Early May Garden

We have been getting a lot of rain in our area, it’s raining again today so I couldn’t weed the garden. Fortunately, it slowed down and drizzled when I went out to take these photos. I planted the peppers yesterday and it was sunny this morning when I left for work. I covered the peppers to prevent the young plants from getting burnt from the hot sun and will have to cover them for almost a week until they are strong enough.

The tomatoes are doing well, these are store-bought and I will need to put down straw mulch to prevent the weeds from growing.

I planted a few tomatoes in pairs, this is my first year planting it this way.

The Sugar snap peas start to climb the trellis.

The cucumbers were sown from seeds and it took them a week to sprout.

They both share the same trellis, the cucumbers are in front and Suger snap peas in the back.

The Okras are coming out but not as pretty as I like for them to be.  I will need to put down straw mulch, Bo has some in his chicken coop and I’ll take the old straw and use it in the garden while he’ll replace the chicken coop old straw with new straw. These Okras were planted from last year’s seeds.

I assigned the mint boxed garden to my daughter Lee for her to care and weed, so far the progress has been very slow. It’s obvious that she is not a gardener, I wonder if this could be trained.

The lemongrass planted from stalks that I purchased from the Asian market are sprouting.

It has been 3 weeks since I planted the bare root dwarf fruit trees from Stark Bro’s.  They are doing a lot better than I expected, they were shipped bare root and no leaves and in just 3 weeks in the ground, all 4 trees have grown leaves.

The persimmon trees bear a few fruits and I hope that they will stick and I will be able to harvest a few persimmons in the Fall.

The Blueberry loves the rain, I do also but not during the hours that I need to tend to the garden. We’ll have a good weather this weekend, so I’m hopeful and there are still a lot of work to do in the garden.

My Backyard Garden

I can’t believe almost half a year flew by and my last post was in April, which means I have missed posting in May. My only excuse is working, most companies are now working toward going lean.  Our company is working toward that, which means cross-training employees in another job function and cutting back employees. Regardless of what is my excuse I know I have to find balance in what I do. I don’t think I’m alone facing this situation, a lot of people like myself are having a hard time finding balance in their work-lives because there have been cutbacks or layoffs where they work, and those remaining employees have to put in more hours than they expected. Even though I haven’t done much posting, I still find time to garden and my backyard gardening is coming alone. I know I can’t control my work situation, but I sure can control life and living.

My sister gave me her water lily plants last month, and it has several blooms in my pound so far and hers hasn’t bloomed any yet. This tells me that my pound environment is healthy.

I planted several Jalapeno peppers this year, I still have frozen chili peppers from last year and since I didn’t have much space I only have enough room for the Jalapenos.

The pickling cucumbers are climbing the A-frame trellis.

I planted several cherry tomato plants.

I’ve been joying eating freshly picked salad.

Freshly picked radishes are great with salad also.

My Kirfir lime tree grew new leaves, this one was given to me by Bo’s mom over 15 years ago.

My lemon grass are not growing fast enough, if I ate 2-3 stalks per week there wouldn’t be any left by the end of the month. I ended up buying some this week.

The Thai basils are not as pretty this year, it has been very dry in our area and perhaps not getting enough water since they are planted toward the back of the garden.

I don’t have much luck with the parsley, and seeing this much coming up is a sight for me.

I think my mints have mutated since the leaves are fuzzy looking and it doesn’t smell as minty.

My sister gave me a pot of her mint and it’s time to replace the old with the new.

Did you know that the Poinsettia is a tropical plant? I planted one last year but forgot to take it inside in late Fall and it didn’t survive the Winter months. I hope to remember this year, I want to see how big it will get.

I planted some snow peas, this photo below was taken last week.

This is what they look like today, with a little help they were able to climb the trellis.

They have beautiful white flowers.

And the snow pea pods are ready to harvest, I expect to get a steady snow pea pods through the Summer and Fall.

Blueberries

The quails are happy in the backyard.

We get an average of 4-5 eggs per day and they are great with salad.

Bo hatched two more quails, this is the reason why we need to buy a farm.

Assignment 25: My Photography Passion

This is my contribution to Scott’s Assignment 25: Your Photography Passion.  I have to say that I photograph everything around me whether it be plants, nature, people or events.

I am a gardener and I love to photograph plants, it’s fascinating to see how fast they grow from week to week. I photographed my garden today right before it rained.

I also love to photograph people and sporting events. I had the opportunity to do panning shots of the uni-cycling at Lee’s school yesterday.

Photos were taken with 5DMkIII, Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens.