June 26, 2006

birds have fledged

News from my parents is that all of the birds have now fledged. The catbird babies snuck off sometime mid-week and the wrens and robins made a commotion of it yesterday. My parents were occupied the whole day, it sounds like, watching through their binoculars and worrying about the fledglings, which they said looked very vulnerable on the lawn. But no hawks descended, no cats, so it seems like a success.

June 26, 2006

weather woes

Just some comments on how the New England weather is affecting farmers from a Boston Globe article today: farmers are increasing fertilizer schedules because the rain is washing away the nutrients, … crops like tomatoes are slow to grow because of the poor weather, they have yet to be flooded out but there is about a 2-week delay in these crops. We’ve had 22.26 inches of rain in May and June – our normal is 5.8.

June 25, 2006

pink rose

This rose drapes over the fence by my vegetable garden. It blooms briefly, but is very pretty. I suspect its name is Dorothy Perkins (http://oldheirloomroses.com/Dorothy_perkins.htm), though it was in my yard before I took over as gardener.

June 25, 2006

a baby tomato

A baby tomato!!! Yes!! I get really jealous reading blogs of gardeners in other zones. Especially http://earlysnowdrop.blogspot.com/. I mean, holy cow, she already has tomatoes, and beans, and peppers, and squash ….. Well, my first tomato is now on the way. (If it doesn’t get washed away.) I am now sustaining the salad bowl with garden lettuce. The lettuce is unusual this year – it doesn’t have any bugs in it. No slugs, or miners, or crawly things. Maybe they’ve all been washed away? I won’t complain. I’m on my…

June 24, 2006

window views

My gardens from the coolness of the indoor AC. Its been hot out there. I like the way the camera caught the screen on the vege garden picture. The top pic is my dishwashing view, the other two are the diningroom.

June 24, 2006

garden blogs newspaper article

I saw in Garden Voices that the San Francisco Chronicle had an article last Saturday on Gardening Blogs. Though they failed to list the outstanding (ha!) blog you are now reading, they do list a bunch of Californian ones. Full article is at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/17/HOG3OJE6P41.DTL. They point out that “Roughly 37 million blogs existed as of May 1 (Wow!), with 376 gardening blogs.” I’m surprised there are only 376 gardening blogs. (I hope they found mine! – But I guess it didn’t start ’til mid-May.)

June 23, 2006

lettuce

Looks good enough to eat. This will be the first thing we harvest from the garden this year. More rabbit food for the salad bowl…. Lactuca sativa

June 22, 2006

baby birds

I just got some new photos of the baby birds (robins top, catbirds bottom). My dad took these pictures. They look pretty cozy in there – not much extra space. I think its about time to fledge.

June 21, 2006

summer solstice

Summer solstice, first day of summer, longest day of the year, last day of school. My garden is celebrating! In Massachusetts, we have 15:17 hours of sunlight today (sunrise 5:07, sunset 8:24). Maybe it’s a good day to get a lot of work done. Or a day to just hang out and enjoy the sun.

June 21, 2006

floribunda “First Kiss”

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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