It is a beautiful June morning in the garden! Waking up to 50's and 60's in our area! What a relief! It is suppose to be upper 70's lower 80's! Yay!
The strawberries are winding down around here, and a few summer crops are picking up the pace.
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| Strawberries and a few snap peas. Perfect for kids lunches on the last week of school! |
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| I have had many people around me comment about the way I chop lettuce and greens and even rotisserie chicken. So, thought I'd share the tip in case anyone needed the idea! I usually use an older pair of kitchen scissors that are getting worn out. We are still having quite a bit of greens and salad, though the harvesting is slowing and plants are being pulled as they are getting ready to flower! This salad turned in to a GF Fried Chicken salad! It was yummy! |
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| Ahhhh! Cucumbers! I'm getting plenty at the moment! I even gave a tour of my garden to some friends the other day and sent them home with some cucumbers that were ready in the garden! They were nice size and shape. I am so happy for this because last year my soil mix was very dry so most of our cucumbers were bitter and misshaped. It was so depressing! |
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| A wonderful mix of peas, greens, zucchini, strawberries and cucumbers! |
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| Top pea is a shelling pea and the lower two are snap peas. Caruthers Purple podded and Magnolia Sugar Snap, and a green unknown variety. |
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| Found this beautiful 8 Spotted Forester moth the other day and it was so friendly and kept landing on us. |
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| Swallowtail Caterpillar |
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| Garden in June. I can't seem to get a good full shot like I use to get from the top floor of our old house. But it is really full and really fast with all the heat we have had! |
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| Zucchini, snap and shelling peas and strawberries |
I love to talk about anything garden! Especially beneficial insects and companion planting. I have lots of flowers scattered though my vegetable garden. Not only is it beautiful but it attracts so many pollinators, beneficials and I love the butterflies too!
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| I found this great Butterfly Farm right in the middle of down town Louisville I had no idea was there. They have an indoor butterfly lab and an outdoor butterfly garden and you can buy beneficials and they had lots of Milkweed varieties. I bought 3, I have been searching for plants for a while! I got Showy Milkweed, Prairie Milkweed and Butterfly Milkweed. And I can't wait to see the Monarchs come! |
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| This year is the first time I have noticed Lacewings in my garden. And they are making themselves known too, they seem to get in my face every time I am out there. I guess they want me to know they are there. |
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| Having an aphid problem so here come the lady bugs! I had ordered some earlier in the year, but of course as soon as the aphids showed up I had to go searching for the lady bugs! |
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| So happy to find these lacewing eggs this morning. |
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| Kale, Strawberries, snap and shelling peas, pickling cucumber. |
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| Caruthers on left, snap green and purple magnolia on right And ONE Blueberry. The blueberries are on the way! |
My husband and my neighbors think I'm a little crazy. We live in a newer neighborhood and across the street has yet to be developed. It is full of queen anne's lace and purple thistle. The beneficials love it! There are so many! So, I take my little bag and I go collect and put them in the garden! There are many still this morning on my aphid infested plants!
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| Queen anne's lace |
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| My bag with ladybugs and one lacewing! The lacewings are sooooo fast so they are harder to catch! I lay the bag open next to the infested plants! |
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| Even better than being the Popsicle house? Being the house with all the berries! Neighborhood kids raid the berry bed all summer, with my children of course! |
I wasn't sure if I was going to get in a post today. I ran again this past Saturday at the Parkrun with my kids, and my physical abilities have been more challenged this week (MS). But I am glad I did, I had so much to share and hope you enjoy sharing with me!
I hope you are having a fantastic garden week!
It is always so good to see that vegetables and wildlife can coexist. Sometimes on the allotments here it seems like a war against them. I suppose it depends on whether they are friend or foe!
ReplyDeleteThere is always a good bug/bad bug war going on. I feel great satisfaction when it can be solved with beneficials. Squash bugs and borers though...uhg! You just can't win! Had to pull a tiny squash plant yesterday already!
DeleteI love seeing all the garden and wildlife pics! I haven't seen any swallowtails here yet but I plant fennel and parsley just for them. I had no idea there was a butterfly farm in Louisville either. We'll have to check it out next time we visit.
ReplyDeleteI found this swallowtail in the queen anne's lace, I usually find them in my carrots and parsely though.
DeleteYou're getting a wonderful mix of spring and summer vegetables. So many beautiful strawberries and it's amazing you're getting cucumbers and zucchini already. I've just seeded my zucchini and squashes, trying to give the corn a little head start.
ReplyDeleteWe have a great green house here that always has all kinds of heirlooms and stuff where I get some of my stuff that I don't start myself. That is how my zucchini and cucumbers have a good start. Plus it has been so hot so quick here that everything has taken off. Maybe it was the bio-tea I had sprayed on my garden too! Had that done a couple weeks ago! It seems much farther along that usual though, whatever the reasons!
DeleteOh, I just love your garden! Trying not to be jealous! You are so lucky to be harvesting so much! When you collect your wild flowers and put in the garden, do you just cut them or do you transplant? I am afraid I don't have enough pollinators in my garden. My e-mail is bobnanmol at yahoo dot com if you could answer me there as I use to get comments on my blog in my e-mail but for some reason I have to check my blog often to see if I have any new comments. Thanks for your comment! Nancy
ReplyDeleteYour harvests are all a few weeks ahead of ours here in the UK... my cues are still babies behind the flowers, just 1m long! Love seeing all the bugs form your garden, and "harvesting" the good guys for your own patch is a great idea!
ReplyDeleteThanks! And it won't be much longer for yours!
ReplyDelete