Garden – Page 11 – M. Sullivan Photography

August 2, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Garden, Photos

Container Gardening, A Mini Tour

A little over two weeks ago I posted about my container garden. Plentiful sunshine and lots of watering has allowed for the tomatoes to ripen, the zucchini and summer squash to produce fruit, the bean plants to bloom and grow small beans and the cucumbers to go crazy. Here’s a mini garden tour.

I can’t wait to pinch off a few leaves of basil and make some bruschetta this weekend. French bread, fresh mozzarella, vine ripened tomatoes and tender basil leaves. Yum! I can almost taste it.

My pepper plant blooms, but drops the buds before they turn into tiny peppers. I think the plant may be diseased or maybe it’s just mad at me.

Sebastian and I thinned the carrots this week. We each sampled a small carrot. Sebastian said that it was delicious and way better than store-bought. Success!

And a big thank you to the bee that has helped make my garden vegetables possible.

We found this print in our small fenced-in garden. We don’t plant much in it anymore. The trees nearby have grown and provide way too much shade. We did plant some leftover seeds and have a few peas, beans, carrots, pumpkins, cucumbers and squash. Apparently the fence surrounding the garden isn’t high enough though. A hungry deer hopped the fence and proceeded to nibble on the bean plants.

We also busted a chipmunk eating sugar snap peas and trying his hand at a cherry tomato. We put out a live trap so that we can relocate him to a nearby woods. So far he has enjoyed some free food and made a sneaky exit before getting trapped. We were able to catch his partner in crime two weeks ago when he went up a water downspout off our house. We emptied him into our old cat carrier and Mike found him a new home two miles from our house. We really would like to catch the second chipmunk so that they can be reunited.

And last, but not least, here are a few photos of the amazing brown-eyed Susan growing in the backyard.

July 17, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Daphne, Flowers, Garden, Photos

Flora

And fauna…

July 16, 2012July 16, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Garden, Photos

Container Gardening

I’m trying my hand at container gardening this year. I won the bid on a container gardening kit last fall at a silent auction for Chester Bowl. It came with 15 containers, stakes, instructions and seeds that were mailed to me in the spring. I also bought two tomato plants and a pepper plant to add to the container garden. It was a bit of a rough start with all the rain that we had at the end of May and early June. None of the basil from the first planting came up. I think it all got washed away when we had several downpours with many, many inches of rain. Luckily, I had extra seeds and replanted. Unfortunately, cutworms and slugs thrived during the wet weather and ate the leaves off the spinach and also tried their hand at the peas, beans and pepper plant. I’m not sure if the dry weather at the end of June and early July solved that problem or if it was the ground red cayenne pepper that I sprinkled on the soil that put a stop to their eating spree (my Mom’s recommendation). The spinach almost came back and then the 85+ degree temperatures hit. The leaves that had sprouted, began to shrivel up. Fortunately, everything else enjoyed the heat. We have already harvested lettuce and sugar snap peas. The cucumbers, mini pumpkins and summer squash are blooming. The tomato plants have lots of green tomatoes and the onions and carrots need to be thinned. Here’s a look at what we hope to enjoy on our table in the next few weeks.

As I was taking the vegetable photos, I also got some shots of the grape vine, apple tree and various flowers blooming in the yard.

I wouldn’t mind a nice rain storm to give me a break from watering all of the plants with the garden hose or watering can. I can’t believe I’m hoping for rain after the flooding we had just four weeks ago. As long as I’m asking, it would be nice to have a day that is less than 85 or 90+ degrees. With no air conditioning in our house, a good (cool) night’s sleep would be glorious.