Kerry’s Garden

Here is the False Indigo flowers I mentioned yesterday. This was one of my mother’s day presents from the kid last year. Good kid there.

This iris was at the house when we moved in. I thinned out the bed and planted a number of the starts here year before last. This is the first year I am getting a good showing. They are very simple but I do like them. Anybody have any idea on a variety? Eric tells me they are an old one but is unsure which one.

I re-tilled the garden as soon as I got home from work. The tiller started acting up as I was finishing. I’ll try changing the spark plug before using it again. It hasn’t been done in a while. I took out the air filter and it was a bit dusty so I’ll replace that too. Fortunately the tiller held out till I finished what I wanted to get tilled today. I would love to go no till or raised bed but unfortunately there are sassafras and locust trees in our yard and both spread very easily. If I don’t till I have a sassafras forest and thorny locust seedlings all over the garden by fall.

17 tomatoes (16 Big Beef and 1 Mr. Stripey) went into the new row on the edge of the veggie garden. I seemed to have a lapse in my ability to count this spring and started the tomatoes way too early. A month early to be exact. Because of that what I have is pretty tall, taller than I would like. I ended up pinching off the bottom three leaves and digging the holes extra deep as I planted them. They will put out roots all along the stem and the deeper they start the better they will handle the drought we usually end up having during the summer.

In the bean yard I planted two rows of Topcrop and 2 rows of Tenderette. Both are bush type beans. The Tenderette should mature about a week after the Topcrop (58 vs 51 days) which will help to extend the harvest a bit. I held off planting the beans a bit because I am scheduled to have minor surgery in early June and wanted time to recoup a bit before I had to be out there picking beans. I have been scrambling around trying to get everything done that I want to accomplish and schedule things so that I won’t have much to do outside in mid June.

The blackberry bushes were slammed during the extended cold last month. I didn’t think we were going to have any berries but it looks like we will have a few. I noticed a handful of blossoms open today. Perhaps enough for a cobbler. mmm