And fauna…
Flora
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.
So Totally Random
I found a few photos that I took during the past couple of weeks. They don’t individually create the need to produce a post on our blog. Together, they barely culminate the need, but I figured, “What the heck, it’s Friday”.
Here’s a picture I took early one morning just before work. I grabbed my company’s Canon point-and-shoot to get a photo of a pair of geese walking along the boardwalk next to the William A. Irvin in Canal Park. Unfortunately, the geese didn’t make the cut as I liked this photo better.
A month ago my brother was at our house inspecting our garden and trees in the backyard, offering some tips and advice. We heard a number of different birds singing. He said, “Did you hear that? That was a cardinal”. First off, I’m not sure why he knows what a cardinal sounds like and secondly, we don’t have nesting cardinals in Duluth. Well, at least I didn’t think we did…until Sebastian and I saw this guy last week.
I have to admit, it was pretty cool to see him in the sea of green grass on my lawn. We have spotted him four times now and we also saw his lady friend. We are fairly certain he and the Mrs. have a little family somewhere in our trees (or our neighbor’s). I would love to see the kids, but so far we haven’t located the nest.
Guess who was back in the garden? Seriously?
Too bad we spoiled his fun by planting the garden and putting up a fence around it last Saturday. I’m hopeful that he’s too lazy to dig underneath. There are plenty of other delicious things growing in the yard and in my flower bed to go through all that work.
I baked bread last Sunday. Not like my Mom’s awesome bread that you want to slather with butter and homemade jam, but a more European loaf that is good with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and fresh cracked pepper. I made it to pair up with homemade broccoli cheese soup. Too bad my timing was off and the bread came out of the oven an hour after we finished eating the soup.
I am looking forward to the long Memorial weekend. I’m not so much looking forward to all of the rain in the forecast. We already received 4 1/2 inches this week. Baseball was canceled…twice. Our backyard is like a big soggy sponge. Keep your fingers crossed that the weatherman is wrong like he often is. 🙂
M. Sullivan Photography 