Back to the garden

 Once back from vacation, I dove headlong into the gardening. It took a week and a half to catch up from being gone a week. Sort of like the 147 emails in the in box when you get back to your job, only with more dirt and sweat.

The hummingbirds are busy bulking up for their trip south. They usually disappear for awhile in July. I suspect they are feeding babies. Then the adults and juveniles positively swarm the feeders. They also like the black and blue salvia that we have on the deck.

Hummingbird at the black-and-blue salvia

Probably one picture would be enough, but I have so many…

Going in for the nectar

Just one more.

On to the next one

The house finch fledglings are also at the feeders. I call this one Javier because he reminds me of my one-time department chair who had quite spectacular bushy eyebrows.

Javier, right, with his mom

After butchering day, we moved the pullets down to the orchard with the big girls. We kept the two-year-olds for another two months so we would not be short on eggs. Things were tense in the coop. I discovered one night that the Ameraucana pullets were camping out on the coop roof. I managed to grab two of them and put them inside. The third one was more difficult, and I had to resort to opening the coop door manually so she could go in. Then I had to figure out how to reset it so it would open by itself in the morning. It was hard.

Spot and Silvia on top of the coop

We gave the two-year-olds to a friend at the end of August. With more space, the pullets go right in at night.

The effort of early summer is now paying off in spades. It’s a scheduling challenge—what needs to be taken care of right this minute, and what can wait? In this challenge, the tomatoes are neediest. So far, I have not seen any fruit flies, which is my goal. But the season isn’t over.

The cantaloupe are ripening quickly. Cantaloupe are easy. They fall off the vine when they are ready. Not like watermelon, which are a total guess. In any case, once the cantaloupe start, they increase exponentially. The first day, I harvested one. Three days later, there were 12. Then 13. As of this morning, I have picked 58. I took a dozen to the food pantry last week, ate some, and gave some to friends. I still have over 30 in various refrigerators. The food pantry isn’t open again until Tuesday, and there are still 20 in the garden.

Cantaloupe

Watermelon have an odd, non-functional tendril just above the fruit. My mother called it “the little piggy tail” and said that when it dries up, the melon is ripe. I was skeptical, but so far, it’s been working out. This is the first time in my life that I have successfully grown watermelons, probably due to the unusually hot summer.

My first successful watermelon

My experiments with poblano varieties paid off.  This one is called Trident, and it has produced some beauties.

Trident poblanos

My proudest accomplishments have been with my native plant experiments. I had 100% survival of the expensive plants in the rain garden that never got any rain all summer. Not all of them thrived in their first year, but many are blooming.

Great blue lobelia

Bumblebee on the lobelia

Meadow blazing star

Obedient plant

Sneezeweed

Better yet, I successfully started some natives from seeds I ordered. The partridge pea has set seed, which is good because it’s an annual. All the others are perennials, so it doesn’t really matter if they bloom in their first year or not.

Seed pods on partridge pea

The wild senna finally bloomed,

Wild senna

Close up of senna flower

And also set seed.

Developing seed pods on wild senna

Cup plant gets huge, so I wasn’t surprised that it spent its first summer working on (presumably) its roots.

Cup plant

Joe Pyeweed is notoriously fussy, and it was touch and go at first. Such tiny seeds and wussy little seedlings! But I got one to bloom, and the rest are looking robust. Victory!

Joe Pyeweed in bloom!

Best of all, I grew two species of milkweeds from seeds I collected from my own plants. I’ve done butterflyweed before, and like Joe Pye, it is a slow started. I was surprised that one of the plants flowered in its first season.

Butterflyweed in bloom in its first summer!

The rose milkweed grew faster and bloomed prolifically.

Rose milkweed with bumblebee

Recently, it is showing the best seed set I have ever seen, possibly because of all the pollinators in that small patch of plants.

Just look at all those pods!

I feel so empowered! I went out and collected a bunch more seeds. I plan to scatter some this fall and grow some for spring planting. I will also study the catalogs and order seeds of plants I don’t have yet. Nothing can stop me now!