Weekending

This weekend started off nice with my daughter taking me out to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant. We stuffed ourselves and then chilled out at home. 

Frog Fruition

Today I got a "do over" in the yardening arena. I've been wanting to plant some ground cover around my chicken run but I didn't have success with the creeping thyme that I planted at the end of May. I thought that Frog Fruit would be a really good option because it seems very hardy in other people's yard so... 

Frog fruit is a fast growing, low maintenance, and long blooming herbaceous plant that attracts bees, wasps, and butterflies. 

Last fall I was gifted a welcome mat sized cutting of Phyla nodiflora and I put it in my front flower bed to overwinter. It didn't survive its new digs, but I thought I might have another go at it again this year. This morning I received more Frog Fruit cuttings from my friend's amazing pollinator garden.  I took pictures of what it could look like when (if) it grows up in my yard.

Q: What's Growing On...

A-Existing: Fredonia grapes, hops, figs, lemongrass (overwintered in my front bed and was relocated to the chicken run border), lilacs, peonies, roses, hydrangeas (successfully propagated), butterfly weed

A-new to the garden: My Chaos Garden is a bust as far as I can tell. I dusted the area with the seeds given to me and I got bupkis. Part of the problem is that we dug around in the same area to set up a post (reusing segments of an old flag pole) for a shade sail for the pond and the seeds may have been buried a little too deep in the end. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have 2 peanut plants surviving currently from the 9 or so peanuts that I sowed! The squirrels feasted on most of what I put in the ground. 

  

Hope Springs Eternal 🤞

This year I'm trying to grow a few new things in the yard, like borage, zinnias, turmeric and peanuts! I didn't know that peanuts grew in Oklahoma! 

I also have (fingers crossed) a Chaos Pollinator Garden sowed with random seeds given to me by a friend. I am stoked about that and the frog fruit transplant that he gave me as well. 

Borage, Salvia, Feverfew, Yarrow, Basil, ???

Fall Garden Plan(t)s

Trying to redeem myself in the harvesting arena as my summer garden yields were not so great. I do have 2 yellow watermelons and a cantaloupe that I don't think the squirrels have yet noticed growing in the other yard.

In this unused bed, I've planted kale, chard, bok choi, radish, carrots, lettuce and other greens. Fingers crossed that I will harvest something good. Before I worked the soil, there was a volunteer papaya plant and a tomato plant.

Purple Harvest

Nailed It!

My Inspiration

What I ended up with....

Yardening

That Yaupon Holly transplant was a bad idea...

Starry Eyed

We harvested the remaining watermelon a couple of days ago when the temperatures dropped because we didn't want to gamble with that end of summer sweetness.

It's HUGE!

Sweet Baby (Almost)

I went to check on the watermelon tonight and one of the vines had been severed. ;.( By an obnoxious squirrel or a kiddo, we may never know. The watermelon itself looked plenty ripe but the tendril closest to the stem was still nice and green, so I think it was too early to harvest. With the vine cut, we had no choice but to find out if it was edible at this point. Look at how HUGE it is for being a preemie!

Sour Cream for Reference - 5 lb tub!

Garden Grows

One of our watermelons looks like it might be under attack (or maybe was under attack by a chicken maybe?) and seems to not be growing. It doesn't feel as full or solid as the other two either.

Not Thriving

Moon and Stars

So I have been checking on the watermelons daily and they are growing so fast!

They are easier to spot now...

They are all about the size of a football now.

Hopeful

We threw some old watermelon seeds into the raised bed garden a few weeks ago - I think they were the yellow watermelon variety - and soon we had a monster vine growing onto the rocks on the East side of the pool.

Pretty leaves on a pretty vine.

Bolted

Back in mid-May, my beautiful cilantro bolted.

Still smelled so good!

Unborn Chuckle

doot-doot-doodle-oodle oot doot do do

Urban Farm Girl

My compost garden looked pretty impressive until you looked closer and see that the healthiest plants growing in there were Hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium), Black medic (Medicago), also called trefoil, black clover or hop clover, polk weed, johnson grass, etc...

Before the Weeding

On the Way to Fruition

Ladybug on Lamb's Ear

Springing

Outdoor Gathering Area

We were lucky enough to inherit a really cool fire bowl when we moved into our home 10 years ago, but we've never really thought it was located in the right spot.

This is to the West of the house and South of the pool.

Sunshine and Hops

A month ago I posted about a goal of mine to grow hops. It's on my Living List!

My hops rhizomes arrived from The Thyme Garden just as we were getting ready to leave to go camping a few weeks ago. The instructions that came with the rhizomes directed me to put them into the refrigerator until I could plant them, so I did. The rhizomes I ordered were the Cascade Hops, Chinook Rooted Rhizome (organic) and the Sterling Rooted Cutting.

Initially I planned to plant all 3 varieties along the clothesline, but after I started digging in the yard, I decided that I wanted to place them in different areas of the yard, to add interest and fragrance.

The Sterling Hops is the only plant that will be growing on the clothesline.  I chose Sterling because I am a huge fan of silver.  The description might've influenced me as well.

slightly spicy fragrance with a herbal floral punch with notes of citrus

Sterling Hops

I chose the Chinook Hops because I occasionally hear and see Chinooks flying overhead. Plus the description is kind of sexy, no?