osprey94's Blog

updates
Jun 28, 2008 | 4:49 PM PST

Things are really taking off in the garden, now that the sun is actually SHINING occasionally here! We're even having a bit of a heat wave...hold on to your hats, it's in the 80s!

This was the wildflower strip in early spring:

And, here it is now!

This particular guy with the round leaves  is unfamiliar to me. Look familiar to anyone?

Ones I can identify are allysum, calendula, bachelor's button and california poppies.

Here are the broccoli and lettuce a few weeks ago:

And, here they are now...

Here are the tomatoes and onions a few weeks ago:

And, now:

I don't have a lot of experience growing onions and I'm a little curious about the way the base of each of these looks like a cluster of lots of small onion bulbs instead of one big one. What's up?

Here are the peas a few weeks ago:

And now:

I harvested some for the first time this morning and got a little surprise. I don't REMEMBER buying snow pea seeds. I'm  pretty sure I bought sugar snap peas like I do EVERY year. Yeah, no. These are not sugar snap peas and are in fact snow peas. Oh well! I also harvested broccoli for the first time today. Looks like it'll be stir fry for dinner tonight.

The honeysuckle looks wonderful, but as it does every year, it's beginning to go all funny already. The leaves start to turn dark and fall off and by late summer, it's completely bare. Why? What is going on? Here is a pic of the diseased-looking leaves:

Gah, that's an awful picture, but it's the best closeup I got.

Here's the entire plant. It sure is awesome when it's in bloom. I just wish it wouldn't drop all its leaves each summer.

 

And, finally, take a look at my wild lilac. I have 2 huge specimens on either side of my hummer feeders and they attract so many bees that you can hear the collective buzzing and wing-whirring from around the house. It's astonishing.

You can just see of a few of them in this pic (little brown blurs).

Oh! And here's the stewartia illness:

What is going on here? I'm so worried about my little tree here.