Sunday, July 25, 2021

July Blooms and A Peek At My Vegetable Garden

Well, I had every intention of breaking up my gardening posts into three sections a month:  early, mid, and late blooms, but life just got in the way.  The first of week of July, my daughter and son--in-law and grandkids came up for a visit.  We spent the whole week running around and having a great old time.  But unfortunately, the grandkids brought a sickness with them, and as soon as they left, I was sick with a summer cold for two weeks.  I didn't have the energy to write up any garden posts, but I did manage to snap pictures throughout the month of July.

My pink hydrangea bush is still looking good, although a storm came and knocked a lot of the branches down.  


The star of the July garden is lilies!  I have so many tall orange and yellow Asiatic lilies.  I also have a huge variety of day lilies.


A yellow Asiatic lily.


Purple Liatris


The vegetable garden is the enclosed structure in front of the house.  Retaining walls in front are filled with potato beds, and lots of perennial flowers.  The Bee Balm is blooming right now.


I would say "One of my favorite day lilies" but they are all my favorites.  

Yellow and orange Asiatic lilies with Bee Balm in the background


A sunflower planted courtesy of the birds.




I planted a ton of wild orange lilies on my septic mound years ago, but they never bloomed.  This is the very first year they are blooming and it is gorgeous!  I think it's because my neighbor's tree fell down in a storm and now they get more sunlight.  


A light pink hollyhock


Purple Coneflower with a butterfly on top!


This is a red "purple coneflower" or Echinacea.  I picked it up at a local nursery this year and it is doing very well.  It's been blooming continuously since I bought it and the butterflies seem to love it.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed it comes back next year.  Most of the time I find these variants of natural perennials not to be as hardy as the real thing.


A dark pink Hollyhock.



My white Vibernum or "Snowball Bush" is still going strong.  That's the beauty of this plant, once it blooms, those blooms remain on the plant all summer long.  Not many plants do that!


Purple Astilbe



A close-up of the Bee Balm planted in front of the vegetable garden.



A single, pale yellow day lily.


This picture of the septic mound was taken before all the orange day lilies bloomed.  Just look at all those stalks!


Purple Bell Flower


Another "one of my favorites":  a red day lily


The tall phlox is just starting to bloom.  It always bums me out when the tall phlox and rudebekias start to bloom, because they are one of the last perennials to bloom and I know that summer is just about over.


A dark pink or maroon day lily.



A double ruffled petal peach day lily




The marigolds growing in front of the house look lovely as ever this year.  I've been seeing so many bunnies in this garden this year, so I'm grateful I planted marigolds, they don't eat those.



A purple spirea bush.  I love the deep color of this one.




Rose Campion Lynchis


I don't know the name of this tall Asiatic Lily but it's "one of my favorites".  It is a beautiful off-white with a maroon center.




A row of Stella-d-Oro day lilies growing alongside my driveway.


Purple clematis with tall Asiatic lilies in the background



A very deep maroon day lily.




And now, for some vegetable garden news.  Every year, it seems my veggie garden gets off to a rocky start and I begin comparing my "results" to other gardeners wondering why their vegetable gardens seem to be doing so much better than mine.  Yet, inevitably, mine always catches up and grows beyond my wildest expectations.  This year I am once again astounded at God's wonderful bounty.  This is the squash section of the garden.  I grew four different squashes this year:  spaghetti, acorn, butternut, and buttercup.


After seeing another garden on-line last year, I followed their example and "trellised" my tomatoes.  It's one of the best decisions I ever made.  It keeps the tomato branches so neat and tidy.  I simple tie branches to the very strong fence as they grow.  It takes up so much less garden space this way too.


I planted peppers in front of the tomatoes.  I also purchased these long hooks and hung flower baskets from the beams above.  They not only make the vegetable garden pretty but they attract beneficial insects to the garden as well.


Yellow Banana Peppers


This is the lower vegetable garden.  Potatoes are on the right and beans, lettuce, kale, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs, carrots, and cucumber are on the left.


Have you ever seen a prettier vegetable garden?  I never knew vegetables gardens could be this pretty.  It's a joy to come out here everyday to water and harvest my bounty.    I would rather be right here than any other place in my yard...and it's mostly veggies...not flowers!


Jackson loves to come down into the garden with me.  He gets so excited when I wake up in the morning and he runs down the stairs and waits so patiently by the door for me to let him out.  


Last year I planted my broccoli and cauliflower plants in the back row, near the porch screen.  This year I decided to put them in the front row.  They seem to like this placement so much better, however next year I think they will go in the middle row, because now I have to reach behind them to harvest beans every day.  


I still have pickles left over from last year, so I only planted one cucumber vine this year.


Muesil lettuce


Bush Beans.  I really love how the bush beans grow over the ledge of the top garden.  I will plant all the bush beans in the front row next year.  It will not only be easy to harvest them this way, but they will look super pretty too.


Out of all the things we grew last year, the potatoes were our favorite so we decided to grow more and now have three beds of potatoes.  When we planned our first vegetable garden last year, I thought growing potatoes was kinda silly since they are so cheap in the store.  But then I read that once you have a home grown potato you will never want to eat a store bought potato again.....and they were right!  The flavor and light fluffy texture of a home grown potato  vs a store bought potato is night and day!


Every year I try to grow peas.  Last year, I was only mildly successful, this year they did much better although not as prolific as I would have liked.  I think I just need to plant a lot more next year.  They are delicious though!  I picked and steamed my first batch a few days ago, and they were incredible!  Once again, they tasted so much better than frozen or canned peas.


I've also picked three summer squash already.  I made Yellow Squash Muffins with the first two, and I am going to make Yellow Squash Casserole with the the rest.



Well I hope you enjoyed looking at a very long garden post.  Hopefully next month I will be less busy and not sick, and I can post more.  I'd really love to do a video tape of my vegetable garden too, plus I never showed you our finished screen-in porch...so look for those posts to come.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

44 comments:

  1. Your vegetable garden is surely the prettiest I have ever seen! I just love it! As you know, mine is pretty small and this year I decided to plant zucchini for the first time so there was even less room. I need to extend my garden, but I planted 5 raspberry bushes right next to it so can't extend it that way and too much shade the other way!!

    Your flowers are so pretty too, I planted two snowball bushes last year but they only bloomed in the spring. Maybe it's a different kind, but it bloomed so nicely!




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    1. zucchini's take up a lot of space. Last year I planted six, this year I went down to three zucchini and one yellow squash...which is probably still too many. Thanks so much.

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  2. No wonder you made the squash muffins....look at all of that healthy goodness at your fingertips!!
    XOOX
    Jodie
    www.jtouchofstyle.com

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    Replies
    1. Yes, this is the time of year where I look at all the squash and zucchini and I'm like "What recipe can I try now?"

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  3. Sorry to hear you got sick - I hope you are feeling better soon! It's nice you have this pretty garden to lift your spirits, and you are doing well with your vegetable garden! Our vegetable patch is not doing too well but there are some plants hanging on during our cold winter so I'm hopeful we get to harvest more than we did last time we tried, when the bushfire smoke in the air killed almost every plant!


    Hope you had a good weekend! It was a great one here, busy Saturday with volunteering but a relaxing Sunday :)

    Away From The Blue

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    1. Thanks Mica. I'm feeling much better, I just have a little lingering cough. I'm so sorry to hear about the fires killing your plants last year.

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  4. What beautiful and lush gardens you have!

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  5. Oh yes, the appearance of phlox and certain other perennials let us know fall is coming. Boohoo! I too have a very short season.
    Do you do anything to enrich your soil from year to year? leaf mulch, compost, tell us your secrets.

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    1. I know, I hate how short our summers are. It seems it just starts, and boom! It's over. I don't enrich the flower beds because when the leaves from the trees fall and land right on the beds I just leave them there. I don't rake them up. I also add fresh wood chips every 3-5 years, so that's all the enrichment they need. But the vegetable garden beds get lots of enrichment: peat moss, sawdust shavings (hubby always has lots of sawdust from all his projects), wood ash (we heat our house with wood and have two wood stoves so we have lots of wood ash), and I buy organic fertilizer from Burpee. This year I tried cow manure in one bed and I felt it made a huge difference, so next year I'm adding cow manure to all the vegetable garden beds.

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    2. I forgot to add that I mulch the vegetable gardens with cocoa bean mulch, it not only prevents weeds and looks pretty, but it also adds nutrients to the soil.

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  6. Your garden look absolutely amazing. I like how many flowers you have and it must be such a joy every day walk there or just sit and enjoy in scent and look at all of them.

    www.exclusivebeautydiary.com

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    1. Thank you. Yes, I love to walk the garden every morning and look at all the beauty!

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  7. What a beautiful garden. I'm really impressed and a bit jealous that You have your own veggies ;)

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    Replies
    1. thank you! Yes, I'm blessed to have the space to grow my own veggies.

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  8. Such a beautiful and wonderful garden there. Very nice.

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  9. Wow! You sure have a green thumb! I love seeing the pictures of your garden every year, it is like you have your own botanical garden! Such a beautiful haven!
    www.chezmireillefashiontravelmom.com

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Thank you! It is no where as neat and tidy as a botanical garden. I would need a staff of volunteers for that. But I can only dream.

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  10. I love your garden, it is so beautiful. I wish I had a garden like your.

    Thanks so much for linking up to Creative Mondays #CreativeMondaysLinkUp

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  11. Amy, I don’t think I’ve seen a prettier garden! Just gorgeous!

    Michelle
    https://mybijoulifeonline.com

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  12. You are right Amy, what an amazing garden to go out to daily, it is doing so well. I'm really jealous, I cant even have pretty Zinnias like you have, let alone vegetables, I deal with high temps and bugs, I've lost so many plants this year, but I keep trying.

    Thank you for sharing on #omhgww, be sure to stop by this week, I will have a surprise for you! Enjoy your week!

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    1. Aww, thanks so much! You are so sweet. We had a lot of heat very early in the summer before the plants had the time to develop a root system, and I lot a few plants because of it, so I understand your pain in a small way.

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  13. You are so fortunate to have such a beautiful place. Everything looks so healthy and bountiful.

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  14. Oh my goodness, Amy, it is all so beautiful! I wish I had a fraction of your gardening skills! Lilies are my favorite as well. My orange and yellow ones got incredibly tall this year. Thanks for linking with me!

    Shelbee
    www.shelbeeontheedge.com

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    1. Thanks Shelbee! I really don't feel I have any gardening skills. I just plant stuff and if it grows it grows, and if it doesn't...well it doesn't get planted again. ha ha!

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    2. That is a fabulous approach! And now maybe I will be inspired to try my hand at planting again!

      Shelbee
      www.shelbeeontheedge.com

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  15. Wow...so viele herrliche Gartenimpressionen....wunderschöne Blüten und eine tolle Ernte. Die Lilien gefallen mir besonders gut.
    LG. Karin M.

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  16. Amy, your yard is beautiful! I would love to spend quite time walking the grass paths and taking it all in.
    Would love it if you would post this at my Friday with Friends Link Party!
    Thank you
    Rachelle

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  17. Holy frijoles, look at the squash. To say you have a green thumb is a vast understatement. Wow. I always enjoy meandering about your garden with you. Love the photo of the daisy? with the butterfly. And that peach ruffled lily is gorgeous. None of my lilies bloomed this spring. And we didn't have a single peach after all the fruit our tree gave us last year. Feast or famine.
    I think my favorites of your flowers in this tour are the hollyhock and the hydrangea. Thank you for sharing with us.

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    1. Thank you, but I never feel I have a green thumb. Things go wrong in my garden all the time and I'm usually not sure what it is. I google it, and half the time they are no help either. I just amend the soil as best as I can, water and watch for bugs.

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  18. Amy,
    your flowers and vegetable garden are simply spectacular!! Thanks so much for sharing with us!!
    Hugs,
    Deb

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  19. Back again Amy to let you know I'm featuring this post at the next Friday with Friends link party! Thank you for joining the party fun:)
    RR

    ReplyDelete

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