Blooming in the Backyard.

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I haven't shared any blooming in the backyard yet this year. Still trying to get everything planted, held me up.

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Our porch stairs is always shade, so the Pansies are happy here as our temps warm up.

THRIFTING TIP: I'm purchasing pie pans, cake pans for saucers. Plastic new saucers are now over $2.00 for plastic and clay as high as $7.00. So thrifting is the way to go, usually a $1.00 or less each if purchased in a bunch. And they will last longer.

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Missing from my pots this year are Lime Green sweet potato vines. They just were not available? I use purchased Impatiens, a Geranium to mix with my seeded flowers from the greenhouse.

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Nasturtiums are different this year, two different kinds of seed.

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My trellis rose exploded early this week...this is actual color and not retouched.

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I actually fertilized these roses early and one more time in May. And, it paid off, they are gorgeous. Actual unretouched COLOR! PHEW!!!!

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Backside of the Nasturtiums from the Veggie garden side...great for attracting pollinators.

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We had some serious winds early this week, I put up this temporary trellis around my newly transplanted greenhouse starts. Zinnias, Sunflowers, Cosmos? not sure what else. I'll remove the netting soon, and use some ties to the fence.

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Birdbath planter is a little bit of everything. Same with the long planter, not even sure what is all in there.

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I think this may be hot peppers, not sure, one pot I planted and didn't write down the contents, and honestly it looks like weeds, but was a ring of plants around the outside so we will see what it is? 

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Here is the Tulip/Iris plot I cleaned out planted last year and removed so MANY Day Lilies. This year I've added 2 Foxgloves, 

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Aren't they gorgeous?

and added some transplanted Baby Tears, two grown from roots Phlox,

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 2 BellFlowers in between the Iris and a 

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below Gaillardia ---I purchased another Fox Glove and Gaillardia for here, 

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and that will make this plot quite full.  

The center trellis is a lavender Clematis, which is done for the moment. We should get another bloom.

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Below: Back on the Northwest side, a large pot of Dahlias. I have Dahlias grown from bulbs in all my large pots. Some saved from last year, and two new bags.

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greenhouse grown Marigolds, Sweet Williams Hubby picked out and one purchased Petunia. The Dahlias are going to explode in a few days.

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On the North bed, we haveColumbine done blooming  next to my Rhubarb.

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Our Iris were magnificent, but short lived, heat and too much rain. Some blossoms never opened, just rotted curled up. Staking them was a project.

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My cool sheltered shed garden holds first year home grown perrenials...this is the second year for these Delphiniums, I will try and transplant in Fall. In the background you can see the fence. When we had the roof and gutters done we diverted an overhead gutter to that bed and the bushes have quadrupled in size in two years.

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This Delphinium is huge this year, and really bushed out, hopefully I can split the roots up. We will see. This was a tiny root I purchased in a box of three. this is the only one that made it.  The rest of the backyard isn't photo ready, but soon.

Side Yard and front is next! 

What's BLOOMING with You?

Thanks always for visiting, 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. 

Join me at these fine blog parties:

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own unless identified, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi 

Midwest Gardening: Vegetable and Herbs/Container Gardening, not always Pretty!

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First of all, it took me an entire month to clean up the yard and then plant the garden, pots, and flowerbeds. Every year is so different, I have records now from the last 15 years or so, and this year we were way behind with weather, mild days, but very cool/cold  nights

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Coleus are very slow---these were planted in February...and finally transplanted last week...so slow, but now they should take off. The Delphiniums grown from seed are still not ready to plant in the ground, but I moved them into larger pots. I have two Canna that have been planted since March, that just budded out finally, so they are in the shade along the backside of the house. The greenhouse is just too hot.

Also, taking a year off for illness from gardening(last year) really left things in a rubble. 

This Spring, we hd 170 bags of Top Soil/peat moss mix delivered to spread everywhere...still have a few of those to do. We've been gardening for 40 years here, amending the soil, but also wearing it out.  

 That and the Fall cleanup and trimming that did not get done. Well,  you gardeners know how it is...never ending, so I haven't been posting, but instead working.

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Weather in general since Mid-May: we have dodged frosts, horrible storms, two very dry weeks, and on and off high heat. Some plants are happy others are NOT.  

Temperatures with a 40 degree variance from night and day, is really unsettling for young plants. The greenhouse easily hits 100 if I don't have all the windows, doors open and the FAN going full blast it's too hot. Then the low 40's outside at night were a shock for transplanted vegetables and flowers.

One of the first planting I did were in these planters on our front porch where last year I just dumped a container inside them, this year they were layered with compost and dirt and mass planted with herbs peppers and flowers. These planters drain almost too much, so they need water regularly.

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Our front porch get tons of sun, wind and the full power of West to East storms! The planters are doing okay, the lettuce planter below is happy with herbs/lettuce and some Marigolds. 

Herbs in the box two box planters are Oregano, Thyme, Basils, Parsley, Cilantro, Onions, Dill, Chives

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My Rosemary Pot is double potted with our Old and one new Rosemary....it's not quite thrilled about so much rain.

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Basil, Marigolds, Zinnias and Chives in here! 

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To the Garden. The planters I planted first have already given us much produce. The radishes weren't good at all, too cold and then too hot and they bolted. But, the lettuce and onions have been superb. I planted many varieties of lettuces and spinach and it is all FAB except no sign of the red lettuce at all, must have been a dud batch of seeds.  These will all be great if they don't bolt.

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I planted two varieties of Peas in huge pots, the First Pot is already ending. I'll pick tomorrow and cut out the dead/dying  but the pods have been fabulous -sweet and tender!

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The second pot is just flowering...and starting to pod, so it's perfect. This area gets afternoon shade, so maybe we will have peas into July. I'll replant on August 1 for a Fall crop.

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Throughout my planters this year, I have included flowers here and there to attract the pollinators. Here is a Nasturtium just starting to bloom. I call them the work horses of the garden, they bloom fiercely until dying in September. These are  in the Fence planter we built last year. I added 10 new bags of dirt to it, and seeded it heavily with pickles and squash in one side and bush beans and squash on the other.

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The blue hose is a new drip system we are doing ourselves. I've alternated squashes with beans or pickle bush pickles. 

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Pickles are doing okay, they seem to be slow with our goofy weather. Squash will be trained to go on the wire and wood fence, hopefully.

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Some sweet Violas among the squash and bush beans! 

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Boxes of climbing beans on the center trellis. I've extended bamboo poles to train them to the trellis-hopefully. I'll have to thin some  of these. Last year we had terrible beans because they were all eaten. This year with Critter ridder and all the new mesh fencing, we have managed to keep the bunnies out. Moles and Chippies are seeming to leave everything alone? 

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And a lone cantalope plant from 12 seeds???? I can't say anything has been eaten this year...as we heavily fenced everywhere now...bunny proof unless they dig under.

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On the other side of our bedspring trellis,  I have Cucumbers growing, and Peppers in pots. Everything has been a slow start this year.

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My husband wanted the tomatoes in containers ===to control them...we will see.

 

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I have a few in the ground and some in the big NEW bucket planters. We had many buckets, but also inherited some from a friend. In between I planted peppers, and some spindly sunflower starts in the ground. on the trellises. Normally I plant beans on these trellises, but my days of climbing a ladder to pick beans are over...LOL. 

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The NEW 3x6 x 2 foot high planters are full of mulch, brush, and lots and lots of dirt, maybe 40 bags each of top soil along with 1/3 compost dirt. We made a trellis between the two boxes which is hard to see. The plan is the Zucchini and Yellow summer squash will climb up these. Supposedly you clip off the large bottom leaves?  Definitely a new experiment for US.

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We have Zucchini, Carrots, Beets, Onions, Swiss Chard, Flowers,

 Climbing Asian foot-long beans in this planter. I used an old gate on the other end to use as a trellis. 

OLD NEW GREEN REDO...! 

It will be exciting to see if I can get everything to grow where we want it to.

I still have to get the cloth on the ground to reduce the weeds, the point of planters is to save on the back...though there is still plenty planted in the ground...I'll show that in next garden post.

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This is the Potato Bin Garbage can. Hubby dumped too much dirt in it last time, I'm afraid he buried so many of the plants.

Look at those Green Onions go...behind in a railing planter. Num. I have planted maybe 4 times, so we have had green onions all the time.

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The Fence planters are really amazing...look at this crunchy Romaine type lettuce, and it's so tasty...having it for supper tonight with Salmon on 

Artisan Greens...oooh, lah, LA! 

Next what was blooming!

 Then the rest of the Vegetable Garden.

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?

Thanks always for visiting, 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. 

Join me at these fine blog parties:

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own unless identified, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi 

Creative Mindfulness Paper Weaving

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Paper Weaving with Casey in Mather Senior Class.

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I think we have all done some paper weaving when we were kids..., Creative Mindfulness with Casey brought the project to us in conjunction with her Peruvian series. After an entire day in the garden I had exactly 7 minutes to gather materials and prep for this class, which was only going to be about 40 minutes to work.

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I grabbed a black sheet of multi-media paper which is a bit heavier than card stock. 

I folded it in half and cut some wavy and straight lines up the fold leaving a heavy outside edge.  Then I pulled out my magazine files, grabbed the 'bedroom folder' and pulled 5 random sheets and just cut strips...I really didn't choose specific pages. I had a heap of strips on my desk. so I just began selecting for colors, the warm toned strips and wove them in and out.

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I do like the irregular widths and shapes this weaving. 

SENIOR TIP: I used bamboo skewers to open a row making the thin paper easier to thread through. (My hands are not agile enough to do this type of fine motor--especially after a day of garden clipping and digging.)

Leave your first skewer in the row of paper, move out of the way and...add another one with the opposite weave. Then slip your strip through, this skewer you will have to remove each time, but the first one in the paper still can be reused. This really helped!

A skewer point is far more agile than my fumble fingers.

Anyway when I was done, I found the piece a bit boring, and a not 'focused' design. I had attempted to do blocks of color but really the black really swallowed all that.

 I decided to "enhance" some of the black areas with some metallic pens.

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I used the copper tone and the gold tone and a bit of white pen. Not in every square, but here and there echoing a color square/design nearby, or framing a square.

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The Yellow cushioon suddenly becomes a design area.

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This was fun...and quick, and something you can do with grandkids or redo.

Next time I will pick a very strong way of cutting my original rows in the back piece so there is some angular movement to make it more interesting.

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Finished Magazine Page Paper Weave with metallic pens.

What Have YOU tried Lately

   that was out of your BOX!?  

Thanks always for visiting, 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. 

Join me at these fine blog parties:

Tuesday Turn About

Talking About It Tuesday

Whimsy Wednesday

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own unless identified, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi