blue, blue is an evening out on my own
So many things to write about, so little time spent sitting and typing. I'll take the low-hanging fruit and do another State of the yard post: summer edition.
Things have continued to grow like crazy. For the flowers, the blooming purples and pinks seem to have given way to the oranges and yellows of daylilies and the coreopsis. The orange lilies, as usual, are tall and dense and are midway through their blooms. Haven't seen any taller than me yet but a few look close. The yellow and red lilies are later and have only just started. The sedum is sending out pre-flowery-looking ends, but is still all green.
For the edibles: the tomatoes had a brief aphid problem but are otherwise fine, and currently have many green fruit on them. The cilantro bolted some time ago and I'm just getting the straggler leaves and coriander now. Oregano is trying to take over everything, even after I ripped half of it out. I traded a clump for a tiny raspberry bush, so maybe next year we'll have additional berries. Applets are falling from the trees in large quantities, and many are over an inch in diameter - big enough that they get chipped up by the mower, so we have to weed them regularly. I picked up a hundred or so on thursday, as my slave labor doesn't get back here until next week. I transplanted a bunch of mystery squash things from the compost pile into actual dirt and two of those are doing quite well, and looking close to flowering.
Three varieties of blueberriesI have blueberries! I think this might be the first year in many where I haven't had a long vacation weekend right at peak blueberry time. I was a little lax about pruning the bushes last year, which basically means now I have infinite blueberries, as I just keep finding ones I'd missed, and climbing around in the brush is a bit annoying. I picked about two quarts in the past few days, almost exclusively off one of our sets of bushes. The second (x-large) kind is just starting to be ripe now, and the third (small) ones come a bit later. Anybody who would like to come over and do some more picking in the next couple weeks is welcome.
While in Schenley Park last week I happened across a women picking snacks from a tree. I investigated and found they were white mulberries, which I hadn't even known existed, and were quite tasty.
Temps have been in the 80s and lows in the upper 60s for the past week (and looking into next week), which is almost perfect summer weather for me: just a little uncomfortably hot during the day, but with breeze or clouds and a cold drink in the shade, it is pleasant. It could be improved with lower evening temps or more thunderstorms, but I guess I can't quite have it all. Unfortunately, most people I know (and live with) don't quite agree with me on the niceness of the weather, so we've turned on the (wimpy, mostly ineffective) AC a couple times so far on extra sunny days.
Things have continued to grow like crazy. For the flowers, the blooming purples and pinks seem to have given way to the oranges and yellows of daylilies and the coreopsis. The orange lilies, as usual, are tall and dense and are midway through their blooms. Haven't seen any taller than me yet but a few look close. The yellow and red lilies are later and have only just started. The sedum is sending out pre-flowery-looking ends, but is still all green.
For the edibles: the tomatoes had a brief aphid problem but are otherwise fine, and currently have many green fruit on them. The cilantro bolted some time ago and I'm just getting the straggler leaves and coriander now. Oregano is trying to take over everything, even after I ripped half of it out. I traded a clump for a tiny raspberry bush, so maybe next year we'll have additional berries. Applets are falling from the trees in large quantities, and many are over an inch in diameter - big enough that they get chipped up by the mower, so we have to weed them regularly. I picked up a hundred or so on thursday, as my slave labor doesn't get back here until next week. I transplanted a bunch of mystery squash things from the compost pile into actual dirt and two of those are doing quite well, and looking close to flowering.
Three varieties of blueberriesI have blueberries! I think this might be the first year in many where I haven't had a long vacation weekend right at peak blueberry time. I was a little lax about pruning the bushes last year, which basically means now I have infinite blueberries, as I just keep finding ones I'd missed, and climbing around in the brush is a bit annoying. I picked about two quarts in the past few days, almost exclusively off one of our sets of bushes. The second (x-large) kind is just starting to be ripe now, and the third (small) ones come a bit later. Anybody who would like to come over and do some more picking in the next couple weeks is welcome.
While in Schenley Park last week I happened across a women picking snacks from a tree. I investigated and found they were white mulberries, which I hadn't even known existed, and were quite tasty.
Temps have been in the 80s and lows in the upper 60s for the past week (and looking into next week), which is almost perfect summer weather for me: just a little uncomfortably hot during the day, but with breeze or clouds and a cold drink in the shade, it is pleasant. It could be improved with lower evening temps or more thunderstorms, but I guess I can't quite have it all. Unfortunately, most people I know (and live with) don't quite agree with me on the niceness of the weather, so we've turned on the (wimpy, mostly ineffective) AC a couple times so far on extra sunny days.