Finally!

Our tomatoes are finally getting ripe.

Not sure we'll have enough for sauce, salsa here we come!

EDIT: No doubt, if I was a bigger frog in the Blogosphere, someone would have piped up by now to point out that "salsa" means sauce.

You know how I know?

If your first reaction to this photo was "Blackberries! Yum!", that right there is definitive proof that you have no blackberries growing on land you maintain.*

*Void where blackberries are cultivated for profit. I think.

A Germanium by any other name...

...would probably smell a lot like a hydrangeum. Or a roseisaroseisarose.

Lest there be any confusion...

....I'm posting the because Mrs. Drang won't. Besides, these are from Alte Schloss Drang and she wasn't there.

We both took this week off to do the kind of housework that's all too easy to put off -- sorting old magazines, taking the clothes the mysteriously shrank to the thrift store, that sort of thing. But lawns still need mowed, and having trash and recycle pickup at two addresses can be convenient...

St. Johns Wort.

I recognize these!  Roses, right?

Yes, the camera (cell phone) is pointed at the sky.
Yes, the rose plant is growing above my head.
  Yes, it's a friggin' rose tree...

Lavender of some sort, I am told.
  This growing in the "rockery" out front,
along with the St. John's Wort, and kinnickinnick.

Again, that's the eaves of the house behind this flower.

Meanwhile the "miracle fruit tree" (do they still sell those in catalogs? Take an apple tree and graft on branches from multiple apple varieties and other fruit) is producing what look like cherries. Maybe not, it never gave them before, but even the apples it grew weren't edible, except to the local birds.

Oh, and the flowering plum tree (which are not supposed to produce fruit at all) has little bitty plums on it.  Not quite edible, yet, but it does produce very small plums every year, a little bigger than a cherry.

Germaniums

Or are they hygrangiums?  Ulysses S. Grant is alleged to have said that he knew two songs: One was "Yankee Doodle", the other wasn't.  I'm a little better with flowers, but not quite.  I do recognize roses 8 times out of 10...

I did not know that

One of the roses in the backyard gave up the ghost over the winter. Mrs. Drang decided to replace it...

...with garlic.

Apparently, garlic in close proximity will chase critters away from roses.

Here are some pics of a couple of the survivors:

As ye sow...

Light gardening day today.  Mostly poking seeds into dirt hoping it's not too late in the year for anything to prosper.  (As late as the season started here, that may not be forlorn...)

Various lettuce, radishes, peas (snow and sweet), carrots.  Also, for variety, echinacea, catnip and cat grass.

Mrs. Drang also planted some germaniums. (Or was it hygrangiums? I always get those two mixed up...)

Anyway, no pics, because what could be more boring than a photo of a hole in the ground?

EDIT to add a link to Rudyard Kipling's paean to purveyors of plant seeds: Pan in Vermont

How does your garden grow?

So far, so good, I suppose...

The  planting season came pretty late here, so we'll see how things go in the long run, but after planting these things last weekend, and staggering around for most of the week from too much lifting and squatting, things seem to be going OK.

Last year this raised bed had a grape tomato plant in it, which did well.  There were also strawberry plants, which did not.  At the end of the season, we pulled out the tomato and put the provided cover on.  Now we have a raised bed for strawberry plants, which are doing well.

Planting season started late enough this year we just put the tomato plants into large pots.  I convinced Mrs. Drang to get a Roma plant, hoping that it will do well enough we can can some tomato sauce.

Last year this raised bed had out peas and beans.  The chard (I think?  green leaves, red tips) is apparently a volunteer, I don't remember it being in that bed...  Doing well, though.  The garlic (in container at right) is going to be transplanted to what is currently the location of a dead rose bush.

Last year this one had various green leafys, the herbs and things seem to have survived under the other provided raised bed cover.

Last year this bed held our other tomato plant, a Black Krim (heirloom.) Alas, the plant did not survive, despite our efforts to protect it from the weather.  This bed now contains various leafys, and (many small yellowish leaves at top of photo) golden beets, about 2 dozen of which came in a one pint container.  Took Mrs. Drang an hour to untangle the roots and plant them all...

This is one of the waist-high raised beds.  The plastic dingus at the left is the top of the watering system, there is a reservoir under the soil that holds a gallon or two, and has a cloth ribbon, looks like a kerosene lantern wick, the is supposed to wick water to the soil.  We'll see how it works.

This is the other waist-high raised bed.  I'm sure I'll be reminded what is in these eventually...   (Or find the energy to go read the labels.)

Cedar raised bed by garage.  Beans.  Peas?

Other cedar raised bed by garage.  Spaghetti Squash and... um.... stuff.  Peas?  Cucumbers. The wooden frame for them will be replaced by one that will lean against the side of the garage.  When it arrives...

Not many strawberries today, should be some big ones tomorrow...

#RaisedGardenBedAssemblyForce

#AchievementUnlocked!

Two elevated raised beds, on casters, next to the house under the eaves. Decent amount of sun there, I think, but since they're on casters we can roll them out onto the patio so they get more.

This is a 3'x12' cedar raised bed. Somewhat shaded in that end of the garden, beans, radishes, and some other "shade-tolerant" veggies.

All those kits came from Gardener's Supply Company.
Elsewhere in the garden:

 

Meanwhile, we seem to have some desperadoes under the eaves...

This family of swallows have been nesting under the eaves at the front of Neue Schloss Drang since before I ever came to this state. Knock the nest down, and next year they'll rebuild it. (And this fall I need to knock it down and clean the area up, if you know what I mean, and I think you do...)