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Saturday, May 14, 2011

Never would have dreamed!

We could grow carrots this big! These carrots are on a 2 x 6 railing to give you perspective on the size. The taste, well a lot better than store bought. You know those pre washed baby carrots that everyone buys these days, no taste at all when compared to freshly grown organic carrots. If you can't grown them, try buying some at your local farmers market, worth every penny trust me.

Our trick on these? We, OK Meg planted them in late fall and they were in the cold frame. We mixed lots of compost in the soil every year for the the past several years.  We also have spring planted carrots that are tiny right now, but growing every week. Just ate one of these so hard to resist.
 Here is the labyrinth bed of potatoes planted a few weeks ago. It starts on the lower left with a basil plant then potatoes go almost to the center. The after the potatoes pea greens in the center.
 Our larger garlic bed. You can see our onions on the left of the garlic, they are huge. The lettuce in the front is almost past prime at this point. The pepper plants on the lower left were grown from seed.
Meg you need to pick these Sugar Snap Peas! This is half on one of our three trellises of peas.
 Our latest blooming clematis, forgot the name of this one. Last year we had more blooms...
 Meg finally got some Comfrey. As you can see it is doing great in our garden. More on comfrey.
 Black Cohosh, Actaea racemosa Meg brought this home from an Women's Herbal Conference last year. Doing very well.

Self sown larkspur in the cold frame.
 In the past few years I have been taken in by spiderworts. I think this is the one I got from SweetBay. Just love it!
 Oh so beautiful.
 This one is the largest flowering one I have. It has been here for 10 years or so, my one plant in now 4 plants, not a fast spreader by any means.
This spiderwort is pale blue, the camera lost the blue in the petals. Saw an alba "white" spiderwort yesterday on a blog...

More on the 13 year cicadas, I found one casing on the deck earlier in the week and a confirmed one dead in a pan of water here in the yard this morning. We must be slightly out of the main brood. . I read a report of hundreds of thousands of them being seen and heard at Jordan Lake an hour from here.

15 comments:

  1. Marvelous post. I would give it 4 Hearts on Blotanical but Blotanical gives me gibberish when I try.

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  2. NeilJean,

    I don't know why but only one recent post of mine on Blotanical has even been picked. There is a problem there somewhere.

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  3. Anonymous3:43 PM

    Same as Nell Jean. Your work is beautiful and I read your bio. I share much of your interests, so glad you stopped by, because I am glad to see your work.I love butterflies too.

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  4. Wow, what color !!!
    Loving all the flowers and the veggie beds. Wish we could have more of a selection but husband insist on mostly heirloom tomatoes.

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  5. Beautiful flowers!
    Helen

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  6. Your Spiderwort are so beautiful. I really like the light blue one. Is that a little tree or limb that your clematis is climbing up? What a great idea.

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  7. I will dig up and send you a TON of spiderwort if you want some!

    Your veggies all look so healthy. Totally impressed with the size of those carrots. Mine were half that size and I was still thrilled!

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  8. Sure is a good growing season! You've got a lot going on in your gardens. My larkspur is just now opening a bit (the self-sown are earlier than the ones that I sowed in winter).

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  9. Those carrots look amazing! Wow, impressive.

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  10. Those carrots are impressive! They look wonderful. The Larkspur do too. They're way ahead of mine.

    I love Spiderworts too. You have a beautiful collection.

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  11. That's quite a crop you have there. The flowers are just gorgeous.

    Apparently Coach Dooley was an avid gardener, and a hydrangea lover. He had several of those type of hydrangeas in his garden so they named them Dooley. Wonder if I can have one named after me LOL!!

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  12. My partner, who grew up in Queens disconnected with nature, talks about pulling up a carrot and the shock of seeing food come out the ground as one of the most important memories of her childhood. And she later became a gardener and landscape architect, with that as one of the key moments along the way. There is something about pulling a carrot out of the ground. They're beautiful.

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  13. Great post. Your veg garden is looking fantastic. We've been eating lettuce and chard from our cold frame. There are radishes and carrots planted. This is our first year for it so we'll see how it goes.

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  14. We have some white spiderwort in our front yard along with the purple. I'd never seen white before, so neat!

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  15. Oh, I envy those peas. We usually plant about 100 foot of row but I couldn't get into the ground this spring -- too wet until this past week. I planted the peas anyway but I know the heat will probably do them in...

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