Posts Tagged Daylily ‘Lady Inara’
Early June in the Garden
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on June 8, 2018
Scarlet bee balm (Monarda didyma) always looks like it’s wearing a party hat when in bloom.
I always carry my camera with me when I step outside this time of year, even if I’m just walking the 100 yards to the mailbox. If I don’t bring it, some butterfly, bee, bunny, or bird does something photo-worthy that I don’t catch if I’m unprepared. These shots are what I caught today.
I spent the morning working in the vegetable garden. I needed to work longer, but the sun is ferocious, the humidity unforgiving. Yesterday, I finally harvested our first squash and first two eggplants. We ate them last night and I can report that they were delicious. Today, I picked another eggplant, decided to give a couple of squash one more day to fill out, exhorted the tomato plants bent low with the weight of green orbs to hurry up and ripen, and rejoiced in sighting the first bean flowers on all three varieties I’m growing. A little photographic documentation follows. To enlarge a photo and see its caption more easily, click on it.
To get to the vegetable garden, I travel through the front yard and pollinator gardens. Here’s a sample of what I saw today.
In the center of my front yard, the Chinese Pearl-bloom tree commands full attention as it nears peak bloom.
Chinese Pearl-bloom tree (Poliothyrsis sinensis)
We especially enjoy this time of year because of the near-daily emergence of tiny new amphibians from the front water feature. A few days ago in the early morning after a night-time shower, Wonder Spouse and I counted 25 hiding on various plants growing nearby. I suspect that most are Cope’s Gray Treefrogs, but I’ve heard other amphibians singing lustily beside the pond at night too, especially Narrow-mouthed Toads. When they are this tiny, though, I have no idea how to tell them apart.
Every day brings new discoveries, fresh food, and hard work. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
First Fruits
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on June 19, 2013
Today’s harvest
As the last hours of astronomical Spring wind down, the first summer fruits of the season were ready for harvesting in my garden today. In the basket are a Y-Star patty-pan squash, 2 Noche zucchinis, and 1 Spineless Perfection zucchini. The Noches are the darker fruits on the left. I predict that an equal number (or more!) will be ready tomorrow. Yup, it’s squash-for-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner time!
Of course, we’ve been eating Spring crops for a couple of months. The below-normal temperatures allowed us to harvest truly wonderful lettuces and spinaches until two weeks ago. The beet crop is coming in. We’ve conducted an initial taste test between the two varieties we grew, which I’ll report on later. The carrots are still trying, but, as is usual in my garden, carrots are a bit of an uphill battle. Wonder Spouse harvested almost all the onions two weeks ago. They are stored in the basement until he needs them for another of his culinary masterpieces — oh yes, ladies, he cooks too. 🙂
We got about a half inch from a passing thunderstorm yesterday, so the veggies all looked shiny and fresh this morning. Here’s what one of the zucchini plants looked like before I picked:
Zucchini manufacturing in progress.
This Y-Star patty pan plant looked equally busy:
I see squash bread baking in my near future.
It’s easy to tell by the exuberant growth of the squashes, the zillions of skinny beanlets dangling from the Fortex pole bean vines, the clusters of green globes beneath wide tomato leaves, and the tiny peppers pushing out from sturdy Italian pepper plants that the Summer Solstice is nearly here. In my garden, it will arrive at 1:04 a.m. EDT this Friday morning, June 21.
I didn’t really need a calendar to tell me Summer was knocking at the door. The plants and animals that share my five acres of green chaos have been reminding me for weeks now. As more evidence, I offer two more participants in the ongoing daylily parade.
Daylily ‘Lady Inara’ reminds me of warm summer sunsets at the beach.
Daylily “Prairie Blue Eyes’ isn’t really blue, but she’s a looker for sure.
Happy Almost Summer, ya’ll!
Piedmont Gardener 