Gabbysgarden's Blog

Periods of sun have been breaking through a lot of rain and humid weather. Lots of all that can bring - weeds, mildew, mushrooms and slugs - aarf! Not a good year for our veggie garden either. Poor little tomatoes need some more heat to ripen, not enough sun for the eggplant to grow, yadda, yadda, yadda.... Don't have to water much however, so more time for deadheading, pruning and general cleaning up. Also gives me some time to finish painting the inside of my garden shed. We have had some family company for the past three weeks and have put some things on hold to enjoy them.

We have also been enjoying the wildlife that have been feeding on bugs and seeds (and my blackberries!) Wild turkeys and a good variety of birds. The goldfinches are really enjoying the thistle which has been blooming. Trying to get a photo, a little too tricky I think. The chipmunks are having a feast on any tomato that dares to turn even pink. Will have to work on getting rid of the skunk however. It did spray outside our summer porch on Friday evening and I am worried that Gabby will meet up with the little critter one of these evenings.

Rain and thunderstorms today so maybe a good day to help the kids get ready to go back to school. Two to college. Every last day of summer is so precious.

Have a great day in the garden. 

Today is one of those days that I just cannot say thank you enough for. What a beauty it is going to be. It will be a pleasure to be out today. Blackberries are full of flowers. Blackberries sort of came with the property - lucky me. Yes, they need to be kept in check, but I keep friends and family happy when they ripen. There are even enough to share with my bird friends. I decided this year that I would try to clean them up (they are at the edge of the woods), stake them and prune them so I could more easily reach the berries. Had a difficult time telling the wild rose branches from the blackberries. Looks like I did OK so far, we'll see what happens after the pretty flowers fall - berries, I did OK; rose hips - not so good!

Having a nasty aphid problem and have been using insecticidal soap to wash off. Saw a recipe for oil and soap to mix with water on this site and will mix a batch to try today. Also have alot of ants and a good deal of them are red. I attribute that to the locust (black locust, I think) trees that surround and invade our yard. They pop up everywhere and the roots are awful. They are in bloom now and the fragrance is just unbelievable - so sweet. The good in everything.

Have been painting the inside of my garden shed. Love to decoupage and started by decoupaging the table there. Loved it so much that I decided to try to spruce the place up. Have to first fix the window that DH and son broke playing baseball in the back yard.

Time to get to work. Paulette 

Our beautiful June weather has been stolen and replaced with some crazy hot stuff! Certainly takes this northerner a while to get used to the heat although we live near the coast and our temps do tend to stay a little cooler. Difficult to do more than a little watering, weeding and deadheading. Advice is no transplanting or adding new plants for a few days. DH has actually suggested it might be a sign that it is time to let up on my nursery addiction. Leaves some time to battle ants in the veggie garden, aphids on the rose buds and bunnies everywhere! Even the birds are quieter in the heat. Leaving fresh water for them.

Have some lupine in their full glory and rhodies are still in bloom. The different varieties of  rhodies and azaleas are blooming at different times. The french lilac is in bloom and what a beautiful fragrance. Peony blooms are almost ready to burst open. Tree peony just finished blooming. Baptisia beginning to bloom. Have one very pretty patch in the garden that I think is a pink coneflower - will post a photo to see if I can get a positive ID on it. 

A break from the heat is a good opportunity to check in with GG and look around for amazing advice. Have started some banana water after reading some of the advice on roses and will use to water those lovely little plants. The info on this site is so plentiful and helpful. I can get so caught up in finding new info that I have to catch myself and get back to work! Thank you to everyone sharing on this site. This is awesome.