Ah, refreshing

It rained the past two days, and we needed it, so I won't complain. Now there is a beautiful breeze and things in the gardens are perking up as the sun shines. Here's what's going on:

The "real" daylilies are blooming. I think I will dig up some of the "wild" orange ones that bloomed earlier and replace them with some Stella D'Oro ones this fall when they go on sale over at Adams.



Cool rooster in the background, right? Uncle Bruce gave us that for our wedding. It's a bummer the paint is wearing off.

Near the daylilies, the Rose of Sharon is also blooming, and has been for a couple of weeks.



In the back corner, it's more purple phlox!



And, brown eyed susans I brought with us from Cold Spring that came back for a couple of years, then didn't last year, and are now back again, but in a slightly different spot. Hmmm.



The only problem with all the phlox doing so well is it's shading the thistle, which is not nearly as big this year as it was last year.



The sunflowers out front are still flourishing:



And the basket on the fence has filled out nicely. Here is is when we planted it, and then the next shot is now. The black eyed pearl peppers did not do well, they needed more sun, so I added coleus which seems pretty happy!





And I cut a couple of huge bunches of silver dollar plant last weekend. This weekend I'll sit there and peel them and harvest the seeds to sprinkle around in the beds and on the hills.



Speaking of seeds, Steve and I are going to a Hudson Valley Seed Library seed-saving workshop on Saturday, should be fun!

It's freakin' hot

Man, it's hot out. Steve is happy, the grass is "dying" so he won't need to mow as often. We water the vegetable and flower beds just about every day. I can't remember the last time we had a good, soaking rain. Supposedly we'll get showers tomorrow morning, but we'll see...

We joined Common Ground Farm this year and one of the nice perks is they grow flowers for cut bouquets and we get to pick one for ourselves each week. Here is what I picked this week, along with some mint that we got in our share.



And, they're not from the farm, but from one of our favorite local vendors at the farmers market. We puffy heart her and her produce. :-)

Hmpf.

This:



this:



this:



and this:



have led to this:



We have two of them, and seriously, in like 3 days, they are full! Blech!

Catching up!

It's been a while! Things have been busy the past couple of weeks - 4th of July weekend, then my husband's family came for a visit and we went to see the Yankees and the Mets, and had a really enjoyable visit! So now I'm trying to catch up a bit with the blog, here goes.

Remember that strange looking thing I showed you last time? Here is what it is - a voodoo bulb! Have you ever seen one bloom? Or smelled one. It's nasty. Next year I'll take a picture of it blooming. We have two of these that Mom brought us, one one each side of the fireplace. I like the tropical look they give the beds!



Okay, so these are from the end of June, but thought you'd like to see all the basil we had then, and the result - yum, pesto!





Back to flowers!

We planted spider flowers from seed, but they haven't taken off like I had hoped. They are blooming, though.



The hosta are blooming and look great in front of the shed.



The phlox and echinacea are blooming. I'm still waiting for that big patch of phlox in the middle to bloom, I can't decide if it's the white one I planted when we first got the house, or one I picked up at a plant sale last year.



The sunflowers out front are blooming. These are all the result of seeds that fell from the sunflowers we planted last year. There are tomato plants there, too. Yes, tomato plants in the front of the house. We planted a random, leftover cherry tomato plant there last year and on one day I picked 167 tomatoes! Yes, 167! Apparently they like this spot, because there are 4 or 5 plants that grew from tomatoes that dropped last year, plus we planted a couple of new ones.



I love the pollen on the leaf:

Weeding, weeding, weeding

I hate weeding. But it must be done. Here is my garden sled. Neat, right? It was Mom's idea! It's easier than a wheel barrow sometimes.



This is neat, too, right? I'm wondering how many of you know what it is? (Besides my Mom, of course).



And this incredibly weird, slightly gross mushroom (?) appeared yesterday. The flies were all over it. I did NOT lean close enough to it to see if it smelled bad. The weirdest thing, is that the next day, it was gone.



Mom told me what this was last time she was here, but I've forgotten already...hopefully she can remind me! I used to think it was some weird hybrid growth off the Rose of Sharon, which is right above it. It kind of looks like a Rose of Sharon, but it's definitely not. I don't think I planted this, so either it was there all along, or it came in with something else that I planted in that area.



Another shot of the yucca and rudbeckia, I'm loving this part of the yard right now.



Well, it was unintentional, but the cilantro flowers are pretty!



Reason #3 (after peonies and great Grandma's roses) why the Internet should be scratch and sniff:



They are *quite* tall, too!