First some pics of the early spring action around the yard:
Returned from fieldwork on July 4th and came home to a very happy garden:
I’ll admit the “blended sowing” method made things a bit chaotic. But I think that’s partly because I was gone for the first half of summer and couldn’t keep as close an eye on everything as would be ideal. Anna did a great job but her heart just isn’t hardened enough for the brutal thinning this garden needed 🙂
Overall things are looking really good, though. Dating a Swede, I knew I had to plant lots of dill — but I now know why they call it “dill weed.” It’s EVERYWHERE. Also, the poppy seeds Mom gave me had a spectacular bout of germination and had to be thinned heavily — very attractive, though:
All the tomato varieties (a few large heirloom slicing tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, and sungold hybrids) are doing great, and the sungolds are already ripening. Plains Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria) is doing really well and attracting lots of pollinators.
The kale and lettuce in the back are getting shaded out by the mulberry tree, so I moved a few into the main south beds. We’ll see how they do there. Raspberry patch is flourishing — Anna’s already made a delicious raspberry / rhubarb cobbler and we’re having raspberry smoothies every day now.
Our tomatoes and pole beans are attracting lots of pollinators, which is great for us! Wildflowers are helping, I’m sure — I’m especially keen to compile the visitor list for our milkweeds, which are getting a huge variety of pollinators flocking to their impressive blooms.
We’ll keep you updated as more things bloom and we start to harvest produce!
