So, for those of you who follow me on facebook, you know I somehow lost/misplaced the camera cord for transferring photos from the camera to the computer. Today we found a cord at National Camera Exchange, it didn’t cost too much, and I can post photos.
A lot has happened in the last two weeks. We went to the fireworks with my parents out at Lake Waconia. The bunny DID NOT have babies. (Apparently rabbits can have false pregnancies and labor due to hormonal changes.) I pulled all my garlic. We have been picking beans. The gardens are lush and green. We have not been to the Ness farm in a week. We finished planting all of the Minnetonka garden. Patti is harvesting tea herbs. We took a lot of photos.
There are also 861 comments on the blog for me to sort through. My apologies for all the questions that have gone unanswered, and I do plan on getting to them and back to all of you when I have time.
So the rest of this posting is just going to be photos and some explanations.
The flying dragons are everywhere in the yard.
Runner beans are flowering beautifully, but too hot for them to set any pods. If it ever cools down maybe they will set some.
All of the bits of gold and white you can see under the surface are the goldfish. The grasshoppers which are everywhere in the yard jump into the pond, but seldom make it back out. The larger goldfish compete over them.
Finally finished planting the Minnetonka garden. Last bit there is bushing green beans which will mature late August which is plenty of time before frost.
Since I took this photo the pods have filled out. Still some flowering, but they should be drying down in just a few weeks. So far they have had no issues with the 90 degree heat.
I did a second planting of melons because the cats turned some of the early planted hills into dust baths and killed the sprouting melons. These were planted at the beginning of July and are just starting to flop over and vine.
The two hills the cats did NOT dust bathe in are vining everywhere.
Just an example of what you end up with if you have a large clove that has a small clove attached which you do not know about when you plant them. One large head of garlic cuddled up to a smaller one.
This is an example of what happens when you lose a head of garlic underground when harvesting the prior year. I have a group of 5 heads here that measure about 6″ across.
This is a cluster grown from bulbils collected and planted the prior year. Next year each of them will give me a full head of garlic, and for those of you that do not cut all of the scapes from your garlic, it is an easy and cheap way to increase the amount you have for planting.
Chamomile and monarda flowers gathered for drying. We go through a lot of both of these, and others, in the winter for tea.
Yarrow (miner’s pepper)
As you can see, the perennial gardens and flowers are doing well.
This is the seed pod developing on the Jack-in-the-pulpit I showed earlier in the season.
And just for fun, here is a shot of Baby Vi dressed in a costume all of my kids have worn for Halloween, that Phoebe dug out and put on her. MAYBE it will still fit her this fall. We will see.
