Fully Planted

Yesterday morning first thing

The roadside vegetable garden was fully planted and watered.

I have been enjoying the feral vegetable flowers and poppies for a few years now. It's fun to watch them roam.

But this is serious business mind you. The garden is now packed and loaded with beets, carrots, okra, tomato, pepper, beans, cucumber, summer and winter squash. There will be fine produce of some kind at some point.

Last year's undug potatoes are looking very good.

Some mulching happened. It needs to happen again. The seed bank in the soil is robust and most interesting. I just don't have time for major weeding. The roadside vegetable garden is the closest I get to a properly mulched flower bed in the wild cultivated gardens.

And from the outside you'ld never know.

Sunday morning was pleasant and productive enough. I went up to admire and water the roadside vegetable garden. Later that day, hail stones fell from the sky.

It rained hard enough and sideways enough for the loft window to leak and the rain to begin falling from the kitchen ceiling. That window has leaked from day one. Towels. I needed towels. That's when I found a mouse (?) was living in my bathroom cabinet. One hand towel was fully converted to a fluffy nest. Others were well sampled. It was a larder stocked full of dry cat food.

Hail, leaking roof, vermin in the towel draw. Button!!

That is about when I noticed a flash flood was washing through the garden. Culvert Falls was roaring. This is the second direct hit wash of the year.

Look close. Water flows through the eye of Creation.

Two hours later the rain stopped. Out I went. Piles of hail were still collected on the ground. The roadside vegetable garden and dung piles of mystery melons were pulverized. Tiny seedlings with but one limb to give and fresh tender plants just beyond were shattered into slices of green. There is nothing to do but wait. What survived? A half tray of Red Defender tomatoes did survive intact. There will be fine produce of some kind at some point.

I do believe the spell of ugly leaves has taken a new turn and will continue.

Photographic Evidence

Outside Clyde is thirteen years old this month. I wonder how long it will last in cyberspace after it comes to an end, which it must one day. That is already a lot of evidence of a life of gardening high on the low spot of a North Carolina mountain top.

It was a busy week in the roadside vegetable garden.

The feral has been slightly tamed to poppies, verbena and parsnips.

The planting of fine produce among flowers happened in small bits over several days.  I needed to ponder how to fit it all in. It won't.

More seed sowing and planting will happen this weekend.

Uncle Ernie is ready for duty.

Personally I think the roadside vegetable garden is looking quite fetching with all kinds of blooms going on. Even the potatoes are in full bloom. The Rattler has been quite busy of late. My bit of scenic is covered.

There will be fine produce at some point.

Thirteen years.

Summer Showers

A faint blush of blue, a long ago notion in my head, appears at the start of a summer meadow. Baptisia remains sparse with strong competition much to my dismay. The Amsonia is showing much better vigor in these conditions.

Dryer has made for some nice chore doing weather. Sister #2 has been here for the week. We have been busy.

The Turnip Fields got planted with their first virgin crop. Sister #2 came home with a full flat of tomatoes, thirty six of them. I let her plant twelve.

There are ten and counting tomatoes planted in the roadside vegetable garden already. I have been planting squashes, cucumber, beets, carrots, okra and peppers. The potatoes I left in the ground last year are looking good. The parsnips are in bloom. Photographic evidence of future fine produce may show up eventually.

It takes rain to make Lush. We need those summer showers.

For gifted pink penstemon.

And Indian Physic. The deer ate most of the other one. Damn varmints!

That blue blush in a meadow shows up better in person and with the right kind light.

Speaking of light, the fireflies have begun. Fireflies and June are one.

In the Land of the Crooked Shed.

Where the Kousa Dogwood is weighted down by bloom.

On Warm Summer Evenings

The planting of the roadside vegetable garden is under way.

Good thing I was slow starting. Blackberry Winter you know.

But the Lush will not be deterred even by ugly frozen leaves.

Two big foliage plants that did not get badly zapped are the Persicaria polymorpha.

Two Giant Fleece Flower have begun to bloom on both sides of the Nootka Cypress.

There is another.

Framing the Great Lawn.

The first mowing makes the garden part of wild stand out.

It has been a nice week for slow evening strolls.

A Good Day For A Mowing

The side by side gardens of Bonnie Brae and Ku'ulei 'Aina have very different characters.

Two different gardeners in their two mountain sheds.

One garden, a gentle ridge top at the county line inside a high forest canopy. The other a bowl half filled with sunshine.

I've been out editing since the monsoon stopped and the warm of summer began to creep in. It has taken some time to come to terms with the fact that a great deal of the ugly foliage about due to a Blackberry Winter is my collection of big bold foliage plants.

There should be a lot of giant leaves here.

All the Rodgersia got zapped. They have been sending up new smaller than they should be leaves. All the big foliage Aralia, Darmera and Astilboides got zapped. They too are sending up new smaller leaves. That's a plus. The ugly will be gone soon. The big will be diminished.

Every kind fern I have got zapped. Ferns are an important foliage plant in the garden and I did not plant the vast majority of them.

I've been out editing and mowing paths and the maintenance gardener at Ku'ulei 'Aina was beginning to get twitchy.

A good Sunday for a full mowing presented itself. It was sunny, dry and warm without hot.

The first full mowing changes the character of the garden once again.

The maintenance gardener was pleased, then sat down for supper.

Later in the mountain shadow of the evening sun
Another slow stroll
Down to visit the Great Lawn.
Go along on your own now. There is the Rider on the Lawn.

It was a good day for a mowing and nice to greet Ku'ulei 'Aina of summer. Let the blooms begin.