Fall Wildflowers

The fall wildflowers are really starting to put on their show.

I've never seen a spider this color before. He was hanging out right at the edge of the lawn in the above picture.

I neglected the front border terribly this year and this was my reward!

After I read this post by Lost Roses I cut all of my hollyhocks to the ground when they were pretty much done and they are just starting to rebloom.

Ummm. I think this is a weed. The plant marker at the top right was put there when I planted seeds which were either hollyhocks or delphiniums. I know its not either. Since I'm not sure what it is, I'll leave it for now. Can anyone identify it?

The Long Weekend Is Finally Here!

I have been waiting for this long weekend for what seems like an eternity. Ron and I even tacked yesterday on as an extra day. We are both wiped out from work and running all the time. I needed a chance to catch up inside and out and relax a little. I had big plans to move a bunch of things around in the garden. A few new pass along plants have found there way to me and I have been checking out the sales and of course I've picked up a few things...

Rather than hit the gardens right away, Ron talked me into a walk. He loves to "walk the land." You would think we were land barons or the place was in his family for 100 years. Instead it's just 43 acres and we have only been here five years. We usually head across the road rather than behind the house because there is more excitement down by the creek. Our first discovery was that the little creek, right across the road is pretty dry. It has been low before, but it's never dried up since we've been here. Ron put those rocks across the creek our first summer here. The water usually runs just over them but it makes a little babbling brook sound. This is the first time I've seen the bottom. My positive guy says, hey I bet that's really good dirt if you want some. I don't know if I'm that obsessed. Then again, we pulled out some scraggly pricker bushes from the side of the house recently. There are some indents in the ground that do need dirt....hum...



The sunflower patch Ron planted early this year isn't far from where we cross the little creek. We put the mass planting where we could see it from our front porch looking down across the flats. The reason the photo is from the field and not our front porch is that all the flowers face the field! It is kind of funny actually. The trees must shade it just enough that they look toward the field for sun. It did come out nice, just not what we envisioned.


We literally buy a bag of sunflower seeds that are meant to be bird food so we never know what they will look like. This years have a yellow center. If they were the dark centers, I planned to do some serious seed saving but they are still pretty. I'm sure I'll save some.

Remember that wild lily I posted about earlier in the summer? (if Apple wasn't vacationing, she could link to it for me...I am still learning all the tricks.) (ETA: Even on vacation I can add a link ;) Anyway, this is what it looks like now. Ron is much taller and could reach one of the pods for me. It had a thick white fill inside. I realize this is probably a dumb question but will the pods get seeds later? I would love to add this lily to the gardens by the house but I don't want to risk moving the only flower there. Seeds would be the perfect solution!

When we made to the big creek, we found the water pretty low there as well. I am standing in the middle of the creek bed to get this shot. I have a friend coming up Sunday so her little boy can fish and play in the creek. Looks like we will be wading, not floating on tubes. It probably won't matter to a seven year old. There's always fun to be had in a creek when you're seven! Liz just turned thirteen and doesn't want to float in it anymore since it's "gross!" (That's her exclaimation point.) Poor Ron, his little girl is growing up and we've hit the teen years in full force already! He can't relelate to the creek being "gross", LOL.

At the end of the season, there are beautiful yellow flowers that line the banks. They are six to seven feet tall! A few are starting to bloom. They are beautiful in mass along the water!

After the walk I worked on catching up on weeding but I have decided to wait on moving things around. I am anxious to rearrange a bit but I didn't realize just how dry it was. I'm sure there will still be some hot days and I'm safer to wait a few weeks. I will get my pass-a-longs planted though.

I hope everyone has a wonderful labor day weekend!

A Week Off!

Ron and I had a wonderful week off. The weather was just about perfect. We traveled a little and saw some old friends. We were home in time for time for a visit from my brother, his wife and two kids. They were up from Texas for my nieces graduation from college. Mom was here and Apple and John came up. It was great to see everyone.

We were able to get a bit of gardening in between the coming and goings. This is the view from our front porch. There is a little piece of land across the road that the farmer that rents our land just doesn't use. Ron tilled it up and planted sunflower seeds everywhere you see the darker green. He did a mass planting by the road a few years ago and I loved it. He thought it would look great with the field behind it and the old purple martin house right in the middle. It will be fun to watch it develop. He had fun on the tractor with the plow even if nothing grows!

This is what the one from a few years ago looked like....

The vegetable garden is pretty much Ron's baby. He decided he was too busy and didn't do one last year. This year he went crazy! The garden grew and I mean grew! Our friend Dick has cancer and he is on a special diet that is primarily a vegetarian regime. His numbers have fallen drastically and he is able to put surgery and radiation off for now (hopefully permanently!) He credits God for the turn around but feels He used the diet to help in the healing. Ron figured he could cut his grocery bill this summer by growing a ton of stuff. I married a man with a kind heart. That is going to be a lot to weed!

We had sparkle strawberries in the vegetable garden the last couple years and we usually make sure we have some new plants going for the next year. Since we didn't have the regular garden last year, it slipped by both of us. We plowed the old ones under and planted new ones that will bear fruit next year. We (well Ron) planted 100 plants! I'm sure we won't have any trouble getting rid of berries. They are a little sweeter than the ones from most of the strawberry farms around here. We ended up making a new bed for all the berries and for the few grape vines that won't take off but won't give up either. If we get to it with our list of things to do, we would like to build a mesh fence around it to keep the birds out. Last year we had a ton of raspberries but the birds got most of them!

This is the last project we started but is still in progress. This is an old chicken coupe. The couple that lived here for 50 years before we bought the place turned it into a green house in their later years. It has it's issues but it has huge potential! We are trying to get the water fixed (there is water inside but when you turn it on it sprays everywhere!) It has gaps so big the birds have set up residence. Our goal is to have it as a functional green house for next spring! Although we need to address the issues inside, I decided to add a bed in front of it this year. I also added flower boxes to the windows in hopes of making it look like a country cottage. I'll show you more as it develops.