Pomegranate day

This week I went to the local nursery and picked up some hostas, two blueberry bushes and an pomegranate bush, all ones that are supposed to do well here in zone 7a. Well, today my husband and I got the pomegranate tree in the backyard.

These have orange-red flowers and bright green leaves (and thorns, so I mulched well so I won't have to weed!) I've wanted one of these since I moved here, because I love pomegranates and I miss the tree we had back in California. Hopefully this one will do well. :)

Related page:
What Types Of Trees Should You Use In Edible Landscaping?
You Can Have Edible Garden Hedges!

The benefits of organic gardening

I've gotten a fair amount done this week -- I decided to plant strawberries as ground cover around the crazy tree, and I transplanted some beets over by the magnolia.

My daylilies bloomed! I wish I would have thought to take a picture, they are prettier than advertised. There are a few more buds showing so in the next few days I should be able to let you see them properly.

I woke up before the sun this morning and decided to get up and do some work outside before it got hot. Well, it was warm and humid already, and after a while I was sitting with some ice water and the sun just started peeking above the trees. I went in to see if my husband (who is an early riser too) wanted to sit out front and see the sun come up.

So we sat out there and along came a female duck, just walking along the lawn towards us, completely unafraid. Once in a while we'll see some Canadian geese in the street but I've never had a duck come by before like this. She poked around my cabbages and rosemary, more interested in eating bugs than anything else, and we just sat watching her.

Well, the sun came up and my husband went back inside, and the duck just hung around, waddling around the grass eating bugs while I pulled weeds and planted strawberries. She must have been there for an hour and then she was gone.

And I thought about the other day when my son saw tadpoles in the pond, and the butterflies and ladybugs and all the other wonderful creatures which visit and live in my garden, that otherwise wouldn't.

I wouldn't go back to chemical gardening for anything. :)

The break was longer than I thought ...

We've had some health issues going on in the family, including my son having surgery, so not a lot has been getting done, other than a bit of weeding and some work on the planter "wall" (which is coming right along).

But the things I planted in the past are growing nicely, so I'm not too worried. More should get done this week, if the weather holds.

Hope all of you are enjoying your edible gardens in the meantime.

A bit of a break

Our street has been redone this week, with all the noise, dust, and tearing up of things that this entails. I haven't gotten a whole lot done on the garden ... except I got some inspiration about my driveway planting.

So today I marked out the boundaries and decided that this will need a bit of a raised area/retaining wall (a foot high at the most, so not a huge deal), as it's right next to a drainage swale/culvert. My husband kindly went to Home Depot and got some rebar for me.

Rain, rain

It rained like crazy the last few days, so today I got to play in the mud. :)

By which I mean I pulled weeds and dug up more Virginia creeper and planted cabbages and strawberries around the magnolia tree, and more strawberries by the crazy tree.

Just looking at and feeling the mud here I can see why they call this clay, that's exactly what it feels like. I had to soak my gloves to get the mud out of them.

In the backyard I planted more asparagus (this time I planted a variety called "Purple Passion") and harvested more snow peas and some little orange cherry tomatoes that are really sweet.

There's a story about these tomatoes -- I very seldom buy tomato seeds anymore, just save seeds from tomatoes I buy. Since most commercial tomatoes are hybrid, you never know what you're going to get. I've never seen orange cherry tomatoes before, but I'm definitely saving the seeds from these because they are really good.

My rose bushes

Got a lot done today ... had two people come pull out Virginia creeper for me and take it home (a win-win situation if ever I saw one), and I also dug out about half of the elm saplings which are trying to take over my yard.

It was a gorgeous day, cool, sunny, with a slight breeze -- perfect for working outside. I'll leave you with some pictures of my two rose bushes.

Hope you had a great day.

Related pages:
How to plant roses

Rosemary hedge, among other things

Well, it's almost straight.

The rosemary hedge ("Hill Hardy") is finally in. It took me a while to get the Virginia creeper out of the area enough for me to plant (as in over several days), but it's looking good.

I always felt that my porch was too exposed; this will give it a bit of an enclosed feel. And I love rosemary.

I've still got so many things to put in ... cabbages, beets, and I'm considering hostas around the crazy tree, as it's pretty shady under there and that will keep the weeds down. So many plants, so little time. :)

Related pages:
You Can Have Edible Garden Hedges!
Why I Think All Edible Landscapers Should Be Growing Rosemary