July Garden

We've had lots of rainy, stormy weather lately but this morning was glorious and can be summed up in two words: sunshine and bees.

It is so nice to see all of the activity and life in the garden at this point in the season. I feel weirdly proud that the bees like my garden and spend so much time in it. The bees aren't the only ones who are busy. I've been trying to garden every morning when the weather has cooperated. A couple of weeks ago, I figured out that if I spend two to three hours working in the garden each morning that, at the end of two weeks, I will have managed to work in each of my flower beds. So that's been my morning routine. I get up, make myself coffee and head outside. I paint inside in the afternoons when it's too hot to be outdoors.

All gardeners know that a weeded garden is only a theory. I am not foolishly expecting to have a perfect garden nor do I want one. I just want to feel less embarrassed about its state if we have visitors and to be able to to sit in a chair occasionally and admire it instead of feeling like I need to jump up and fix something right away.

This morning I pruned and weeded the back perennial bed. It's looking pretty full and lush. However, the end of the bed that extends beyond the right side of the photo is going to need work. It has become shadier and shadier in the past few years to the point that I've lost some of the plants. My oriental poppies are gone among others. It's hard to lose things but gardens tell us what they need and the right end of this particular bed is crying out for shade-loving plants. I may divide some astilbe and hostas from other parts of the garden and move them here this autumn.

Speaking of hostas, they are blooming in the front yard and were looking absolutely gorgeous this morning. These are 'Francee'.

Other favourites from my garden tour this morning include my Summer Snowflake viburnum (Viburnum plicatum) and a stunningly beautiful poppy.

The vegetable garden is also bursting with colour at the moment including this blue borage plant that reseeded from last year. The warm colours in the background come from ripening tomatoes, squash blossoms and nasturtiums. It's exciting to see so much happening at once but not everything is thriving. This morning I discovered that my hot pepper plant has wilted and my eggplant is struggling a little. In a garden, nothing is static which provides both its pleasure and ongoing challenges.

"The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature."  Alfred Austin

Full Circle

Well, how did that happen? I always seem to react to the shift from warm to cold weather the same way--shock and disbelief. Wasn't I just topping the soil with compost, measuring out my squares and planting seeds here and there? It goes so fast.

I was lucky that Monday was an unseasonably warm day. It allowed me to do my cleanup without my hands getting frozen. I was also lucky it hadn't snowed yet as you just never know here in November. The only bits left there are a big clump of Italian parsley, some lavender and thyme.

What a glorious vegetable patch it was this year though. All of the heat and sunshine gave us more and bigger tomatoes than we have ever had. Everything was a little larger than our past crops by the end of season--beets, turnips, carrots. My only regrets?  That we didn't realize the cucumbers were there until it was too late. The vines had snaked up through the shrub behind the bed and by the time the cucumbers were visible, they were beyond eating. Also, I meant to resow mâche seeds in August so we could have fresh autumn salads from the garden. Maybe next year.

I don't do a full cleanup in the rest of the garden. I empty fragile flower pots that won't winter well, trim long rose stems that will get whipped around by cold winds and remove certain things from the flower beds like peony stems and leaves.  But, all in all, I leave a lot of the brown and wilted perennials until the spring so that the birds can perch on stems and snack on seed heads through the winter.  As for me? Now I start to dream of my spring garden.

The square-foot garden just after it was planted in May. 

Autumn Jewels

It has become much colder the past few days. My nasturtiums that edge the vegetable bed have completely wilted, a sure sign that the growing season is behind us. I brought in the last few vegetables that were in the square-foot garden. There's something very wonderful about pulling up relatively nondescript leaves and finding jewel-coloured vegetables at their base. Above are the beautiful purple-topped turnips which have a more of a rosy hue at this point in the season. Below are carrots and beets.

We ate the beets in a lovely risotto. Usually when I have beets in the house I make the late novelist and cooking writer Laurie Colwin's Beets with Pasta (from More Home Cooking) but the past two times I've made risotto. It is so pretty how the beets tint the rice. I added the beet greens too so the contrasting colours were lovely together.

Below are some of the most beautiful leaves and stems of my vegetable garden: the rainbow swiss chard. So pretty and so delicious! We often eat them in pasta or just steamed with a little garlic and olive oil.

Harvest always seems like a celebration tinged with a sense of mourning. It's exciting to be able to see and eat the vegetables you planted in the spring but sad to think that there are months before the whole process can start again.

And finally, after days of cleaning my studio, I sat down and painted. I say it so often but I should have done that days ago! It's like a restorative tonic. I painted that sweet little pumpkin that has been waiting patiently on my studio table since before Halloween. It didn't come from our garden, but from a local farmer. Here it is 'in progress':

And here it is finished (I think). I'll know in the morning. :)

The Year of the Giant Tomatoes

Every year brings its own surprises in the garden.  The weather is always the biggest wild card. Depending on conditions, certain plants can suffer or thrive. This year has proven to be the 'year of the giant tomato plants'. All that light and heat we have received so far has provided the tallest tomato plants I have ever had in my garden. The plants are actually taller than me right now and are full of tomatoes, green for now, but promising one of the most abundant harvests ever. I can't wait!

I didn't plant that sunflower. A bird did.
I just love its position, leaning out at the corner of the veggie garden, as if to say 'Welcome'!

These are Opalka heirloom tomatoes. Isn't their pepper shape cool?

Pineapple heirloom tomato. I am very intrigued by these and can't wait for them to ripen.

Green Zebra Tomatoes

Look at how the veggie garden has changed since May!

May

June

July

Happy days!

They Call Me Mellow Yellow

I am continuing to colour code my blog posts this week in sync with Poppytalk's Summer Colours week. Yellow is a lovely choice for today because there is no sunshine here at all.  All of these cheerful subjects will take its place.

My daylilies must have known about 'Yellow' day.  The first summer bloom opened this morning. What lovely timing.

1. One of the books in Emma's summer book stack.

2. Daylily - yellow is not my favourite colour in the garden but this soft, lemony yellow is perfection.

3. Buttercups

4. Shasta Daisy

5. Grape tomato blossoms

6. 'Pineapple' tomato blossoms - I cannot wait to see the fruit!

7. Yellow clematis tangutica - Gorgeous but highly invasive.

8. Gaillardia - Gallo Peach Blanket

9. Dandelion - so maligned yet really quite beautiful close up.

10. Heron and Canada Geese with reflection from the street light taken last night when Emma, Meeko and I went for a walk with the mosquitoes.  The photo is not super sharp because I took it at dusk but I couldn't resist including it.

Wishing you a sunshiny day!

Friends participating in the Poppytalk Summer Colours week include:  Sonia, Margie and Geninne.
Have a look!

Berry Bandit

We have a number of serviceberry (amelanchier) shrubs and trees in our yard. They are lovely plants with four seasons of interest (spring flowers, early summer berries, pretty autumn colour and an elegant winter silhouette). The berries are like a blueberry but even better (according to me). As much as I love them, it is a race against the birds to eat any.  One of my favourite Canadian garden writers, Lois Hole, wrote of the 'bird tax' you need to pay when you grow any berry-laden plant in your yard. So true.

There is a large serviceberry in front of our living room window and it's hosted a bit of a who's who of our backyard birds in the past few days.  I've seen American goldfinches, house finches, cedar waxwings and many robins. I was really lucky to get a number of shots of this young robin.

The above photo kills me. Doesn't he look absolutely amazed by the feast that surrounds him, as if he doesn't quite know where to start? "Wow! Am I ever glad Mom and Dad live here."

I took the photos by removing the living room window screen and sitting on the floor. My constant companion Meeko sat beside me (of course) but was very quiet and didn't scare the robin.  My robin friend certainly provided enough poses for me to try another bird painting one of these days. I like the pose below probably the best.

Despite all of the bird banditry, we did manage to pick a few for ourselves.  I made this wonderful salad with mesclun from our square-foot garden with some serviceberries thrown in for taste and colour.  (If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you will have already seen the photo.)

This week has been broken up with lots of taxi driving of my two daughters who are now both officially on summer vacation, but I managed to finish one painting.  I painted one of the French breakfast radishes from our garden. I wonder if they call them that in France? It's the first time I've used handmade Twinrocker watercolour paper: both Geninne and Diana Sudyka recommended it to me. Just the deckles alone make me swoon. It was lovely to work with and this particular paper has one hot-pressed side and one cold-pressed side. Very nice paper. (Emma picked out the radish-coloured nail polish for my thumbnail.)

French breakfast radish:  Watercolour on Twinrocker paper

And I started another painting of a serviceberry branch.  The past two days, I've been painting slowly with many interruptions--to the point that the berries have been ripening in in my studio.  Note the difference in colour between the painting that I started two days ago and the the branch. The berries start out a mottled yellow-pink, kind of like an apple, and then they become red and then red-purple. I'll try and finish the painting tomorrow and then I can reward myself by eating the berries, while they are still good. :)

Serviceberry painting in progress (on Twinrocker cold-pressed paper)

June Blooms and Harvests

The weather has definitely turned summery.  It almost is summer so that's good! Chloé is officially finished exams and is on a 4-day end-of-year school trip to Tadoussac to see whales among other things. She's never been away for more than one night so it feels quite strange and the house is definitely quiet without her. Emma still has two exams to write.  It's only two weeks now until she graduates from high school.

This week, Chloé and I took Meeko for a walk where we knew there was a patch of wild strawberries growing.  We picked quite a few (Meeko too) and just in time.  The huge municipal lawn mowers appeared on the horizon just as we were getting up to leave.  There was talk of making custard tarts topped with the wild berries but, with exams, there wasn't really time to make elaborate recipes.  We ate them on cereal and mixed into yogurt instead. I particularly love their sweet smell.

Proof of my strawberry picking time (the hole was already there)

My square-foot vegetable garden is doing beautifully.  

The above photo was taken the day the vegetables were planted.  Here it is four weeks later:

Yesterday I picked some lovely French breakfast radishes and ate them. Delicious. The mesclun is beautiful right now and ready for a lovely salad tonight.

Yesterday afternoon, I thinned out the beets, swiss chard and turnips, planting the seedlings I removed in some squares I had left empty.  I also fed the tomatoes some organic fertilizer.

In our front yard, the 'Royal Wedding' Oriental poppies have just bloomed.  I showed them to Emma yesterday and she said 'You show them to me every year.' Imagine how boring I am to live with. :)

And finally, here's a photo I took this morning of some tangled shadows.  I love this.

I hope you are having a lovely weekend. Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there!