Strawberry harvest #2

Strawberry Harvest #1

Day Lilies

Finally got these guys to bloom in the front garden. My secret: 3 years of neglect.

First cactus blossom

Prickly pear is native to Va and bees love it.

Thyme

Last thing we needed to complete our "graduate" garden- parsley, sage, rosemary...and thyme.

Last dogwood "flower"

Them are bracts not petals. The real flowers are the itty bitty things in the center.

Let Your Herbs go to Seed

They will...

• make seeds and resow for free!
• bring beneficial insects who will hunt bad bugs...for free!
  
  
  
  
  
  Saw a few of these guys last summer when we let a bunch of things go to seed. And FYI he is not as big as my car...perspective in action!

The Cilantro that Ate New York

This thing survived the winter masquerading as parsley. Finally gave it the smell test...found out it was cilantro. The biggest one I ever grew. 3 feet plus.

Dogwood "Flower"

Dogwood is a con artist. Those "petals" are just leaves pretending.

Potatoes emerge

These potatoes survived the whole winter in the garden. This year, instead of buying a bunch of seed potatoes, I decided to take all the any "too small to eat" potatoes from last years harvest, and just replant them in the fall and see what happened. So far...only a few have emerged.

Nasturtiums back from the dead

These nasturtiums either survived the winter or replanted themselves for a whole new summer of fun. last summer we learned that a few nasturtiums go a long way. These make cool flowers and are good for aphid control.

Lost in the Garlic Forest

Planted a whole bed of garlic. Squirrels don't eat it and it see seems like something that would be easy to grow. Also, my good friends, Sam and Wanda Notzon grow a bunch every year and that kind of inspired me. I spent a few months living in their basement during a time when they were drying or curing the garlic in their basement. The scent of that cool, humid, garlicky basement will always be with me.

Fantastic Mr. Phlox

IMG_0004, a photo by okfuskee on Flickr.

Ha ha - I bet that is the biggest trope in the phlox world. Anyway, this is my second favorite Phlox because it is a darker and brighter than the others. Sadly, we have much more of my third favorite. My number one favorite was also a favorite of the bunnies, so we have none left. This was taken with the new camera which seems pretty good so far. Canon Elph 12x optical zoom.

Flowering Phlox

First Tulip!