One Half

I keep forget which is 'stage left' or whatever.  I guess it doesn't matter.  There's half my yard sorta, starting with a view from the porch.

Next we have from the sidewalk facing east.  The terrace is filling out.

Beebalm emerges from the thalia.  There's also tons of calendula which I really should reduce by at least 75%.

And my frog prince is not yet obscured by vegetation.  I found him in the trash last year.  He's broken but enough remains that you can tell who he is.  I buried some bricks to slow the erosion on the side of the terrace that I din't really terrace.  There's lavender, snapdragons, pinks, other things there.  Mostly flowering perennials but some annuals already tucked in.

Monarda

I love monarda. Monarda is a perennial native to north America also known as beebalm and oswego tea. Bees love it, hummingbirds love it and I love it. I have seen various bees sleeping on a monarda flower. There was a mcmansion I worked at years ago that had insanely huge monarda growing 5 feet tall in clumps almost 6 feet in diameter. I had to prune and tie it back while seemingly thousands of bees buzzed around me. I had no fear, bees at this plant are always very happy.

This 1st flower is in the tomato box and is the most red of all the ones that have bloomed so far.

This pink one is the 1st to bloom.

Raspberry is my favorite color. Actually, it seems to be the most popular color in general. This color is usually called 'raspberry wine'. I bought my monarda this spring in a 4 inch pot that had perhaps 8 individual plants in it which I think may have come from seed.

I had a hard time choosing just 4 pictures. I really do love this perennial

This plant likes lots of sun, water, and rich soil. It is also susceptible to powdery mildew. I'll see if I can avoid that. Probably not, but for now they are growing pretty well.

Mint Chutney

OK, so none of these images has anything to do with mint chutney. I've been distracted by raw alpaca fleece but I am not motivated to post in my spinning blog because frankly though I am enthused, I cannot share it as effectively as I can my garden with my beautiful images. If I could share the tactile via the internet that'd be something, but I can't and I am also more self-conscious of it. Instead, I share these pictures. Below, I share a sort of recipe for mint chutney that is delicious.

My monarda is finally starting to bloom. Monarda is in the mint family, so that sorta counts right? At some point I will expound on monarda, but not today.

I am so pleased that this bicolor butterfly bush is finally blooming. I got it is a 3" pot which means it is not as big as most I could have bought at a local nursery. However, I have not seen this variety locally. I got this from Mountain Valley Growers, who remain my favorite place to get live plants. Great prices, selection, service and the best packing I have seen is what you get from them. Did I mention that they are organic too?

These scarlet runners are starting to bloom. they do however look like they have some issue with this spot. There's a few corners in my garden where things don't grow right. Hopefully I can fix this. Anyway, scarlet runners are pretty tough so maybe this won't matter.

This vase came from the street, left as some sort of offering from an anonymous person that I have accepted. I put in a sort of false bottom to retain water so it is sorta self-watering. It seems to be working out OK. It's got asparagus fern, that curly grass and lobelia.

OK, so here's me paraphrasing a recipe I found online. Since I did not follow it to the letter I think that this is OK. In most cases I do not follow recipes to the letter, I just use them as guidelines.

Mint Chutney
2 parts mint
1 part cilantro
lemon or lime juice
fresh hot pepper - you decide how hot and how much
a bit of yogurt
chopped onions,perhaps a quarter or half as much of the cilantro

just put it in a blender add some juice to help it blend,yogurt too.

I think I might make a bunch of this and freeze it. MMMMMMMMM,great way to use some of that extra mint I have.

Rake Lawn Ornament

This rake struck me this morning with beauty as the cypress vine wound its way through it. I found it in the trash like so many garden things I am using.

The confusion of plants below are nasturtium, basil, monarda, calendula and marigolds. I have denuded the 2 tomatoes in this planter so that the other plants are not overshadowed. Some believe that tomatoes with less leaves produce more tomatoes and are less susceptible to disease.

All of these plants seem to be benefiting from the bokashi I have buried below.

This photo is much better seen full size.

Garden Eyecandy

This might be obnoxious but I haven't been updating fast enought to catch up with my garden. Everything is just exploding!

This tomato is not in an ideal habitat but this isn't about perfect tomatoes, it's about fun and maybe sharing with the neighbors. It's a cherry, either juliet or super sweet 100. Don't be fooled by it's shady spot. I have plans to somehow train this against the railroad tie wall where there is plenty of sun. I just think I will have to tweak the balance of nutrients in its soil more carefully than a standard planting.These feral chamomile have miraculously not been tread upon. Either my neighbors understand that this isn't a weed or they just think I am crazy and are afraid to damage this flower. I think that they somehow understand that I am up to something special.The saladball is slowly filling out. I plant something else as if this were a sketch I sit with every few days. Always a work in progress. It already looks different than it did from this photo which is maybe a week old.For some reason this little bay laurel makes me happy. It suffered so much this winter and now it looks alive.These cascade hops are in their second year. What a difference a year makes! Maybe it will be worth harvesting this year.This blur of plants are pretty much all greens and all edible. OK, a few aren't but they aren't weeds. I thin them pretty much everyday. It sorta forces me to eat my vegetables. There's mizuna, red cabbage, pansies, florence fennel seedlings, onions and probably something I have forgotten. Damn! I have surpassed the 20 item limit of things I may tag this blog with. Sure, I could have made it 2 posts but whatever.This lacinato kale should be pretty graceful in this pot. I tucked in some allysum and some chervil thinnings from the salad bowl. There's even a basil plant, just basic basil. Now if I can find some red russian kale, I will be happy. I might have to grow it myself. hmph. One disadvantage of Pittsburgh is a lack of exotic stuff. Now if there were enough of a demand I WOULD put more effort into growing my own to share or perhaps sell with to other gardeners.These wallflowers are nice, and half haven't started blooming yet. Tansy, monarda and calendula have yet to flower. This wall is built of found things. I am quite fond of thrifting, indeed, my latest project is the result of thrifting, actually a good find. More on that shortly. I don't know if I have said it here, but I sorta feel like recycling in whatever form is a very patriotic thing to do. I don't want to be preachy, but when I think about things coming from far, far away and using fossil fuels to do things when it's all in your backyard it kinda upsets me.This cat always looks scared. here is a rare view of my backyard. It needs a lot of work. This was taken through my kitchen window. I don't think this cat is feral, she's just a scaredy cat.

These are my tulips at their best this year. Already more than half of them are done blooming. Just this yesterday I heard a very small child say very clearly "TULIPS" when he passed by with his family. This made my day.

These oyster mushrooms show a new direction I am going in garden synergy. If my experiments work out, I'll share them. Honestly for the most part if I show you something here I think you should try it for yourself. The stuff I am trying that I'm not sure about, I don't share.

These ants with amber distended bodies fed from my hummingbird feeder until I filled the ant guard with water. I really do not like ants but these look like jewels. These ants are actually, at least on my browser, a fifth of the size they are here. The black surface they are walking on is a cast iron shepard's hook which looks fairly smooth in normal vision.

I hope that in the future that I will stick to my goal of posting twice a week. I think the poison ivy set me back. Anyway, already I have a lot to document.

My Terrace

This is the aftermath of dealing with the hedge, a muddy little bare slope. My sensibilities are pretty simple and primitive but this was ugly. Plus I always liked terraces.


The hedge ended where the railroad tie wall begins which left a weird gap between the wall and the slope. The shrub I removed there was so large and overgrown, it was like ripping out a tree. I thought about putting in a more standard sort of wall but considering my neighborhood, and the general look of my yard to begin with, I went with found material.
I have decided to plant some nice perennials in each terrace. The bottom one has siberian iris which should grow pretty tall and cover a lot ot the railroad ties. The 2nd terraces has bee balm, also called monarda, something I had kept in a pot last year because I had not broken enough ground for it. Beebalm is beenip to bees. I really think they get stoned when they re around it. Hummingbirds love it too.

One thing I thought might be nice is to plant my spent thalia bulbs. I planted them below the bee balm. Thalia is apparently the oldest (1610) known hybrid narcissus. I don't know if they'll do well considering that I forced them in water rather than soil and that I did not let them stay green for the 6 weeks post-bloom recommended, but it was plant them or throw them away. In planting them I have cultivated the soil to a deeper depth than I would have otherwise.

They were lovely in my house. I forced them in various vases and these gigantic sherry glasses in clear glass marbles, hydroton, and white glass disks.


Here's the finished (for now) wall. It is sturdy enough to hold a cat. I hope humans will not try to stand on top of it. Anyway it isn't so much of an eyesore and will be less so as the plants grow in.