start going on sale.
Hostas come in a variety of different sizes and colors and are beautiful shade loving plants. Even though some Hostas produce seeds, it is rare that a hosta seed grows true to it’s parent. The seeds usually produce the plain green hostas with small leaves. Because of the difficulty with growing these plants, they are a great frugal buy when they are on sale.
Bulbs that live through the winter and are unattractive to critters are a great frugal buy when on sale. It is often difficult to find out which bulbs the critters leave alone, which bulbs can be left in the ground throughout the winter, and which bulbs are relatively pest/disease free. But if you have that information, you can make a wise purchase that will last many years. Here in zone 5, dahlias and gladiolas don’t survive the winter outside, but many lilies, tulips, crocuses and daffodils do survive the winter. Some varieties are pest/disease free and unattractive to critters and others are not. Research bulbs before you buy them so you don’t waste your money.
Other perennials that you’ve personally found challenging to grow, such as clematis, are great candidates to look for at garden store sales. Good luck and happy shopping at local garden nurseries.
These are some of the lilies currently blooming in my yard. The above lily I’ve had for many years and it has multiplied quite a bit. It takes care of itself and has multiple blooms on each stem every year.
The following two lilies are new to my gardens this year. I splurged (how anti-frugal) of me and bought some bulbs from Van Engelen. I did research the bulbs and found they have a good reputation and they had lowest prices around for the bulbs I was looking for. Sometimes you gotta pay for things you can’t easily grow yourself.
This is just an ordinary yet still beautiful orange lily. It’s carefree and the foliage is attractive as well.
The water lilies are blooming in the ponds around town. I stopped by to enjoy the beautiful blooms and of course the frogs too!
Poison ivy is a plant that tends to grow in disturbed dirt areas such as along roadsides, trails, etc. If the plant’s oil touches the skin an itchy blistery rash usually appears. It’s not a plant that I want in my yard and I want to avoid it when I am hiking or out for a walk.
These are some pictures of poison ivy so you can see what it looks like. The leaves can be reddish or green, large or small, shiny or dull, jagged edged or smooth. There are always three sets of leaves. Some poison ivy looks like a vine, others appear bushy. It’s important to know that there are many different ways this plant can look so you can identify it properly.
One easy way to find it and identify it in your neighborhood is to look for it while you are driving around. Look for three leaved plants near roadsides, telephone polls, dead trees, fences, etc. You’ll likely find it in a few different places.
Remember to stay away from all parts of poison ivy because you don’t want to get that terrible rash on your skin. For more information about everything related to poison ivy, visit www.poison-ivy.org.
My tomato plants are getting huge. They have a fair amount of blooms and some already have a few tomatoes on them. I have noticed some black spot fungus on the lower leaves but it is under control at least for now. I have been removing the infected leaves and I applied an organic fungicide to help control it. I have been keeping my tomato plants covered at night and uncovered during the day. It is uncovered in the daytime for the bees to pollinate them and it is covered at night to hopefully keep the tomato hornworm moth away.
