June is for Allium, Peony, Iris and Hawthorn! And the last Cherry bloom.

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Mominthegarden

Cherry Tree the beginning of June.

The nice thing about going away … is coming home. Missing two weeks of garden growth at the end of May and beginning of June is like missing a marathon! So much is happening.

Cherry tree in early June.

I quickly snapped away with my camera to capture the very last blooms from our cherry trees. I was lucky to have a pretty sky too!

Cherry tree in early June.

Pink is my favorite color, and I love to see it in the garden. Our Hawthorn trees had a bit of pink in them this year. They were lovely all in white bloom, with sprays of pink.

Hawthorn in full bloom.

Sprays of pink in the Hawthorn blooms.

It’s funny how everything looks better in sunshine, but with too much sunshine everything looks bleached! I won’t be complaining (ever!) about the sun, but I’ll have to work a bit harder trying to get the pictures right.

Allium posing in front of the Hawthorn trees.

We were quite lucky with our Allium this year. The wind has held off for the most part, and I’ve enjoyed their long showy splendor for a few weeks now. Last year they were knocked completely over in their first week of blooming. This one garden is transforming into a purple garden! I think the Allium and Erysimum go really well together.

Erysimum Bowles’ Mauve

My Erysimum (Bowles’ Mauve) plant is really showing off now. It has a great spread, and is simply beautiful. It seems quite happy.

Another view of the purple garden.

On the right of the purple garden I have a globe artichoke plant (Cynara Scolymus). You can just see the wire support. I’m not sure how this is going to go, but I’m always hopeful!

Blue Geranium. This plant is in my “wait until I have a space” garden. I will be moving it to my new purple garden as I love the color. I might just switch it with the pink Geranium I currently have there. Or I might put both there!

Tree Paeonia Renkaku.

My tree peony had one flower this year. It was truly a lovely flower, though! It arrived last year as an eight inch tall stem. As in one stem! It must be quite hardy, as it survived the winter, grew, and produced such a lovely flower. It was worth the wait.

Tree Paeonia Renkaku.

It is rather delicate looking, but I think it is quite hardy!

Tree Paeonia Renkaku.

My regular peony plants didn’t do too badly either!

Peony.

Dutch Iris Blue Magic. I was trying to capture the Iris without having to go over the fence. So I tried looking down on it. I like the different look it gave!

Dutch Iris Blue Magic.

As for fruits and vegetables, I’m pleased with the progress so far. I know for some people growing vegetables and fruit comes so easily. But it has been quite a learning process for me! We planted too many strawberry plants last year, and they were too close to one another. The netting was cumbersome to remove, which was problematic. This year, I am hopeful (always!) that we’ll get to enjoy the fruit. It looks beautiful now!

Strawberry plants.

We added in some stepping stones into the strawberry beds, and a wee bunny. I’m sure he’ll definitely scare any birds away…

The fruit orchard view in June.

Vegetable beds in June.

Our vegetable beds are filling in! We have newly planted main crop potatoes on the right. On the left we have fencing for our pea plants. In between the pea plants, some potatoes have decided to grow from last year’s crop. I’m really not sure what to do with them! I’ll probably earth them up when we do the main crop of potatoes, and see how they turn out.

Sarpo Mira Main Crop potatoes.

We love beets! But this is the second year now that only a few beet plants have come up. I’ve tried a second planting, so maybe we’ll still get some more. (will I mention that hopeful word again???)

Organic Golden Detroit Beetroot (beets).

My family thought we had too much chard last year, so I’ve scaled back on it this year. I’m hoping to still keep it in our summer menu, but not too much that the family go running when they see it!

Rainbow chard.

Swede (turnips).

Now here is a vegetable that loves to grow in my garden – Swede! Every single seed that I have planted has germinated. I’ve thinned them out and passed the extras on to my neighbor James. Thankfully, my family like swede. Good thing, too, as we’ll be having it a lot this winter!

Organic Yellowstone carrots.

My carrots are making themselves seen.

Cristo garlic.

It turns out that most gardeners plant their garlic in the fall/winter and harvest in the summer. I seem to have it a bit off. This fall I’ll see if I can manage to get some in the ground. It might be nice to have something growing in the winter.

A view of the back field.

This last picture was taken just a couple of weeks before the veggie pictures above. So much growth in so little time! You can just see the white from the Hawthorn trees lining the field. It’s such a lovely sight (and site!).

I hope your garden is full of growth and beauty!

Dana

Planting Sarpo Mira Spuds (and extending the stone path).

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Mominthegarden

First half of the stone pathway project.

My heading starts with “Planting Sarpo Mira Spuds”, but I really want to show you the hard work I’ve been doing! I have some pictures of stones. Lots and lots of stones!

A “before” picture showing the black sheeting between two beds.

Last year we added two potato beds rather quickly. At the time, I was more interested in eating potatoes than making sure the garden looked presentable. This year, I was more interested in prettying up the garden!

Small stones to fill the pathway.

Now doesn’t that look nicer? 🙂 Those stones mostly came from different flower and vegetable beds in the yard, and along the fence line. When we first started the stone pathway last year, my kids helped out a bit. No moss will grow on those kiddos: they discovered quite quickly that the bigger the stones, the faster they’d be finished with their “chore”. That was fine last year, when I didn’t realize bigger stones were more awkward to walk on! This year I was on my own with stone collection, so I stuck with small stones. I have to say that I was really pleased with the result.

Finished stone pathway.

I prepped the soil a bit, too. The darker soil looks nicer in pictures! I used my new favorite tool in the whole wide world.

My new garden fork.

This baby is with me everywhere in the garden now. I had been looking around for a really good garden fork. The fork is somewhat narrow, and sturdy. I was surprised how prevalent plastic handles were. I prefer a good wooden one. With all of my new beds, the soil really needs to be turned and compost worked in. The fork makes this job completely manageable for me. Yay for me!

Now I was able to see that the two potato beds were quite slanted. Better still, my husband also saw this. He and my 13 year old daughter set to work to build a frame for our Sarpo Mira main crop potatoes.

Adding a frame to the spud bed.

Stone pathway in the vegetable garden.

Yeah, I’m not even going to complain about having to shift most of those tiny stones after the bed was completed, since my original path was crooked… 😉

You can see what the beds and pathway looked like in my post from last year: https://mominthegarden.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/planting-maincrop-potatoes-on-easter-weekend/

On to spuds! I was a week later than when we planted last year, but I don’t think that should matter too much. We only have one crop this year, as we decided not to have early potatoes. I want to rest one of the beds, or use it for something other than potatoes. The new bed is bigger than last year’s. This will give us more room to “earth up” (cover up with soil) the shoots as they appear. This is so the potatoes don’t turn green, rendering them useless. The earthing up is to protect the potatoes from the sun.

We (I mean my husband!) dug holes about 6 inches deep, and 18 inches apart.

6 inches deep.

I had the potatoes in open egg cartons in my utility room (laundry room) for the past month or so. That process, called chitting, is to get sprouts started before they go into the ground. It should speed up the growing time.

Covering over the potatoes.

Now we wait. And take lots of pictures of the spring flowers!

Daffodils.

I had to bring some daffodils inside to enjoy!

A variety of daffodils.

These daffodils are at my front gate, and I love seeing them as I come and go. They have a pretty high cheer factor!

The pulmonaria is lovely with the daffodils!

Mr. Fokker Anemone.

We had some terrible wind last week. A few of my hyacinth were knocked down so I put them in a vase. They look rather comical in that “arrangement”, but it was a quick fix. The smell of hyacinth is a Love it or Hate it kind of smell. I love it, and it’s a good thing as my kitchen was filled with the smell!

Hyacinth (after too much wind!).

Hyacinth after being knocked down by harsh winds.

I love this color!

Mr. Fokker Anemone.

Yes I am so happy to finally feel spring is here. It was wonderful to be out and working in the garden, especially planting potatoes! I can’t wait to eat our own spuds! What is your favorite vegetable you are looking forward to harvesting?

Happy planting!
Dana

A summer peak at the garden: Peas, Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots, Cukes, & Chard!

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Mominthegarden

When the weather is nice in Ireland, the weather is super nice in Ireland! We were finally free to spend a full day in the garden! I love working in the garden, everything about it: pulling weeds, gathering rocks, planting, weeding, watering (ok, this doesn’t have to be done so much here), getting rid of slugs, more weeding. I just love being outside and being a part of a living, growing, and changing garden. We’ve been “growing our garden” over the past two years. It is in a continuous state of change and development! There have been some learning experiences, too. I have a few plants & trees that aren’t happy where they are and I need to find out what will make them healthy again, possibly just changing their location.

Our raised vegetable beds are starting to look productive. I think the veggies are slow growing this year. We could use more heat, for the plants and for me! My shallots are the happiest! They at least look impressive. Our potatoes are growing nicely, too. I’ve taken some pictures of the baby growth of what I have so far. I like tracking it from a young stage to full bloom. You should see carrots, garlic, onions, and parsnips. My other beds have zucchini & pickling cukes in them, but they didn’t get photographed.

Walking away from the raised beds will bring you toward another part of the yard, what we fondly refer to as the Fruit Orchard. I was happy to see the start of apples and, for the first time, pears! Our two year old blueberry bushes are also looking very good, and are full of fruit. We’ve put a net over the strawberries in the hopes of keeping out the birds. I’m not sure if it is good enough for this job, but time will tell. We’ve added bits and pieces on to this garden continuously! I think it is almost at the right size. Our plans include a few more changes over the next year, and then it will be “done”!

Although called the Fruit Orchard, we do also have vegetables in this section. We have Pacific Purple asparagus, but only 4 plants have survived over the past two years. So we just expanded that section by adding 10 Grolim white asparagus. I know it’s a long slow process with asparagus, but hopefully it’ll be worth it! This year my husband planted peas for me. He used some chicken wire and bamboo sticks for the plants to grow on. Slugs love pea plants, by the way… I visit the plants every evening to save them from being someone else’s dinner! We are attempting to grow some watermelon this year. Ireland doesn’t have the best climate for this fruit, but I guess I have to prove that to myself!

The final set of pictures are just showing my boxwood hedging. I finally cleaned them up a bit. They really needed some trimming. Actually, I just had to take some pictures of the beds that I had spent hours weeding! My star flower of the moment is my Allium (purple sensation)! I love it! I’m afraid that the garden it’s in is not thriving. My hydrangea is only now showing signs of life after some compost shock treatment, and my Japanese Maple has been ruined by being in the line of our (gale force) wind path. Big sigh, lots more work to do!

I hope you are enjoying steps of progress in your garden, too!

Dana

These are pictures of our back yard, including the raised beds and potato beds. I have to say that the kids have really helped in expanding the stone pathway. It’s a tedious job, but I love how it looks! (and it’s character building, right?)

Here are some pictures of the vegetables growing in the raised beds: shallots, garlic, rainbow chard, onions, carrots, and a very fuzzy picture of parsnips.