A Few Favorite Garden Things

Here's a note card I made from an old photo and a new colored pencil drawing.
 

The tomatoes  are finally getting ready to ripen so I'm pretty excited about that.

Picking tomatoes, beans and raspberries

With such a small container garden there hasn't been a lot of anything to harvest but I do enjoy grabbing a few ripe cherry tomatoes as I water mt plants.

We do have more Black raspberries than we'll ever get around to picking so we are letting a few neighbors come in and help themselves to some.

I do harbor a faint hope that this will also encourage them to want to help me take care of the garden as well but so far I've had no luck with that.

There have only been enough green beans for meals twice or three times so far. I'll have to be sure to plant more of them next year.

We've picked raspberries a number of times and made jam once. We'll be doing a lot more of that as the season progresses.

Raspberries

They're still green but it won't be long before these black raspberries are ripe and ready for jam and jelly making as well as eating fresh.

As usual I'll put some out on a table near the curb and attempt to sell or just give a lot of them away to the neighbors.

Somehow people seldom stop by and when they do they hardly ever buy anything so I haven't quite figured out what I'm doing wrong.

I'll try a few different things and report the results back to you. 

Black Raspberries

 We've got about half a back yard full of black raspberry bushes that are keeping us pretty busy. These bowls were just one days picking.

Sometimes I invite them to tea.

Choices are nice so I put out a bowl of fresh black raspberries, fresh raspberry scones and some homemade black raspberry jam.

This Years Container Garden, Fruits, Veggies and Herbs in a small space

I'm really enjoying the daffodils this year. They really brighten the place up, don't they?

It's a little hard to make out from the shadows at this time of day but the tower planter is full of strawberries and a short container variety of peas that I'm trying out this year. Next to that in the large brown pot is a black raspberry bush surrounded by chives and the Half Pint or Tom Thumb peas. They're rare
heirloom shelling pea that was introduced from England in the 1850's. The plants are only 8 inches tall but they grow full size peas. I'm really anxious to see how well these work out because I can think of lots of planting possibilities for them. The smaller pots on the green table are also black raspberry bushes.

It's also nice to have these strawberry plants in our seating area so we'll be able to keep an eye on them for when the berries are ripe enough. My favorite thing
to then is to bring out a bowl of cereal, a knife and a small bowl of water so that I can relax, clean up the berries and have a nice, fresh breakfast.

Easiest Berry Picking from a walker and bench

The raspberries were never supposed to be planted here. I just dropped some baby bushes and plants behind the studio one year that I was just to tired to deal with them. Since then they've gone crazy and taken up  about a twelve by fifteen foot section of the yard. Each year I try to move a few bushes and give a lot of them away but they just keep coming.

I grabbed the mower last night and tried to cut a path into this and then started cutting down some of the branches in my way with a long handled pruner.

The basket on the walker comes in handy as a garden cart to haul anything that you need it to.

It's handy to have an outdoor work table and this bench is in the perfect place because I can just flip it around when I want to pick the carrots and peas growing in large pots behind it.

Today of course I'm using it to pick black raspberries from the canes that I cut off out in the backyard.

I think I did pretty well today and these should be enough for 2 or 3 jars of freezer jam as soon as I get a chance to get rested up and moving better again. It was nice to sit over here and pick the berries because there weren't as many mosquito's to bother me and there was a nice breeze which had been blocked out in the berry patch.

It worked out a little better than I thought and made just over 3 jars.

Plants run wild

 These are under the kitchen window. I'm considering moving them and building a planter box here like the one we built for the hosta on the side of the house. I may put these back in it. I love the color and they're free. Boxing them up will keep them from running a;; over the yard.

What you're seeing here on the back of the new trellis are sunflowers, weeds and grass around the climbing roses we transplanted. I'll pull the weeds and grass but leave the sunflowers. I planted an entire POUND of the seeds all over the place here and can't wait to see how many bloom.

The strawberries are having to get pretty tall to compete with the other plants but everything's looking pretty happy and healthy in spite of the mess.

As you can see this box is REALLY full and surprisingly the peas in this box are three times bigger than the ones in the cedar box. It's less about what the boxes are made of than it is about the soils that I'm using. this box has a mix of regular garden soil plus one bag of cactus and citrus soil. That seems to make all of the difference.

Among the tangled mess behind the studio are a surprisingly hearty bunch of black raspberry bushes. I had cut these nearly to the ground last year hoping to get them moved this spring. I never got to it and now they're so full of blossoms that I figure I'll wait, make a lot more jam and try moving them next spring.

The mess in front of the fence is a tangle of several different varieties and types of roses and what you're seeing across the top of it are grapevines. I've been trying for YEARS to deal with this and loose the battle every season but I've got to say the roses look great while they're blooming and I  don't mind it all so much.

Meanwhile in the back are at least 3 different species of volunteer trees that I'm trying to find new homes for.

I give away a LOT of plants every year but they just keep coming.

 It's kind of funny for a city kid who grew up with NO front yard and a front step that was right next to the sidewalk, don't you think so?

A walk in the garden

There's a lot to do around here this season and  I want to get this hosta moved before it leafs out too much more. I'm planing to divide it and start a border under the big trees in the front yard. The weather is good for it all I need is a little energy, a shovel and a post hole digger.

It depends on your health or level of mobility if this is something you can do or not. We've found that if you've got problems with your legs but still have some upper body strength, you can use a post hole digger to make the new holes for the plants.

The purple tulips I wrote about earlier were out behind the woodpile. I'd apparently dumped some old planters or soil back there at one time. It was nice to see them again. Now that I know where they are I'm thinking about moving the bulbs to one of my flower beds next spring.

 That lilac bush is looking good this year, don't you think so? It started out as a sorry looking little twig on clearance from Wal-mart a few years ago and has out survived everything else we've tried here since then. Proof positive that you don't need to spend a lot on plants to have good results.

I transplanted 2 black raspberries at the end of the season last year, one made it and the other isn't looking too good. Not everything survives but there's always something else you can plant so don't let it discourage you.

 This photo gives you a little better idea of how the plants and trees are arranged here. Yes, we've got some big ones. That's why shade and hours of sunlight are such an issue here.

As you can see around the base of the lilac bush there are a few small ones I should be able to move to the border I'm creating along the side of the front yard.

Picking wildflowers and gathering seed

As the season draws to a close here, I'm doing my best to enjoy things as long as I can and to insure some color for next season as well.
I'm still trimming back the rosebushes and cleaning up the debris. There's always something to do in a garden.
In the back yard I'm trimming back the raspberry bushes and haven't quite decided whether to transplant bushes this fall or wait until next spring.
Cooler weather, hot cider and campfires...I guess fall has it's own charm.

Easy Chair Berry Picking

 Just because the berries are growing low to the ground doesn't mean that you have to pick them there. I clipped these branches from the black raspberry bush and took them to a table in the shade so I could sit back and relax while I picked the berries.