Sorry--the smorgasbord is closed

June 6, 2014

A few deer go behind the garden nearly every morning.  So far they have been happy munching on whatever is growing behind the fence.  I found last year that if I put up a single wire electric fence and keep it energized for about one week I can just leave it off from then on.  A friend mentioned that pigs and cows will keep on testing to see if an electric fence is on--I guess deer are smarter!

It is amazing how fast things are growing in the garden.  I picked nearly a quart of sugar snap peas yesterday and a nice mess of spinach.  I also dug up the rest of the early Pak Choi  and cooked the nicer looking heads up with sesame oil, ginger and garlic (the majority was starting to get buggy and going to seed) .  I then added a few shrimp --not a bad dinner actually.

Empty nest

June 5, 2014

I started to water my flower bed when I noticed this:

I wonder how many baby rabbits were in there last week (they are now all in my garden).

One of my favorites.

June 5, 2014

You would think that I would know the name of one of my favorite perennial flowers, but I don't!   For a long time I called it a garden phlox, but after a bit of deep research (i.e. looking at Google Images), I am confident that it is Blue Flax (Linum perenne).  The thing that is spectacular about the flower is the mass of blue flowers each morning, shown in the photo below.

The thing I love about the flax is that the individual flowers loose all of their petals each evening, growing a new set each morning!

 

As you can see from the seedling above, the leaves are very slender, almost needle-like.  I have found that the plants are easy to transplant, and have several around the garden.

May update!

June 2, 2014

I can now sit back and enjoy the garden!  I finished the final transplanting earlier today and managed to get the weeds and vines out of the fence row before the evening rains (3/4").  New additions include two tomato plants from my brother Hank (Indigo Rose and a Ananas Noire).  He also gave me a pot with an "OCA oxalis species Andean tuber" (he grows weird stuff) which I transplanted into a larger container.  I will have to find a location for its "special needs".  I also transplanted a row of Swiss chard to complement the chard growing in the container garden.

Dinner yesterday evening was a pork stir-fry with zucchini, Swiss chard, Bok choi, sugar snap peas and fresh onions from the garden!  I am certain that this is the earliest I have ever had zucchini (yes they were small, but tasty).

 

We will probably be eating crookneck by the weekend as well!  If you look closely you can see the sugar snap peas.  They are tasty stir-fried and just raw in salads (quite a few disappear from the vine while I am gardening!)

The eggplants are also doing well--the ichiban are already starting to bloom and the black beauty are just budding.  I probably have too many in each pot, but they did so well last year that I decided to try again!

Finally, an update on the potato patch is in order!  So far things look good.  There have been several "sprouts" that have died (or at least disappeared), but as you can see from the photo below most of the shoots are looking healthy.

The first crop of bush beans are finally starting to form pods, so we should be eating fresh green beans from the garden in a week or so!