Peas Are Past. Pink Poppies Are Present!

There was a time when we tried to grow a substantial amount of our food in the garden.  Those days are in the past.  Each day is still 24 hours long but we accomplish less and less with each passing year.  Our focus has shifted to a few memorable meals in season.  Snow peas are at the top of the list for great meals.  This year the late frost with a freeze really hit the peas hard.  Three different plantings are made several days apart.  The smallest peas were hit the hardest.  Then the rains came.  We did not spend those few precious clear days pulling weeds.  Now we have a mess like this.  We did get several excellent meals with the snow peas but it is time to clean up.

Becky's pink poppies are always mixed in with the weeds.  We can always count on them for color after the vegetable plants are pulled.  Hand weeding is almost a religious experience here.  This morning was full of pleasant time well spent.

The mess is gone and these poppies of various ages will keep this bed in flower for many weeks.  Our resident mother turkeys with their ten youngsters would love to roll in the loose dirt.  Five circular cages were placed in the more open places to discourage their entrance here.  The area within the cages received flower seeds that we never got around to planting.  We do not know if anything will come of the late planted seeds but our chances are better than simply leaving the seed in their envelopes.  Turkeys get up early!  The outer cage wire will be put back in place before dark.  We want the pink poppies to be safe in their bed.

Hidden In Our Untamed Garden

With all the rain the garden is lush.  Just about anything could hide there.  The two wild turkey hens and their babies caught my eye first thing this morning.  They actually spent their whole day here just walking away until they could get out of sight behind a stone wall or and area of tall plant growth.

The spiderwort loves this weather and is covered with flowers.  It has been hiding under the Summer sweet for years, but this summer it has grown to the top of the stone wall. I love the purple fuzzy ball in the center of these interesting flowers!

In the past our history with Shasta daisies has been rather dismal.  This year the white flowers with yellow centers, or should I say yellow disc flowers with white ray flowers, are doing great.  They look great from a distance and would pass the speeding car test with ease.  Close ups of composite flowers are always fascinating!

Hidden beneath the raucous display of Gloriosa daisies are Ed's pinkster, cardinal flower, one of my favorite sedums, blue flax, a red hibiscus, closed gentian, Emperor of China chrysanthemums and more.  I think the garden looks wildly fantastic!

The late freeze/ frost greatly reduced the number of pink double poppies in the garden this year. In the past I have pulled out buckets full. The first batch of plants were eliminated by the cold and there are not too many in the garden this year.  Even so poppies that are not full doubles or ones that have thrown back to singles are supposed to be pulled as soon as possible.  This plant has been pulled, but bees have already spread it's pollen.  Add it to the list.  We do what we can, after all Mother Nature is in charge here.  We only referee.  Click on a picture to enlarge them.  Click on the pale grey text to go to a link!