I love perennial gardening!
This garden is only a very small replica of what I had at our prior house. There I could rarely catch up with all my little ones. Often I wish for a bigger garden, but I will be content with this temporary one for right now. One benefit is that it requires less work.
This photo was taken 2 weeks ago and I regret we didn't take a photo when the hyacinth bean, autumn clematis, and ox eye daisies (or heliopsis or false-sunflower) were at their peak.
Tonight we pulled out the tomato stalks that were beyond the purple asters. The brown plants made the whole garden ugly! This year proved to be a bad year for tomatoes. A lot rotted on the vine before they ripened. We did enjoy the few yellow tomatoes we did harvest. We didn't plant any red tomatoes. We also pulled the weeds that you see in the pathway. I should invest in some creeping thyme.
I received these hyacinth bean seeds from my mother-in-law late in the summer and that is why they aren't taller. They are a wonderful asset to any garden and I love the variety of color on the leaves.
Allison was the apprentice on the camera on these next several photos but she did a great job:
sedum
an annual -name?
aster
star with gaillardia in the background
gaillardia
shasta daisy
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A week ago Amber and I were the early birds out of bed and we noticed this spider web. So while Amber's bread was rising, she went outside with the camera. There is nothing like the morning dew highlighting details you would normally not see.
This spider web was once perfect. But something happened to damage it....
We are born of a sinful nature and sin scars our life just like this web. We need the transforming blood of Christ applied to our life to make us a new creature.
Then it was my turn to go outside with the camera. I love that you can see the webs on the hyacinth bean.
Seeing this spider web in the early morning dew caused me to worship my Creator.
This is another completely different style of web made of such intricate design.
An hour and a half later, it was no longer pleasant to capture any detail in the harsh morning sun. I miss many an early morning outside because I'm not an early riser. But I treasure the moments such as these. There really is a beauty to the early morning that is enraptured.
I love to be outside at night when all have gone to bed just to breathe in the fresh cool air, feel the kiss of the moon on my cheeks, and gaze at the stars twinkling. I cherish that God is so near!
The crickets chirp and sing their melodious song. It is lovely.
It's about that time when the deer make more appearances. Right now they love eating pumpkins off our land. Somehow they break it open and scoop out the middle for a luscious meal.
Many a night we look outside and see the silhouette of deer a few feet outside our door. If you're quiet, they'll just stand and look at you for a number of minutes and then they'll softly bound away.
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Reasons we didn't have a garden.
This is the first year that anything like grass and weeds grew very well on the only flat piece of ground we have.
Last summer we were gone and we didn't get back till late fall to ready a plot for the spring.
Where do you put a garden where the deer won't disturb it?
We simply procrastinated. I hate that word, but it describes us all too well.
My husband finally had the means and time to put up some railroad ties. So this garden was planted on the last Monday in July. I planted a bit of lettuce and carrots, but they didn't grow too well.
Next, I planted some beans but I forget the name. It was the only variety the seed store had left. It's a bush bean of some kind, not at all what I usually plant.
Next to that, Zach used a shovel, electrical wire, and plastic bags to make a scarecrow. The blackbirds had been enjoying something here when we first seeded the garden. They may also have been snacking on some bugs or cherry pits from the compost. That is, if they eat pits.
The last thing here are some cucumbers.
As of today, the lettuce is ready, we picked the first beans, and there are some small cukes with lots of flowers on the plants. Who knows if Jack Frost will be here before this garden amounts to anything worth talking about. But at least we tried.
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It's funny because by the end of July, I was itching to have a garden. I wish I had felt that way in the spring. But in June and July we had been busy prepping our small garden plots here and there including the flower beds because the soil was terrible. That's when I discovered we had lots of compost that was ready from the year before last and I got excited!
With some lasagne gardening: newspapers, leaves, grass, dirt, eggshells, and a repeat of layers the garden was ready. And it proved to be perfect soil for planting seeds.
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This is where we have our hot dog roasts. We also have a spot in the woods, but we use this one more because it's closer to the house.
The zucchini plant is nice and tall but alas, I think it's got a blight. It's too bad because it is full of blooms and the plant is really large. So far we only got 4 small zucchinis. But we were glad for those.
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