Latest Veggie and Flower Garden Pics

[RedLetterRev]

Well, the latest I've managed to get unloaded from my phone :) I'm only a month behind, but that's what the addiction of gardening will do to a person (can I get a witness??)

Since then, I've pulled in about a bushel and a half of Kentucky Wonder green beans (good eating!), the squash plants have come and gone, the canteloupes are still loping, two of the sunflowers got broken off in a nasty little summer storm, and, boyhowdy the corn was good.

The hibiscus plants I bought last fall at Lowe's (Blue and NC-based!) at a quarter a pot. They were the ugliest and sickliest things I'd ever seen, but I babied them the best I could until they went dormant for winter and plonked them in the ground around my lily pond at the wedding garden (which I'm a bit embarrassed to report, still isn't complete). All 4 white hibiscus and the one red hibiscus gave me salad-plate-sized blooms all summer and the effect around the lilypond was something else.

That project suddenly took an immediate hustle on, since I just got the happy news that my partner's mother is planning to get married again. Rut-roh, she wants me to perform the ceremony in that garden. This weekend and the next will be soaked up at super-speed getting it in ship-shape. The azaleas I bought last year didn't like it much where I put them but I've got a better spot, so I'll transplant some of the bigass four o'clocks from close to the blackberry arbors up on the hill for pretty.

By the way, the claim I'd read last year that four o'clocks are at once irrestable and deadly to japanese beetles seems to be working out. I see lots of dead beetles and some chewed leaves on the four o'clocks but my blackberries (which the japanese beetles made lace of last year) are untouched this year. Things that make ya go hmmm. Anything that keeps poisonous insecticides off my produce is A-OK by me!

Rather than soak up DU server bandwidth, the photos and complete post are on my personal server here.

[hippywife]

1. Just beautiful, Rev!

How wonderful that you were rewarded so beautifully for nursing those sick plants back to health.

Good luck with getting everything together in time for the wedding. And even if everything isn't perfect, it will still be perfect, ya know? ;)

:hi:

[RedLetterRev]

3. Ain't that a fact

even the oddest mainstream weddings and same-sex commitments come out with the best stories. And in this business, boyhowdy, do I have stories :)

This one just has to be special. I have the very coolest "mother-in-law" in the world. Well, she must be. She made the best partner for me, so naturally I'm a fan of her handiwork. I haven't met the lucky groom yet (who apparently is a bit bemused at being taken into such an unusual family, but taking it in stride). But who'd turn down a pig-pickin' BBQ and cold Boston Lagers out in the far reaches of the country on a Sunday afternoon? Just sayin'!

But oh, lordy, the chores. I'm still taking down the summer garden and getting fall together. I'm expanding where the summer garden is/was and there's pile of tilling yet to be done. I let alfalfa grow up bazzoom-high to help the soil (nobody was going to see it but me, right?) and things are playing out in their natural course. Organic gardens aren't always the prettiest when they're being built-up, so there's some hasty tidying up to be done. I'm carrying the spent plants from the summer garden up to the winter patch up front and laying those in the furrows to fester down over the winter for spring turn-in. What's spent from that will go down to the back patch to be turned in for summer planting. What comes from the earth, goes back into the earth. I haven't spent a thing on fertilizer or insecticides and my neighbors in the area are amazed at how my gardens look. When they ask, I love to watch their heads explode when I smile like Mona Lisa, saying only that green farming is good, solid, conservative economics. (Hide 'n' watch how them loony libruls work!)

Ack, the chores... It'll get done. I have no gigs this weekend and only one the next and that's a three day. I'm grateful to have that mini-tractor that makes short work of the mowing and is awfully handy to tote the leavings around to the gardens for in-furrow composting. I've discovered that's the easiest way for me to recycle everything, rather than having a central compost heap. That offers a whole lot of advantages that I can detail if anyone is interested.

I've been reading up on the chicken adventures in the Rural/Farm Forum. I'm thinking about getting a small flock and a flock of guineas next spring, provided I get my act together through the winter. There's a huge load of chores to work off, first, the biggest being turning the blackberries into a real crop. That turned out to be a winner after all. In a couple of years, I hope I'll be posting about Creekbend Blackberries/Kiwis/Raspberries!

First things first... gotta get "Mom" married off! Then husbear and I can get back to work :)

[asdjrocky]

2. I'll give it a big amen!

I love it when people posts pics of their garden! It looks like just a wonderful location too.

[RedLetterRev]

4. Pure-dee luck, Rocky

When I got the chance to move back to the country, found 9 acres of bliss at a foreclosure price and NOT a handyman's special, I was like hellyeah. The house was in decent shape (a modular, not quite 10 years old) but the grounds, ugh. Not being handy but having a green thumb, this was the hot setup. If you go back in the Creekbend archives to the start of last year, you'll see that the yard was 4' high and schhhhhhnakey, full of poison ivy and weeds... just lovely :sarcasm: All I had was a pushmower and it was still winter. A 21" stripe at a time over 2 acres cleared is a lotta durn stripes when you're going shove! haul it back, pick it up, wait for the blades to clear, and shove! again. The thoughts of getting a tiller and having fresh veggies kept me going.

I can take some wider shots when more work is done. Right now, there's still a good bit to do, but, shoot, I've got 20 years until retirement and I made a 5-year plan to get the place fully productive. I can be done and I'm enjoying the exercise. I've lost 15 pounds since the first of June and starting to put on some muscle again. Or it sure feels like it. I haven't been this sore in a couple of decades when I used to play gym-denizen.

Anyhoo, enough DUing! Back out into the yard with me. Like grammaw used to say (no, holler!) "Yer a-wastin' daylight!!"

[asdjrocky]

5. Sounds like it could be a wonderful place for ceremonies and receptions.

After working in the wedding industry for more than 10 years I can't help but look at a space and see it with a bride and groom in place. (Or a bride and a bride and a groom and a groom. Lord knows I've preformed at a lot of those receptions as well.)

[bvar22]

6. Lovely.

Thanks.
We enjoy your posts and your website.
We share many common interests.
We were shopping for property in your part of the country before we found our place in Arkansas.
You would make a good neighbor.