Monday, June 23, 2014

Kale, irises and apples

The weather yesterday was lovely. After a long bike ride (plus some time to recover from the bike ride...) we set to work in the yard. The kale we planted for a later summer crop has germinated. I'm always surprised to see how coarse our soil is in a close up (the tilth is lovely when I run my hands through it!).


We also added kale to the centre of both of our flower buckets to take over when the pansies have run their course in mid-summer. This stuff is a bit further along--planted slightly earlier and in a sunnier spot.


The peas are starting to flower. We got two nice crops off the peas last year so I'm hopeful we'll see something similar this year.


The apple tree seems to be full of tiny apples this year (after several years of yielding very little). This cluster of apples has five together. I recall reading something about thinning clusters like this but not much beyond that (something about a king apple?). Anyhow, back to the books on that.


The potatoes in the front yard are also going great guns.


We're at the height of the irises. It is a bit hard to show them in all their glory as they span over 75 feet along the south side of our property. Here is a shot looking west. They are striking enough that people slow down sometimes to look.


And my sous-chef out picking lettuce. This is all self-seeded lettuce from last year (and it is frigging everywhere in the garden) so we're trying to pick it down to a manageable amount! We're also trying to leave enough room that the pumpkin seeds we put in these "empty" beds can get a good start.


I see the purple bellflower has snuck back in among the rhubarb so I will out at lunch driving it back.

2 comments:

  1. Your garden is GORGEOUS! Just beautiful and so productive...

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  2. Thanks--years of working on the soil (and figuring out what grows well) is starting to pay off!

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