My daisies are just about to bloom…. so are my Black Eyed Susans… that will be nice. And my purple coneflowers are coming right up the alley. All the flowers are doing very nicely this year. Can’t wait to start buying up a few more 75% off end of season perennials this year. I believe I need some more springtime flowering ones. Most of what I have tends to bloom more towards middle to late summer.

Marie and Louise, our grape vines, are doing nicely as well. I’m wondering if I need to train them horizontally soon, or if they can continue up to the roof of the shed. Not sure about that. I think I might need to do a little more reading about grape vines.

My crookneck yellow squash plants are flowering nicely, though they don’t seem that large. I am not a big fan of squash, but I thought it would be fun to give them a whirl. My neighbor behind me likes them so he might get a big bundle of them sooner than later!

My oinions are looking weird. At first I thought it was kitty damage or something, but then I started to learn online that it’s just a sign that they’re getting close to being done for awhile. And in fact, a lot of gardeners will go out and step on the greens to force the bulbs to get bigger! Hmmm. I must admit, they are doing nicely, those little sets are about the size of big golfballs. (haha) I suppose there are only one size of golfballs out there. I guess I mean to say, they are a bit bigger than a golfball, but like not baseball sized yet. Apparently, I should encourage this greens flop thing and let the bulbs grow bigger for another month or so. And then harvest and dry them for storage. Guess we’ll see, eh?

Pickles!!! We have pickles!!! We love to make pickles and I planted a whole bed full of Miss Pickler and Boston Pickling and some fancy French pickles, too! I was so busy looking at the little one in this picture that I didn’t notice the monster one behind it!! They were looking a little wilty in the heat today, but last night they got drenched! I wonder if I need to make a little sun shade for them. I always thought pickles liked a sunny spot. Hmmm…. more reading!

Carrot tapes are doing nicely, though I don’t have anything close to complete germination. I believe that I’m going to make up some new tapes, using the napkins technique tomorrow and plant them up, in the open areas where I didn’t get good germination. Hopefully that will make good use of my beds.

Corn is up in the three beds along the south side and doing fine. It’s the popcorn and the oriental corn that is doing gangbusters. However, the cheap corn in the 8 foot by 8 foot bed in the back is spotty at best. Very low germination. That is the field I tried to grow wheat in last year. I think that the dirt in that bed is just not very good and not very healthy. I need to get another load of compost from the place around the corner. That is what we put in the first three beds and you can sure see a difference in the corn, sunflowers and tomatoes in those beds. Big and strong, healthy stuff. Got to get past the end of the month costs and all, and first of July or so, do a little ammending to our beds. I know it’s going to take a couple years to make super nice soil in our growing beds. But I sure want to keep at it, see if I can boost this year a bit more with a bit of help.

My dear daughters managed to get 3 of the 4 new beds stained and sealed. I kind of like the dark wood look of these beds… I just buy the combination stain and poly seal quarts that are on sale, so I’m not too picky. By next year they will be faded no matter what, but now they look very elegant, all dark walnuty stained and sealed. I need to make a run to the hardware store soon, and get a bit more since all the other beds could use a quick coat as well. All this rain we’ve been getting, it’s really rough on the wood.

Some of the zinnias we planted in the early spring are starting to bloom and they are so pretty! I had no idea… I had kind of forgotten about seed flowers and when I got a big lot of them for 25 cents a pack last year, I figured, why not. And they are blooming in little sweet tucked in places all over. Beautiful little flowers with dainty flowers!

And the peaches are doing lovely… the whole tree is still very populated in the little gems! I hope we get at least enough for some peach jam! Or maybe a marmalade. That would be lovely.

Just a nice shot of my living room, before my Dad visited. Of course, we really did a number on cleaning up and getting everything tidy! When you have 3 pretty much grown people, living in 800 square feet and WORKING there too, schooling, living and all, it can get a little cluttered at times. So it’s nice to have a great reason to hunker down and tidy up nice. We’re pretty good about keeping the middle room fairly orderly… it’s hard to work in too much chaos! But when we have a busy weekend, it can get a little messy.

We did go on Saturday to our storage unit and totally took it apart! We sorted out the boxes and totes, pitched about 3 or 4, and then packed up old Blue with a load to bring back. And then we re-stacked the whole thing based on frequency of need… all the heirloom and long storage stuff way to the back and nicely stacked, and then more frequent stuff like camping gear and holiday stuff, that kind of thing. And lo and behold… we have about half the unit available to us again! Wow!

Now I love my storage unit. It only costs me $30 a month. And it’s nice and strong and safe and all that. I know that maybe I could try and sort it all, and try somehow to get it into my shed here and all that. Save that $30. I doubt it. We save on so many other things, that having the unit there, safe and sound, full of things that I don’t really need but don’t want to depart with, it’s well worth that cost. And the best part? Since we have nearly a half of it available to us now, I plan to go through the Moby here, and take another load back to longer term storage and lighten the load here! The girls are going to be getting new flooring soon, and they are working to put some of thier stuff into storage. That is really going to help them a lot. Like a lot of teenagers, they have a pretty full room of their beloved things. However, they are finding it a little cramped and like the idea of a bit of rotational storage. I think we’ll be going back to the unit sooooon!

Had a very full weekend of bluegrass… not a lot of pictures of us to share, but I did take a few. 3 gigs in 3 days is a lot of picking, but it was fun work! I’ll write more about that soon. I do have to say though, that my lovely neighbors are all up in arms about the car towing/parking business. Apparently a few others in our little area were affected as well, and everyone is up in arms and gathering with their neighbors and getting pretty angry. There’s talk of organizing… I don’t blame them. Every day, early in the morning, you can hear the tow trucks creeping down the street, looking for victims. It’s ridiculous. We are starting to feel like criminals in our own sweet little park. Of course, the rumor mill says the lands going to be sold and all that. I sure hope not. I’m not ready to relocate my old Moby! Not yet anyway. But something like that, it would take months, if not years to accomplish. We have leases and rights. I’m not that worried about that. I just would like to see the management treat it’s residents with a bit of understanding and kindness, rather than this harsh, iron fist approach.

It’s not working.