Golden Achievements of my activities outside [Gardening]
Moonwalker is the name of this #Sunflower variety I am growing in the garden. You would not believe how hard it has been to grow a sunflower this year in my yard. Animals outside seem to eat every seedling right after it sprouts. I guess the seed leaves are very tender and tasty.
Getting these monsters to reach this height has been a single achievement I have to stand back and appreciate for a moment. For every flower that grew, probably a dozen seeds were planted there that tried to grow, but something ate it.
The health and vigor the #sunflowers tends to help all nearby plants fight off diseases and rid them of harmful pests. The sunflowers are truly the sun-center of the garden, with all other life swirling around them.
If you love bees, this is the plant to grow. Every time I look at this flower, I see bees on it. Even when it is getting dark.
The understory shows the evidence of how a few straggly leaves and herbs have filled out to become a plush carpet of green. #Arugula and #cilantro mingle well together, and I am letting them reseed themselves. Maybe I'll get a second crop to last me through the end of Autumn.
This year I learned a lot about creating layers in the garden. I never realized that adding low shaded areas can help small seedling so much.
The tobacco flowers, much easier to grow than the sunflowers this year, have been performing like soldiers all month. They seem to make a seed pod that explodes out dozens of microscopic seeds. I'll just let them do their thing. Bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds are all thanking me for adding this beauty to the garden. It is an excellent companion plant, and keeps away ants and aphids. I'll be saving some leaves to make an insecticide.
#Tobacco does not need to be watered very often, and the petals need to be kept dry to stay open.
Early #Violets are still blooming. Why do they call them Early Violets? They sure took their time this year to bloom, and now they won't stop. Each morning, I do get up early to pinch off any seeds I find on dead flowers, because this plant is invasive if it gets into the yard.
This is the only #tomato plant in my garden that seems to be performing well. Except, I can't even take credit for planting it. This plant grows from seed in my little compost bin each year. Every year it gets bigger, and my compost gets better. I've counted six little green tomatoes on it so far. If it's the same variety that grew here last year, they will be yellow when they are ripe.
Guess I should thank my friend who gave me the rotten #tomatoes that started this.
The corn is a bit of a disappointment.
I had a much better success rate with the #corn this year, with many more seeds sprouting than I expected. It required multiple weeks of resewing new corn seeds into the soil in all the bare spots where I could not find any sprouts. Eventually I got two varieties to grow here. Above is an organic variety called Kandy Corn, but its just looks so short. I don't think the soil here is very fertile yet, and there is a huge tree root from the nearby pear tree eating up a lot of the space underground.
In the photo below, you can see the the other variety I am growing on the left side, which is the common Sweet Corn variety. It is looking closer to medium height, which is how tall it got last year when I grew it in this spot.
There's also some bean plants growing here, and a lonely pumpkin plant growing in the upper right, so small you can't even see it. Hey, at least they are alive.
The jewel of my garden is currently the grapevine.
The birds have nipped at the ripened #grapes a little bit. This is the first year I managed to grow fruit on this vine, so I am really happy about that. Next year, I'm hoping I'll get a lot more than a few edible grapes to sample. To me, they taste a bit like a mix between red table grape, Concord grape juice, and a blueberry.
I could not be happier with the variety I am growing because I am just a casual grower looking to grow fresh things I can pick right off the vine to eat. It's called Venus, and you probably won't find any fruit from this variety for sale, because the fruit is very sweet and delicate.
It had a bit of sunburn on the leaves, but it really does not harm the plant as long as the roots are protected. One day, even the fruit shriveled a bit because it was so hot. A little deep watering plumped them back up to juicy sweet.
This week, I took a break from posting because I have been a bit frustrated with my outdoor activities. So many seeds I planted never sprouted. The tomatoes and peppers I started growing indoors, are all still looking very shrimpy. Even the Ash trees, which dropped thousands of seeds, I haven't found a single seed that sprouted this year, and last year they grew like weeds. I think they all got fried by the sun. If so, that kind of rendered my bonsai landscape/forest project a failure for this year.
Oh well, I have been occupying my time with learning to read music to write songs. Anyone recognize the song below? Maybe it is a dire warning to me.
I might post the results of the songs I made later this month, when I hopefully finish transposing from the lead book. So far I got three songs from the book basically finished. Being a perfectionist, I can't help but to modify them to sound more like the film version of the song than the stage version written in the book, because the film version has full orchestra and extended transitions and riffs added within the songs. It is really building up my ability to be able to write a section of a song solely by ear.
Thank you to my followers for supporting my efforts. It always means a lot to me to receive your encouragement and engagement. Even if I don't post as frequently, I'm still out there curating every day looking especially for bonsai and gardening posts to support.
My one year steemit anniversary I think is coming up soon. Any ideas on what I should do to celebrate?
Bonsai!
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Great post. Interesting garden you have going there. Looks like you are learning much and having some success. I have learned much about permaculture on Steemit. Patience and learning what nature wants on your land is all part of the process. Lovely sunflowers :)
Wow..... Beautiful sunflowers 🌻..lovely shot
My sunflowers had the exact same problems this year.
I let the violets do their thing in my yard. I collect the flowers for making jelly and it takes a LOT of flowers for that. I've also discovered interesting hybridized varieties in my yard.
I've grown nicotiana before but it was always a white flower. I like your red one much better!
Never knew you can make a jelly out of them. I bet it has a lovely color. How do you make it?
I'd made a post on it a while back:
https://steemit.com/cooking/@goldenoakfarm/making-violet-jelly
This year's theme seems to be everyone gets 1 tomato. I just don’t know anyone with a bunch of them. I still have just one lonely one on the plant growing still.
A bad year for tomatoes? Really?
This one plant I pictured has six that look like they are all going to develop. For weeks none of the flowers looked like they were getting pollinated. Maybe it has to do with the ash/pollution in the air along with the high heat temperatures.
You might be onto something. My peppers are all still the same size they were in the Spring, with almost zero growth. They are just recently starting to sprout leaves, as though they finally adjusted to the soil temperatures. This is only my third year trying to grow peppers though. I'm going to have to try replanting them indoors to extend the season.
On one hand I think we are up to 15 Jalapenos growing on one plant now. It has so many they are taking forever to grow big enough to want to use. I ended up picking two last night in hopes it will help the plant out. It seems to be really enjoying all the heat.
Sadly the tomato has been plagued with one issue after another. I'm really hoping this next cycle turns out great. I have a desire to use some fresh ones a few times now.
Here is a volunteer Black Oil Sunflower that I let grow in my grow tray (I was sprouting them for the chickens), with some peppers in the background...
Nicely done.
Thanks! your garden is looking great, especially the tomato. Our Purple Cherokee tomato plant has been struggling, luckily our cherry tomato has been more than making up for the lack of large tomatoes...
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You have a very productive and beautiful garden there, do plant some more fruiting plants. @creativetruth