Summer Comes

Looks like our lovely couple of weeks of rain, clouds and 70's are over. The forecast for the week is 90's and I'm seeing my first zucchini and tomatoes- sure signs of summer.

 First zucchini and

first maters- Sungold

(plant purchased from store)

Can hardly wait....

The Alpine Strawberries

Black Raspberries- my fav garden fruit

 The smaller fruits have richer flavor

Lots in bloom and bumbles

Butterflyweed and

parsnip flowers (covered in wasps, hoverflies, small bees, flies)

 Illinois Prairie Rose- a native climber
The flowers change color as they mature. The darker pink are younger and fertile- notice the pollen. The bumblebees love this rose.

 Oriental Lilies and

Hollyhocks

A new Salvia for me- Amistad

from Bowood nursery

A daylily in the Biergarten

Bumbles happy at Borage

Dill coming into flower- a self-seeder

First Nicotiana in bloom in the garden

having returned from last year's roots,

which is surprising given the hard winter.

Indian pink- Spigelia

Experiment Update

This is my biochar experiment (very unscientific with my small sample size). The California Wonder bell pepper plant on the left (control) has continued to outgrow the one on the right (biochar-treatment). The left one also has a blossom. 

Reuse, reduce, recycle

Closing shot- using an old (and broken)

ladder as a plant stand.

Happy Almost Summer