I had to hold off on planting my garden this year due to a very cold and wet May…we were still having snow. Sheesh.

Today was 88F and very humid…29% humidity! You all in the south, just hush your mouth! That’s humid for us!

From the looks of it…most of my garden will make great Italian sauces!

In the first box I planted:

Brandywine Tomato
Black Prince – a Russian Heirloom
two types of garlic (planted last month)
Greek Oregano
Orange Bell Pepper
Sweet Basil
Flatleaf Italian Parsley

Second Box I planted:

2 Roma Tomatoes
Red Bell Pepper
German Thyme
Cayenne Pepper
Beebalm
Italian Flatleaf Parsley
2 Sweet Basils
Yellow Sweet Onions (planted 1 week ago)

In the Third Box I planted:

7 Yukon Potatoes (planted 2 weeks ago)
5 Purple Potatoes (planted 2 weeks ago)
Flatleaf Italian Parsley
2 Straightneck Squash (planted 1 week ago)

You can see the Rosemary I planted in a pot that I found in the trash the other day.

Here’s a closeup of the potatoes….

I still want to get two tomatillos, two cucumbers, one dill , and one green chile…those will go into containers.

Of course, we knew while enjoying last weekend’s balmy temperatures, that it wasn’t meant to last.  So early in the season, how could it?   All we could do is what we did:  make the most of the weather and accomplish all that we could in the sunshine.

Our warm sunshiny skies clouded over as the new week began and the latter part of the week brought a return of those heavy rains that signal Spring for year-rounders on the Cape.   As an extra bonus, on Friday, those rains turned to snow, lasting just long enough to torment us by turning the newly-greened blades of grass white.

The snow did not last, but the cooler temperatures stayed with us into the weekend.   But no matter, there’s  lots going on out there in the chilly garden.   The chill in the air seems only to encourage the primroses, which are blooming quite merrily alongside the newly-arrived violas.

The photographer in me would like them to be more perfect and pristine looking, but the season the primroses favor is hard on them.  Their flowers are occasionally a little raggedy around the edges and, after the rains, sometimes speckled with a bit of dirt here and there.   But they are little miracles of color and happiness – how could one not choose to follow along that primrose path? – and I’m fascinated enough to get down on my knees for a good close-up look at them.

These little guys were all wintertime purchases, enjoyed on the windowsill and planted out last spring.   Except for still wanting to bloom in January (the blue one up above did just that under snow cover, you might recall…), they’ve adapted well to their new environment and are happily adding their voices to the chorus of the other early bloomers, the crocuses and soonest daffodils.

The cool temperatures have seemed a cruel joke on My Gray Pal, who was so excited to resume the Walkings last week when it warmed up.

This week, he has been eager to go out each night when I get home from work, but also as quick to return back inside after a taste of the wet grass and cold wind.   I know he’s a little disappointed about this, as he spends so much time in the window, looking out on the world and wanting to be out there, ruling it.   But his season is  yet to come.

And while he waits upstairs, I bundle up and wander around for a prowl without him.   If I don’t, who will those little violas smile at?  I stop in one of the gardens I planted last fall and pull away a bit of leaf and stick debris from the winter and get a nice surprise.

The year-old lupine I’ve nurtured from a lone seed harvested from the Fort Hill colony of lupines has survived the winter and is right where I forgot I’d planted it.   I’ve always loved the lupine foliage, both their dark tones and the way the palmate leaves sometimes collect a bit of rainwater or dew in the center where they meet.

The lupin(e) is a legume, so one of the side benefits of having some in the garden is that it extracts nitrogen from the air and fixes it – as ammonia – into the soil, thus fertilizing it for other plants.

Excess nitrogen in our environments (largely from the over- and oft indiscriminate – use of commercial fertilizers for lawns and gardens) is a big concern, causing algae blooms that have harmfully altered both fresh and saltwater environments.   So I think it’s comforting to know there are plenty of plants designed to improve the soil for its leafy brethren.

There’ll be more to say of lupines later in the season, when their spotlight moment arrives.   Meanwhile, there are other discoveries, like this thick forest, a veritable legion of bee balm seedlings in the fence garden.   There are so many and all so close together.   When I have an opportunity, I’ll see about carefully separating and replanting some of them, to spread around a bit more.   Hummingbirds love those pipe-y red flowers and frankly, I’m fond of them, too.

On the southern side of the house, a pair of peachy hyacinths are preparing to bloom at the feet of a colony of daylilies.   Planting spring bulbs at the feet of daylilies always seems like such a clever and tidy idea.   The early bulbs keep your attention when the daylilies are just getting going with leaves and such.  And as they grow and start to arch out over their closest neighbors, the daylily fronds hide the fading foliage of the spring flowers.  I can’t take credit for this particular plant configuration, but I’ll happily duplicate it elsewhere.

The new suet feeder on the deck has become a featured stop for a variety of birds now that its been there a while.   Now Mister Purrypants is thrilled about the new entertainment and is all “Ssssh, and get out of my way, my story’s on…” whenever a bird appears on the porch.   I sometimes hear him sitting on the bureau, talking quietly to them.

There’s a chickadee or two, of course, and lots of the smaller woodpeckers.   One of the latter showed some surprising agression toward one of the former the other day.   It was surprising to me, but then I actually have no idea what that smug little black-capped fellow might’ve been twittering about.   It might’ve been something pretty unflattering about the woodpecker’s mum.

There’s a pair of starlings who visit a few times a day.   They are obviously a couple, though I’ve not tracked them to see if they are nesting somewhere nearby (thus far there is no nesting happening on the underside of the deck, which means we’ll hopefully get that replaced this spring, too).   Although as a horde, the starlings can be a bit much (and expensive at the bird feeder), I do enjoy watching these two when they stop by for a bite to eat.

The greens you see in the bottom of the photo are the pine boughs which doubled as a Christmas tree for me (or at least its fragrance) back in December.   I’ve got them stuck in an empty nursery pot and they make a nice waiting area when the feeder’s already occupied.   (And yes, I’m keeping a careful eye that no one nests in there, either.)

We’ve also spied a pair of wrens, who sing their pretty little songs while picking up the little bits of suet that fall onto the deck below the feeder and for the first time, this weekend we saw a pair of tufted titmice stop by for a nibble.

Knock on wood, we remain undiscovered by the squirrels.  I’m sure this can’t last, but so far, they seem far too busy with devising Wile E. Coyote style plans for getting into the big covered feeder in the side yard.

“Now voyager, lay here your dazzled head.
Come back to earth from air, be nourished,
Not with that light on light, but with this bread.”

“Here close to earth be cherished, mortal heart,
Hold your way deep as roots push rocks apart
To bring the spurt of green up from the dark.“

– May Sarton

So, here we are, midway across the sparkling pond that is summer.  Yes, I know “mid-summer” was a month ago, but I always feel like mid-July is sort of the half-way point, so humor (or ignore) me.  It’s been sort of an odd summer, I think.  Weather-wise, anyhow.   We went right from the incessant rains of June into some lovely summer sunshine for July’s arrival, although it has more often than not felt like delightful September, with bright golden sun and cool temperatures.

The rains of the early part of the season may’ve caused a little trouble for some bedding annuals, but perennials are responding pretty well to all that and I have perhaps never seen such a lovely crop of shasta daisies, rudbeckias and daylilies and such.

Those of you who’ve followed my progress  in settling into the Nest this past year may be interested to hear that I have finally vanquished the clutter monster who’d claimed the dining room table as his domain, and about the time I got the rest of the room looking nice, with seating around the table and some re-furbished photos-of-friends collages up on the wall.

The latter are especially important to me:   the dining room seems like the place where one welcomes friends, after all, and this last year has been nothing if not an exercise in remembering just how important and lovely it is to have good friends all around.

I think it looks pretty sweet and just to finish it all off, one of the new crystals I bought for the windows last month sprays rainbows across the walls here, on the sunny mornings, anyway.   Really, it’s not “finished off” yet, since I do have a bench to stain and upholster and a search for the right cushions for the other seats.

I was happy to find the red star tea candle holder, which hangs above the table.  And He Who Must Be Walked loves to stretch out on the new green cushioned bench.

I’d originally bought this stencil pattern when I first moved into the Nest last fall.  My initial scheme had been to use it to fashion a sort of chair-rail stencil around the dining room, hopefully making the ceiling seem just a smidge higher by splitting the wall.

Since then, I’d discovered the not-exactly-square nature of the walls and it had begun to seem as though a “straight” line that went all the way around the room might’ve been both unrealistic and frustrating, as goals go.   However, the short closet door leaves just enough blank wall space over it for a bit of stencil as an accent in the room and I think I like it better than a full chair rail of the stencil.

Having been reminded by blogger Joebear that Bear Week has just begun during my last visit to Provincetown, I was sort of eager to head back out that way to enjoy the festivities.   So I was excited to hear that my recently married friends, Dan and Phill, were planning a weekend visit (it was also sort of a honeymoon trip) that was going to coincide with some rare weekend time off for me.  As a special treat, they brought our Cape Cod summer’s first taste of humidity with them from Connecticut.

Our big day started with a truly fabulous breakfast at their Inn (familiar, Marc and Jess?), right here in my neighborhood, while we got caught up.  Dan and I were friends from college, and have stayed in touch through emails and IMs here and there throughout the nearly-seventeen years since we  last looked upon one another.  Phill and I have only become acquainted more recently through Facebook, but it felt like we were old friends after about half an hour, too.

We considered a whale watch tour, but decided we could maximize our day’s activities by staying in Provincetown and simply wandering about, enjoying one another’s company and the local scenery and doing a bit of shopping.

Well, I did a little bit of shopping.  But these boys can power-shop and so I also got to spend a little more time snapping photos for that forth-coming Gardens of PTown blog post I’ve mentioned before, as well as enjoying the local scenery and spending some time in the sun.   Anyone know what the flame-shaped flower is in the photo below, by the way?  I found it in a container garden outside a shop, but have never seen its like before.

It was a real happy day for Greg, as I celebrated a full year of resisting the temptation of cigarettes.   On some levels, its been the challenge you would expect, but in many other ways, quitting cigs was just one more in a serious of healthy choices I was making a year ago and knowing that, it’s been the easiest thing I’ve ever done.

Anyway, Saturday was a day for celebrating and I loved doing so with friends who were doing a little sweet celebrating of their own.  After the afternoon in Provincetown, we returned to our part of the Cape, where we had a great dinner at a favorite local barbecue joint, before rounding out the day with one of our Cape Cod Bay sunsets and dessert back in the sweet air conditioning of the Inn.

The guys had to leave Sunday morning – it was perhaps too fast a visit (my goodness, people come and go so quickly here…), but a good one, and I think we shan’t wait twenty years before doing it again.

Honestly, I was happy for a quiet Sunday afternoon, since Saturday’s heat had taken a lot of out of me.   This was my first real taste of such weather since moving into this second story Nest and it was freaking steamy up in here.

My one fan was helpful, but not entirely up to the task, so I bought a second one and some strategic arranging helped to cool things off.  I spent much of Sunday napping, or sitting still in cool breezes…or, of course, walking the Kitty.  ; )

While I was wilting a little, I’m happy to say that the rest of the gardens are thriving in such conditions.   Resting up on Sunday was key, since I need my energy to keep all those container gardens on the porch well-watered.

Next year, I swear I will buy those self-watering conversion kits, for sure!  Who knew zinnias were such thirsty little bastards?  Hey, but look at how my nasturtiums have taken to the tropical temps…

I’ve been enjoying my porch gardens, though as temps rose this past few days, I’ve had to get up a little extra early in order to be able to enjoy some time with coffee (and get some watering done) out there before it gets too sunny and hot to relax out there.

Of course, I long ago learned that any relaxation in the garden is always a fleeting pleasure, since as soon as one settles in place and takes a sip of coffee or some cooler beverage, the gardener’s eyes land on some faded bloom that needs to be snipped or some other project just waiting for attention.  It’s part of the fun, really.

The sweet peas are blooming steadily now that they’ve begun.  I cut some every few days to bring inside and scent the Nest.  In another part of the “forest”, those cardinal climber vine seeds that Theresa sent have begun to put out their fancy-looking true leaves, and before long will be twining up the branches with the morning glories, who’ve also been inspired by the recent heat.

Yesterday, our little heat wave (it kicked my butt, but after the April-ish temps of June, I have no business complaining…) began to settle down a little and when I woke up this morning, it was raining heavily and all the gardens were celebrating.

I couldn’t have been happier.

We have lots of spiders eating bad bugs, lots of different kinds of bees, a few different kinds of butterflies, and even a couple kinds of dragonflies! I love the dragonfiles. I hope I can take pictures of them some time. But, no Hummingbirds!

Anyway, click here to see a slideshow of my garden in July. here are some photos:

Beebalm

Jasmine

black eyed susans and daisies

In the center of my garden I have 3 artichoke stalks from last year propped up. Growing on and up them are sweet peas and climbing nasturtiums. My garden is sort of messy. I like it wild like that.

I’m dog sitting for my sister so I’m currently sitting in bed with two dogs. The cats are not vey happy about this. They be gone soon enough.

So, the Garden.  The big news this week is that the sweet peas are blooming!   The seeds, you may recall, were planted in tiny peat pots way back in February.  There were two dozen of them.  Of those, about half germinated.  And from those, five survived, which were potted up in this pot here.

Last week I had to go on a bit of a walk-about to find some new sticks to add to the pot, as I realized that the vines were now climbing higher than there were sticks to cling to.   Since I like to keep the pot somewhat mobile, especially with the porch project still pending, I wanted to keep the vines’ tendrils from reaching out and grabbing hold of something I couldn’t easily move around with it.

The first blossoms were white…three of them, and then this morning, a pink one.   The fragrance is lovely, a little sweeter than I’d remembered even.  I cut this bunch to bring inside, since cutting is supposed to keep them blooming.   I hope we’re in for a nice long cycle of blooming on these guys.

In other climbing vine news, the morning glories have continued to put out an occasional flower, and the recent bit of summery weather we  had seems to be encouraging them to begin climbing up the sticks in their planter.    I also reseeded a number of the Heavenly Blue morning glories, and I think I see some of them coming up.   I had an unexpected surprise recently, when my Facebook Gardening Friend Theresa wrote from Alabama to say she was sending me some seeds from her red columbine…and then also tucked in a bag full of cardinal climber seeds.  I’ve planted some of those with the morning glories and they seem to have sprouted as well (and right quickly, at that:  stand back, everyone) and I hope they will all be twining together ‘ere long.

The weather for the holiday weekend was stellar, the sun bright and warm during the day, but with steady breezes keeping temperatures reasonable and bugs at bay.  Of course, it doesn’t take much of nice weather like that to remind that you need to keep up with watering the container gardens that the endless rain was keeping wet.   Fortunately, I had minimal wilting before learning that lesson.    The rain was becoming too much of a good thing and flowers were melting right off the plants.

I’m happy to say it didn’t take much sunshine to encourage everything to start blooming anew.   Oh, and how the pollinators frolic from plant to plant in the sunshine.   I found the garden outside my bank a-flutter and a-buzz with them when I stopped by at the start of the weekend.   I believe this is catmint or perhaps some kind of sage that this white butterfly is enjoying so.   And the bee is on a purple coneflower.   I’ve got a couple of those in the driveway garden, though they won’t be in full bloom for another week or so, looks like.

If it seems like I’m not posting as much lately as I might be, there is a reason for that I’ve not shared with you.

It turns out that The Walkin’ Cat has decided he rather likes going out on explorations and adventures on the harness…and now clamors for it, loudly and insistantly, on a very regular basis.  It’s sort of funny.   If it has been five minutes since we’ve come in, then we are long overdue to go out again, he feels.

I may have created a monster.   But if you could see him out there stalking through the grass, getting his inner panther on, that long tail lashing about behind him.  I’ll have to try to capture the scene for you soon, he’s quite a riot.   Walking with him is not the strenuous ordeal that walking Emily used to be, though.   With Badum, it’s sort of a Thinking Man’s game.   There’s lots of free time standing around, whilst he munches on various kinds of grass.

Here he is blocking my getting out the front door without him.   Silly kitty.

It turns out the snapdragons I bought this year were actually a double-flowered variety and so they have been something of a surprise to behold.   There’s also a red one blooming nicely in the backyard, which I’ve failed to photograph well just yet.

I’m sorry to say that one doesn’t have the strong, sweet fragrance that I’ve come to enjoy so in regular red rocket snapdragons, which smell so much like Cherry Kool-Aid.   There might be a hint of it, though, or else I have an active imagination (which has actually been confirmed).

Not far from the peach snapdragon in the driveway garden,  a little sunlight (and a bit more rain) have brought the rudbeckia into blooming and the shasta daisies and moonbeam coreopsis are quickly following suit.     I don’t seem to be seeing too much response from the lilies I planted this spring.   I think there might be an oriental lily (Casa Blanca) still to be seen this year, but we’ll see.

The Rains of Junes were good for the perennials, it seems and everything on that front is full and tall and green and blooming (or preparing to, as with this red Jacob Kline Beebalm, aka, monarda).   The annuals are not always faring so well.   It’s interesting.  The ones in containers, like up on my deck or on the side stoop downstairs, are doing very nicely…but the ones who’ve been planted right in the ground seem to have  been the victim of assorted anonymous chewing bugs, whose damage went unseen during the longer rainy patches.  Ah, well.   There’s plenty of beautiful things going on.

The zinnias I grew from seed are also starting to bloom and I’ve just spied the first flower buds on last year’s fuschia plant, which I managed to overwinter in a southern window of the next.   Photos of both of those coming soon.

As I was preparing to head out to the laundromat this evening, I spied a tiny bit of moving green on one of my buttondown shirts and discovered what I believe to be a tiny (about half an inch, not counting monster antennae) katydid nymph.   I ignored the common meaning of such a name (nymph, which in this case means nascent, you gutter dwellers) in wondering how it found my bedroom and carefully got it onto my finger and out onto the porch, where I relocated it on one of the newly-blooming nasturtiums.   Pretty, eh?

And I’ll leave you this time with a little tussy-mussy I made of the blooming sweet peas and a few pansies.  Perfect for a tiny shelf in the Nest where a kitty can’t get it, and also perfect for offering online birthday greetings to one of my favorite fellow bloggers.   Hope you had a sweet day, Patrick!