June 12, 2017
I got a fourth planting of corn and a second planting of green beans in today, but can't find room for a third planting of beets. I discovered that half the garden is in Creeping Jenny and poppies. I don't know how this happened. There are patches and swirls of them everywhere. It looks pretty though because the Creeping Jenny is covered in bright yellow flowers and bright green leaves, and the poppy flowers are bright orange with greenish gray leaves. It's a Van Gogh masterpiece but I want some beets..
Maybe after dinner I'll gird my loins and go down and pop out some poppies. They are easy to remove with short roots. The Creeping Jenny forms a mat of roots and takes considerable effort to remove. I may have to use some Round Up on it because it's more resilient than I am..
June 13, 2017
I was eating my lettuce by the handful today and tasted coriander. It's the taste of the little seed inside a jawbreaker. After I swallowed I realized it must have been a bug because I'm not growing cilantroâÂÂ. Coriander seeds come from cilantro plants. What bug tastes !Ike coriander? I don't even want to know. All bugs are probably nutritious but I'm not an insectavor..
There are lots of slugs in the lettuce this time of year because the moisture attracts them and they can feed all day long in the shade. I'm sure it wasn't one of them that I ate though because I wash the leaves thoroughly. As I break off lettuce leaves to mulch along the bean row now I'm paying extra attention to the insects that are hiding in them. I hope it was just an aphid..
June 14, 2017
The hummingbirds are fighting over the Red Hot Poker plant. Each stalk has multiple necter tubes as f!ower heads and there are at least 30 stalks. Three hummingbirds can't seem to share all this delight and spend most of the time chasing each other away. With Father's Day approaching this might be an ideal gift idea. In the summer evenings the hummingbirds visit the Jasmine nicotiana, but in spring time the Red Hot Poker is on display..
Another plant everyone should try is blueberries. They can't be just stuck in the garden where they look nice. They have special requirements that successful growers adhere to. If you give the gift of blueberries tell the recipient to Google how to grow them, to avoid the disappoinment of failure that I am all too familiar with..
