Hi Friends! Here it is already August and I haven’t shown you much of our garden yet so I thought I’d take you on a summer garden tour today.
Welcome to our vegetable garden! This sign is actually near the entrance and greets anyone who wants a little look-see at what we’re growing. The old wooden easel is one that we found at the auction several years ago, and we’ve used it in our garden ever since.
Earlier this year, I put together this little display on it using an old twig wreath, a sign that I already had but repainted, and a miniature shovel that I took off another wreath.
I tucked some vinca into this little watering can that came off the old wreath, too. In June, a local garden club took a real garden tour!
Here are some of the members of the Lydia garden club along with my mom who is seated on the left. I think they had a great time touring the garden and having a little strawberry lemonade and lemon oreos for refreshment. (Have you tried those yet? They are delicious!) Luckily, it had not turned hot yet even though it was June, but let me tell you, it has been HOT, HOT, HOT since then!
The tomatoes have loved the heat, though! Here is one of our Cherokee Purple heirloom tomato plants and it has grown much taller since I took this photo. We have had a ton of tomatoes this summer, and they have been the tastiest and the juiciest that we’ve ever had. You know what that means, don’t you? I have been in the kitchen making and canning my Homemade Spaghetti Sauce, freezing Creole Sauce, and making Tomato Jam. I’m still perfecting that recipe so I hope to have that ready to share with you very soon!
The blue trellises that we made in early spring have been a great addition to our garden this year. Underneath them we planted white mandevilla vines and they have been blooming prolifically all summer and should continue to do so up until frost. The other interesting blooms you see in this photo are onion blooms!
We put birdhouses on the top of some of the trellises and watering cans on others. If you’d like to see how we made these, you can read our post Wooden Pyramid Shaped Trellises.
On the three tall , we attached some chicken wire and planted our cucumbers around them. We got lots of cucumbers but in hindsight, we would not use the chicken wire again. Some of the baby cucumbers grew through the wire and got large before I spotted them. When that happened, all I could do was to break off the part of the cucumber that wasn’t stuck in the wire!
Along the back of the garden, I planted lots of sunflowers and birdhouse gourds.
We’ve never grown birdhouse gourds before so this is a learning experience for us. I found out from our Facebook readers that they take about a year to totally dry.
The bees have enjoyed the happy sunflower faces as much as we have!
And there are even more here along the side of the garden where the painted plastic pots are holding zinnias and jalapeno pepper plants.
Have I told you that we’re participating in a seed trial for P. Allen Smith? Oh my word! I was so excited when I got a personal phone call from him early this spring. He was as personable and gracious as he is on TV! Well anyway, here is one of the pumpkin vines growing in the back corner of the garden.
This variety is supposed to grow 200 pound pumpkins so you can imagine my excitement at seeing the first baby pumpkin.
The vines have grown very well but right now, there are only 2 pumpkins forming and growing. Did you realize that pumpkins are green before they ever turn orange?
We purposefully plant a lot of flowers in our garden to attract the beneficial insects. These giant zinnias are now over 5 feet tall!
Remember the fountain that we put in a galvanized tub earlier this year?
Lucy uses it as her personal water fountain! Here she is sporting her summer buzz cut!
Looks quite different, doesn’t she? Her coat is already growing back in since I took this photo.
I hope you’ve enjoyed going on our summer garden tour today. But as for us, “a gardener’s work is never done!” We’re making plans and preparing for our fall garden.
Sharing at: Wow Us Wednesday@Savvy Southern Style
Original article and pictures take cottageatthecrossroads.com site
No comments:
Post a Comment