What's happening in your mid summer garden?

DP - no. :-)

California Sunset plumeria is sooooooo beautiful. Mine aren't blooming yet.

DP : which would you rather do ? Deadhead agapanthus or daylilies? Daylilies are much more time consuming !

They both suck! Add to them deadheading my 6 butterfly bushes I have to wear a dust mask to get near (an allergy that didn't develop until 2 years after I planted them), and you've got my VERY LEAST favorite weekend!!!

Ya definitely have to be in the right mood to deadhead...regardless of what it is you're deadheading.

I'm in the mood for deadheading. Have aggies, and banana leaves, and pentas, my b.fly bush, and worst for me, roses. I also have to get those honey locust, poplar, and walnut's trimmed. The H.locust has thorns too. I guess I need to sharpen my clippers and get on it. Good way to work off both pain and anger. Counts as exercise and meditation.
Good in many ways for body and soul.
LOL~
Sending a photo of one of the portaluca (sp).
WIB
SW

I always tell people I don't need to waste my money on a membership in an excercise/fitness center, I have a garden!!! Deadheading, pulling weeds, raking, digging, hauling, you know what I mean!
And I can really "get busy" with a shovel! When I get frustrated or worried, I just grab one of my shovels and get to work!
Then I am too tired and sore to be frustrated or worried, ha, ha ;-)
Here is are couple of my apple bins. One is full of celery and parsley going to seed for future crops. The other is full of potatoes with jerusalem artichokes and romano beans behind it. Yes, such things as potatoes, celery, and onions are cheap. But why waste the extra $$ on the gas it takes to go get them when I can just walk out my back door and grab what I need? And you never see Romano string beans in the grocery store. They're my favorite. They're flat and they cook up rich, almost more like peas. Not like a regular string bean at all.
Todays task is teaching the new gopher control specialists not to play in the seed beds. Grrrrr, I love fresh basil and a new batch is just coming up.......

Will you please come grow my veggies, PC? I love your boxes! Another benefit - I picked a young golden beet for grilling the other day and you can't get those at the store.

Are you going to let one go to seed? I just cut down a ton of beet seed to hang and dry. I would love to try a golden one. I also love swiss chard. It grows much bigger and faster than spinach and can be used any way that spinach can be. I have white, red, and golden. The golden is hard to find. My seed is a mix because I always grow them all at once, but you would be sure to have some goldens in there if you'd like to try some.
Before this week, I'd of said, "sure thing, I'm on my way!"
But my little sister and my youndest neice are moving up from down there to Sacramento this week. Which means I get to watch my neice while my sister moves! So this week I have a little helper (11). Yesterday she was having a great time helping me cut herbs to hang and dry. And then she made up her own special blend from the already dried herbs for sachets and teas.
Yes, I intend to make a fellow gardener for all of us out of this one ;-)

I have one beet left and I think I have some seed to start more. What do I do, just let it grow? Never thought of how the beets would produce seed! Can you tell I'm new at this? LOL

Mike;
I don't have an acre of daylilies. It's pulling those %#%$%#% aggie stems that breaks my back. I literally have in excess of 10,000 square feet of Agapanthus. That's nearly a quarter acre. If you cut them they leave a spike for you to impale yourself on later so it's necessary to pull them, kinda like the Bird of Paradise bloom.

Wow--PC, that is looking lush!

DP, I cut them anyway, but as close as I can get to the body of the plant. Using scissors. I'm trying not to fall down again. Of course I don't have as many affies as you do either. No wonder your back hurts.
My Birds of Paradise haven't gotten enough water to bloom yet, now that I'm back, I don't have anything else I have to do but exercise in my pool and care for my garden. Play with my critters, and learn how to use the new camera.
CatSmiling, I love your boxes. Am going to show DH, and maybe he'll make me some. If he doesn't I'll do it myself. Might take a long time, but I'll get 'er done. Sorry, to hear you don't have an excuse to come visit down our way, but it'll be nice for you to spend more time with your DN and your sis. : )
Will have some photos soon I hope.
WIB,
SW

SingingWolf, do you have any idea what the latin name is for your Honeybird bush? I can't locate it, and I would like to know more about it. It's beautiful! If you don't have the latin name, could you post that photo on the "plant and tree identification" forum?
Thanks, Carol

I didn't know 4 o'clocks had so many different shades. Whenever you have any I'll be standing in line for some. Everyone is so up on all the names of plants, guess I better start learning. I had a couple of bird of paradise plants growing beside my garage window, but the darn roots started breadking up the sidewalk that leads to back yard. So DH took them out which was a big job and managed to get the sidewalk laying down again.

KaperC, are you pulling my leg?? You've never let something go to seed? Ha, ha! No way!?
I bet Renee's Garden has golden beet seed, or a mix with the golden in it. That is where I got my swiss chard mix about a decade ago. I'll have to look. I think she even has a marbled one.

Thanks imapigeon! The nice thing about those tall string beans is they are also a wall of shade for a little yard on the other side. My entire yard is sort of little areas, like rooms in a house.

The apple bins would look better if I'd of been able to do as I'd planned and slap a new siding of plywood on them and some paint. But as it is, it was a bugger leveling the ground for six of them, rolling them downhill by myself ( almost got smashed a few times), and then filling them up! It has been SO worth it though! The six of them only cost me $30 from an apple grower who was getting new ones. Can you even get one planter box for that price? For some reason, the only place in my yard I can ever grow bell peppers and my beloved long sweet peppers, is in the apple bins.

I used to have a row of agapanthus all along the fence on the southern side of the yard. The hummingbirds loved them, the tigerswallowtail butterflies loved them, they were a beautiful blue for a short time each year and then nothing for the rest of the year. I got tired of dead heading them. And everytime I did, I rediscovered where all the snails were hiding during the day.......
So I decided they had taken up valuable space long enough and sold them all on CraigsList!!

Pegi, it's amazing how fast you can pick up on the names. I didn't know any at first, either. It's much more clear when you're talking to someone to use the proper names, especially when some have different common names in different regions! Of course, we all know what a BOP is....don't we? LOL! What drives me nuts is when nurseries don't know them, or label them incorrectly.

PC, it's veggies I don't know about! Where would one find the seeds on beets? I got my golden beet seeds from Johnny's.

In northern Ca, my swiss chard would usually reseed itself...actually, now that I think about it the chard had been grown by the previous owners and had been volunteering for quite awhile.

I really like the contrast of the rustic apple boxes with the freshness of the plants, PC. I'm glad you didn't do anything else to the boxes!

Here's what's "growing" in my garden tonight----I finally got the mosaic ball I've been working on since June 2nd finished and in place on its strawberry pot----WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!

Beautiful, Ima!

Worth looking at twice!

I'll say !
What did you use as a base for the ball ?

Thanks! This is the second one I've done; learned a LOT along the way!

I made the base using tomtom's papercrete recipe: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/472203/ in a concrete hemisphere mold. This one is 12" in diameter; the first one I did was 8". Originally I was going to use a bowling ball, but they're not big enough for the strawberry pot. The pieces are attached using quick-set mortar, which is something I'm familiar with from my tile-setting projects. I know a lot of "mosaicers" use glues, but I like mortar and I know what it does in our climate.

ima, Gorgeous! I just spent over an hour reading a lot of the connected links. Enabler! You go girl! :)
OCCarol, the "proper" name for it is Tecoma stans. I'll be happy to share seeds with you. I prefer to call it a honey bird bush. I can remember it, and it's descriptive too. It is a bush and the lower limbs get droopy, but I like it even if it is bigger than I thought it would be. Lots of gorgeous color.
I guess I'd better go and make up some baggies for collecting the various colored 4 O'clock seeds. They may or may not breed true. I'll try to to label the bag with a photo # & date. Sounds like a good project for tomorrow early morning when they are still open. Some have already set seed. I have one in the gh that is a cream color, not white, a pale cream color. Hopefully it'll show up on the photo. I like that one a lot.
Caught this little guy defending the above ground mini lily container in the raised planter. There were two big orange ones too. He has his work cut out for him.
WIB,
SW

Thank you SW! I knew I should recognize that bush, but I couldn't come up with the name (lot of names I can't come up with any more). I pulled out the four-o-clocks when I bought this place 20+ years ago, and I still have a few come up every year! They are pretty, but they can be invasive.
Carol

SW, I can tell you're gettin' used to your new camera, girl!

Glad you found the links interesting. There's some fascinating stuff on the Concrete and Hypertufa forum...lots of great ideas!

Boy, I miss a couple DAYS and there is so much to read, look at and comment on!

SW - Your dragonfly photo is wonderful! Wish I could do that with a camera. Only just saw the first one here ever yesterday. The succulent in your fountain has really pretty colors and looks so fresh. Have you performed the gopher 'tug' on your Bfly bush. I have read where people have said Bfly bushes were invasive. I wish. I think the poster was in the NW, so I figure if I water mine more, maybe they will re-seed.....

ima - do your Bfly bushes get a second flush of flowers? When I deadhead mine, a bunch of them have green buds on them again which in past years have produced lighter color, less significant blooms. Cool idea using a different medium than the bowling balls. Are they any lighter to work with? I guess you wouldn't want them too light in the yard, or they would blow away - at least here.

JD - If you look in the Trash to Treasure forum there are lots of example of those balls using bowling balls Ima talked about and they use all sorts of medium to cover them.

PC - Those apple bins are really neat. I like the rustic look and they look to be taller than the raised bed planters/square foot gardens. I bet they are easier to plant and take care of. What soil did you use to fill them?

Kaper - I'm guessing we need more than chicken wire baskets. First, I am thinking galvanized wire mesh with 1/4" squares (albeit pricier). Them thar gophers have mighty strong teeth! Then we need to leave enough extra to wrap back over the top, similar to the bottom. Then, again, there are always plastic flowers - LOL!!

quilty, my b'fly bushes DO a repeat bloom after I mask up and put on my long-sleeved shirt and jeans and give them a good deadheading. Makes me itch just to think about it, and right now I'm 200 miles from home...LOL!

I don't think I would be able to lift a bowling ball the size of that concrete ball I made. Completely finished with the mosaic on it, it's a little over 26 lbs. It ain't blowin' anywhere!

My entire yard, except the artificial gravel hill on the side, was a bare clay slope a pick axe would bounce off of when it was dry! Ten years later and over 400 sacks of composted steer manure worked into it, and I can now slide a shovel in with ease. I usually buy at least 50 sacks of steer manure a year to work into the beds.
I filled the apple bins with a half and half mixture of the clay soil and composted steer manure, early in the spring before the clay had a chance to dry out. I lined the bottoms of them with galvanized aviary netting to keep the gophers out. The top 10" have a better mix with includes quality potting soil.
The bins themselves are 4 feet by 4 feet by just 2 feet deep. But it certainly is easier to work in them then in the ground or in the other raised beds that are made from cinder blocks.
I stack those big building blocks with the square holes in them and then plant things in the holes like strawberries, chives, onions, aloe vera, etc. And underneath, of course is the ever present galvanized aviary netting!!

PC - If you were planting stuff in those cinder blocks that did not take a whole lot of dirt, you could put another block underneath, but sideways so the critters could not get in.

I like the idea of planting in the cinder blocks, but the squirrels and rabbits would get everything!

You could have a type of 'Square Foot garden with the sides several cinder blocks high stacked on a concrete slab, dirt &/or straw in the middle with a little fence around it. At least here, all the squirrels are ground squirrels and don't achieve much elevation. 2 or 3 blocks would be too high for rabbits.

KC - I saw you had a posting at the Strawbale Forum months ago. I guess with the price of hay then you did not try it? I may try it for Fall veggies. Will start checking out prices for straw.

I did try it, actually. Worked OK. There's a place across the road with alfalfa for $9.50 a bale right now and I've thought about getting some more. I do have a raised bed - meaning, raised OFF the ground - though, so I might be able to grow what I need in there.

The squirrels strip our apple trees, so they obviously don't STAY on the ground where they should be. lol

I have a cook book from 1897 written for rural kitchens, with an old fashioned recipe for the real minced meat pie of old. It calls for all kinds of dried fruits, nuts, spices, and the minced meat of a fresh squirrel or two! LOL
I've never had problems with squirrels, I see them in the trees along the ravine all of the time, but never in my yard. Even though they could use the fence to get to all of my fruit trees that line the fences. Maybe becuase of my cat and her new apprentices....
I don't put more bricks sideways underneath the stacked ones because if there are no gophers to fend off, the roots of the plants I put into the holes can grow into the soil down past the aviary nettting and the plants get bigger than they otherwise would. Without that benefit, there isn't enough space in the holes for enough soil to keep a plant from drying out too fast.
Plus, as quiltygirl mentioned, I usually stack them at least 2 high. The wall of Romano string beans seen in the photo of the apple bin full of my favorite red potatoes, is growing in a row of cinder blocks stacked three high to create a level bed in front of them.
I wish I had the room to try hay bales! That looks very interesting.

The straw bales work. I grew my beets and beans in them. At first I had a problem with some pest and with snails/slugs, but I used garlic spray and Sluggo. I think the squirrels got the peas, though. I spotted them crawling over the wire fence one day. Next time I would bend the top of the fence out with sharp edges - that might deter them. No digging and no weeds. There were a few sprouts, but I just pulled or cut them - no problem.

That pointy/sharp edged fence might work against squirrels, but I would need to lay in peroxide and band aids for me, LOL! The wire fence probably acts like nice easy stairs for those squirrels. They say "thank you". The cheapest alfalfa we buy for our horses is $10, so maybe I can find some damaged goods (wet) for less, then lay some wire we already have underneath and use on SW side of house for winter veggies.

I found a Praying Mantis on my Guava Tree! Bad pic, but you can make him out (or mayber her - she looked pretty large! I hope she has lots of little one inside her!).

Pretty cool...I've yet to find a mantis on any property I've ever lived on.