Fruit and peonies!

 Summer is in full swing and I've been spending a fair bit of time weeding! This includes a bumper crop of self-seeded violets (in the wrong spot) and some very aggressive growth by perennials.

It looks like the fruit crop will be a good one this year. The apples seem to coming along well and the raspberries and Saskatoons have both set fruit.

Our flowering baskets are also beautifully colourful.

I'm thrilled to see the potatoes blooming. I've never tried to grow potatoes from seed but I might try to snag a few seeds this year and try in the spring.

The real star of late June is the peony. We have half a dozen of these (mostly gifts from Jenn's mom).

The have just started opening and we'll have likely two weeks of blooms. The bees have gone mental for them and it is hard to walk along the side of the house without colliding with fliers.

The intensity of the colours has been amazing this year. And the subtle shading looks like water colours.

Around back we also have a huge bunch of mock orange bushes in bloom.

These need to be cut back each year so I feel free to bring in as many blooms as we have vases for.

The rhubarb wine is still cooking in the basement. It is a bit of a slow ferment but progress is being made. Apparently we also have enough points to buy a free beer kit. I need to drink my way down to enough free bottles before we do a beer kit. I have some more oregano in the drier today and we harvested enough gooseberries last night to make jam.