I don't know what they are but they've been blooming for weeks now. I'll mow when they go away.
Photo of my garden
Here's my garden as of today. Not much growing yet; the peas are out of the photo!
Greenhouse_gal, I have seen pictures of your beautiful garden before. It is truly lovely.
Oh we were talking ducks...... I have a couple of visitors for a few days. I am keeping my GS while his Mom has some surgery and along with him came his baby ducks. Terrible pic but they are really cute.
Thanks, Holly, and boy, those ducks are cute! Where's a picture of GS, though?
That's a brand new greenhouse, btw; we just put it up this spring!
terri - thank's for thinking of the honey bees :) As a former beekeeper, I know how important flowers are to bees, especially this time of the year when they are trying to feed all the new baby bees.
Awwwww, I never even thought of that! Someday, when we semi-retire, DH would like to do beekeeping. We do seem to have a honeybee presence here, I think they are wild.
terri - It's quite possible that your honey bees are wild (feral), especially if you have warm winters. Honey bees will fly up to 5 miles from their home to find food, but prefer to stay much closer.
I know several people that are beekeepers they are worried about them and their future. We have clover planted in the yard and quite often see them here if the grass gets a bit long and the white clover flowers. We had spring onions and radishes from the garden last night those and several meals of the Asparagus. The lettuce is starting to look good. Poor RIc was scolding me today I had been weeding the flower garden that runs down one side and got pulled away a week ago and hadn't gotten back to it, so it was left half finished. He told me if I was planting flowers in his Veggie garden I had to keep them weeded as he didn't want his Veggie Garden looking weedy. LOL Then he took care of the weeds for me. It is nice having someone to share a garden with.
I managed to plant a short row of Soybeans this morning, plus some Fortex Pole beans before the heat drove me indoors. After lunch, I ventured out again and took some more photos.
I uploaded some to my web page:
http://home.rr.com/ncgarden
The photo below is of my bean tower
Honeybee, Fortex is my favorite pole bean, too. I grow a French bush bean called Pelandron, too. Between those I have more than enough beans for eating fresh and for cooking all winter. I grow mine on twine strung between bamboo poles - usually about a twenty foot row, on either side of the support. It looks like you have two metal towers and then some twine strung between them?
Nice bean tower. I just came in from watering it is really hot today. Wish we had the pool open I just might throw myself in. I went to my HGHA meeting (Hobby GreenHouse Assoc. We had a guest speaker who talked about pollinators and pollinator gardens. She was very interesting, talked about the different type of bees, what their needs are, how the hive works and Colony Collapse Disorder CCD. Very interesting. Ric was out harvesting more Asparagus yummy.
We've had an unbelievable harvest of asparagus this year and it's just so good! Never met a spear I didn't love (at home).
Ours are just coming in now. We had scrambled eggs with asparagus, garlic, ham and grated cheese for breakfast. Yum!
greenhouse_gal - Yes there are two been towers. I've attached a bamboo pole top and bottom between the two towers, and hung twine between the two bamboo poles. I need to buy another set of towers.
Here's a photo from the same spot a month later (May 16 2010)
That's really pretty!
Beautiful!
Beautiful HoneybeeNC
We are still harvesting a little asparagus, lettuce and spinach is good, spring onions are doing very good. The radishes have little bugs, we get some to eat but throw out more than we keep. Ric's potatoes seem to be doing well in their barrels. So far so good. Holly
HoneybeeNC, I know this is late, but you certainly should have chickens. I'm not far from you (SC, between Anderson and Greenville) and my chickens did judt fine thru the winter, with no supplemental heat. I did have to provide warm water in the mornings, when there was ice in theirs. I even had chicks hatch in January that did fine without any help from me :)
Hop on over to Poultry and Livestock...they'll splain
youneedchickensyouneedchickensyouneedchickens...
Catmad, I'm further north than you guys and our chickens are fine. I did get a base heater for the poultry waterer and it was a fantastic investment; it cut down my watering chores significantly, no mean benefit when it was below freezing outside and I didn't feel like playing with the yard hydrant any more than was absolutely essential!
*G*. I filled a watering can at the house, and took it down with me every morning. After some annoying moments trying to get the ice cleared out of the waterers, I began to empty them every night. Then, I just had to fill them in the morning. Didn't think it made much difference whether they were filled or frozen, and none of my FeatherKids seem to be looking for water at night, anyway.
My DH used to bring a bucket of warm water up from the basement and across the driveway and into the chicken yard. When I took over chicken chores after he'd had surgery, there was no way I could handle that; the chickens are a couple hundred feet from the house and the five-gallon bucket is too heavy to carry, and it's especially hazardous if the driveway is icy! Since I've been in charge of chickens I've gotten the heated waterer base and we've also installed a door with a timer, so we don't have to trudge outside at dusk to close up the coop.
I have the means to install an automatic door.
Would just be a problem. I still have to go make sure everyone is in. I still have to chase Andy off the roof, and into the coop. I still have to check the outside nest boxes to make sure no-one has stayed out with an egg. The last few nights, one of my little WFBS banty has been setting, on an egg if she finds one, or a golfball if there is no egg. Have to pick her up and put her in.
sigh
Ours all go in at night by themselves. The nestboxes are in the coop, too. When we had guineas we had a devil of a time getting them to put themselves to bed, but they finally learned!
The whole problem with guineas, is they'd rather have an open roost. They are too paranoid to hide in a coop! Funny birds though, and love to eat bugs. Ric
I did get them to go inside at night eventually, but it was funny to see them! Roosting outdoors would just make them prey to great horned owls or other predators.
g_g wrote;"Ours all go in at night by themselves."
Mine go in at night (except Andy, but he's another story), unless something's wrong. IOW, if someone has decided to go broody, gets stuck somewhere, is hurt or just ornery :).
I don't think many people worry that much, but I feel really badly if they disappear, so try to keep track of them.
Ours go broody in the nest boxes inside the coop. We do worry, though, and wouldn't leave any out if we thought that was happening. On the other hand, a mink got in this winter and really slaughtered a bunch of hens - through a tiny opening in a louvered window. We've closed them completely at night since then.
I was wondering what everyone's Veggie Gardens are looking like right now. How about some updated Pics?
Sorry to say that mine isn't looking too good. We had to go to Fl. when Ric's Dad went into the Hosp and were gone for 3 weeks. We didn't get the rest of the garden planted and came home to find all the unplanted areas with weeds a foot or more tall. Not to mention the GH that moved in and ate all the broccoli and the tops off the beets. It's not a complete bust but not the Veggie Garden we were hoping for this year. Don't you just hate when life gets in the way of your gardening. LOL
Okay, here's my garden today. Blackberries in the foreground, garlic, winter and summer squash in front of those, melons and cucumbers. Then on the left, across the brick path, there are raspberries out of sight and asparagus on this side of those, there are onions and shallots, parsnips, Fortex beans on the bamboo fencing, Fingourmet and Pelandron bush beans on the other side of that, out of sight, a row of peppers and eggplant, and then my tomato tripods, with the little patio, bistro table, and umbrella surrounded by daylilies and other flowers. The wall to the left is for the fig trees which aren't visible.
You also can't see the cabbage, broccoli, chard and beets on the other side of the brick path just past the raspberries.
This message was edited Jun 28, 2010 12:59 PM
Oh that looks just lovely!
Thanks! It's definitely pretty but it's been too hot to sit out there under that umbrella and enjoy it! Tomorrow we're going to tackle the raspberries again; we picked a few bush beans this morning.
Here's another view, from the other side of the patio towards the blackberries:
Very nice g_g - I love your garden!
Thanks, Kelly! What about some photos of yours?
Well my flowers look good, there is a nice little group of nasturtiums growing around the stumps of the broccoli and we got a very nice crop of lettuce, asparagus, spring onions, radishes. The late onions are looking very good this year, not too sure about peppers or tomatoes as they haven't been planted yet. Still in pots in the driveway. The potatoes in the tubs are looking good but we won't really know till we harvest them. The beets may be OK a good bit of the tops are missing thanks to the cute little GH
Most of my shots this year seem to be close ups of fruit and flowers - lol. I'll have to see what I have for pics. Things look a little rough right now - summertime in Phoenix - yeah!
Here's one where you can see part of my jungle - lol...
The tall crazy plant in the foreground is an Armenian cuke - tolerates the heat.
Close up of Armenian...
Part of the 'mater jungle - I have 15 plants (14 varieties) this year... Can you say lotsa 'maters?
squash bed
more 'maters
