THINGS ARE GROWIN FAST, EVEN MY TO-DO LIST

It's been a beautiful several weeks and I've been living in the gardens with the mosquitos. I spray my thin long sleeve shirt and my straw hat with Deep Wood repellent and it keeps them away without smearing that stuff on my skin. The mosquitos seem to come out in the morning and in the evening. When they get too bad near the hedge, I sometimes smoke them away with smoldering egg cartons. I keep an eye on the carton as they can catch on fire if there's a breeze.

Today is a rainy day so I did things indoors like soup and biscuits for lunch, and I took some garden photos in between raindrops for my poor neglected blog. I went to church for mass and devotions and went to visit my aunt in the hospital, made a nice salmon dinner and uploaded my photos on the computer then my i-library didn't want to cooperate. I despise those external drives on my MacBook Air.  Occasionally, they play hide on and seek on me... Grrr... I lost some great flower photos. Oh well...

I've got a lot of work done in the yard but still, I'm not caught up as usual. The weatherman announced showers every day for a week. I moved tones of soil left by the flood, reseeded the damaged spots in the backyard, weeded, planted, pulled out old clumps that overtook the garden, etc. My to-do list is being checked off but somehow, it keeps growing every day. I like to check things off so I can see my progress.

I babysat my little great granddaughter while her mama took her brother to an award ceremony at his school. He received a Citizen Award for being such a sweet helper to his classmates and the teacher. We are all so proud of him. I don't have a picture of this happy event.

My little great granddaughter had a great time at my house but she moves faster than a mosquito and kept me on my toes. I got her to laugh for a picture. After a few hours, I was exhausted... Like her big brother, she is so polite.

These daylilies are usually the first to bloom. This year, they will be later because my husband built a carport and they have more shade. This one on the end is getting more sun than the others.

This spring before the weeds started growing, this area was covered with about by about 6 inches of soil and compost from my son's garden that migrated here in the flood. Free fertile soil for me but so much hard work to remove and spread in my garden.

There were a lot of big weeds like Angelica, Burdocks, Creeping Charlies,  Milkweeds, Couch Grass, Dandelions, and other weeds growing at the end of the back garden that I cut down this week. This is the third year in a row that I reclaim a little bit more space for my vegetable garden by getting rid of the weeds by digging them out totally. The burdock has big long roots and is difficult to pull. Pictures don't do it justice but I know how hard it was to remove the excess soil and compost. These weeds are beside my shed and my son's shed in the back.

Early this spring after I planted my blueberries, at the end of the newly reclaimed space I put an old strip of jute carpet down to keep the Creeping Charlies from spreading in the garden.  The carpet was to keep the creeping Charlies from going to seeds before I could get to them.   I'll remove the carpet and I will plant some rhubarbs there. I have bought two varieties, one is called Canada red and the other is called German Wine. I wanted some red rhubarbs. I have an old heirloom variety that I will transplant next spring or this fall. They didn't do so well after my husband tilled them under by accident.

This is the end of the garden after I weeded and chopped down the tall weeds.

Two of my broccoli plants were attacked by some worm eating the roots.

One variety of peas are started to blossom.

My spinach is doing so well this year. The leaves are bigger than my hands. This is one big leaf under my hand. We had so much rain, everything is growing well.

This is Couch Grass and it has taken over my old compost area. It is in seeds now and I will have to tackle them sometime this week between raindrops. The roots have to be pulled out or they will root all over again. They are difficult to get rid of but not impossible.

My seat swings are in dire need of cleaning and repainting from the flood damage but it will have to wait. I still enjoy sitting in there for a rest and a break from the sun in my dirty garden cloths. I look like a hillbilly in my old silly straw hat.

My Lady Kim late blooming Lilac is starting to bloom and one of the hostas is getting some buds.

With the anticipation of all the rain we are supposed to get this week, I had to reinforce my peonies. They are growing so tall this year with all the rain we had.  I'm afraid they will all droop before I can enjoy their beauty. I have more by the shed.

The tall burgundy and yellow bearded irises are on their way out while others are just starting to bloom in the background.

These mauve irises behind the big rock were given to me by my daughter Jackie. My daylilies in the front are just beginning to bud.
I know this is a lot of photos but I lost some of my best from my photo library when my external drive hickupped because it wasn't ejected properly.


I'm thankful for my faithful visitors  who leave comments. I have so many many visitors who are lurkers. I would like to read even small comments from you.

Enjoy the rest of the week.
Hugs, Julia

IT'S A GOOD THING IT'S RAINING AGAIN.

The week went so fast I can't believe it will be Friday again tomorrow. Nothing special happened since my last post except that I'm feeling grounded with all the kneeling in the garden I've been doing lately. I've weeded six large flower beds.  A great place to ponder on my life.  It's a wonder I don't have roots growing on my knees. All day, I've been listening to a poor mourning dove, sitting alone on the wire. I wonder if it's mourning its companion.

The other Azelia has just finished blooming and this one is now in full bloom.

It's been a slow process to repair the flood damage in the gardens and yard.  I'm making some progress but it's hard on the poor back. I was chased inside when it started raining and I was kind of glad so now I can do a blog post. Luckily, I remembered to bring my camera outside for a few pictures.

I had about 20 bags of garden debris to mulch. I now have two left to mulch. I forgot about them as they were in the carport.

Nothing much to report except I've been mowing the lawn,  making mulch,  planting,  weeding and moving tonnes of soil and I'm not done yet. The garden is growing well and my beans are up and mulched. Oh yeah, I cooked a few meals now and then cause we have to eat, but not much cleaning in the house.

I mulched most of the garden but I'm only showing some of the basil. I can walk on wet mulch and my shoes don't get muddy. Those were started from cuttings and are taller.

These were started from seeds but they will catch up to the bigger one in no time. They got a bit sunburnt but the new growth is getting greener.


For the third year in a row, I gather garden debris like leaves and dead daylily debris and I  put it in bags until I'm ready to mulch it with the lawn mower and then I put it on the garden after I weed to keep the moisture in and the weeds out. I should clone myself so I could work faster.

The peonies are starting to bud and I used some bark mulch for these. It was so sunny today, all my photos are washed out.

I planted 2 large pots of begonias with trailing lobelias. I'll show the other one later.

and I also planted 2 pots of marigold with blue trailing lobelias. I have more flowers to plant and I hope that I can do that tomorrow. A local plan nursery gave me three trays of flowers to plant and I had already many of my own to plant. They are getting root bound in their little trays.

I've been looking online for these tulips I got many years ago and I can't find any. They were called Mounties. They have survived well and I will divide them this fall. The leaves are wavy. They are my favorite.

This double bed has been weeded since I took this photo and now my Tall bearded Iris are starting to bloom but I didn't take any pictures.
Sorry so many pictures but they are for my record. There will be more to come later.
Thanks for stopping by. Please leave me a comment if you want me to keep blogging.