A Blessing to my Garden

As I was outside, admiring my garden, taking pictures, a welcome visitor landed and played in the blossoms.

Garden in mid-June

The garden in mid-june

The Chinese Red Long Beans are beginning to flower!!!

These are the rescued yellow Zinnias along with some volunteers from the covering compost.
I thought they were cucumbers, but...

....they are cantaloupes.  Darn.....  *;-.)

Guardians of the Gardens

It all began with my mother putting dresses and hats on my flowers.  I have returned the favor with a flower of my own....

Another guardian of the garden protects my Black Cherry Tomato plant

Protectors of my mother's tomatoes..

Guardian of my Red Chinese long beans

Guardian of the Black Prince tomato plant

The Geppetto brothers, Pinocchio and his evil twin Pepper, guard mom's cucumbers.

You can tell them apart by Pepper's longer nose

Happy guardian of the first cucumber 

Guardians of  "Tomato Plant Whose Name Cannot Be Remembered"

And this guy is making himself useful by holding the limb of a cherry tomato

What I have learned about growing squash

According to Jerry Baker of, well, Jerry Baker fame, in the world of natural remedies for garden pests, he claims that we should grow our squash and cucumbers in rubber tires, that something in the rubber repels the bugs.  

Well, let me tell you now, Toad Suck Squash bugs LOVED my black rubber tire that I planted in.  Must be the  "Red Neck Roy" has been bred into them.  BUT!!  I noticed that squash bugs are not in any of the squash plants I have growing in the spray painted tires.......Hmmmmmm...They were the garden itself, but not on the plants in the painted tires......

I decided to experiemnent, to spray paint the tire holding the butternut squash plant that I had been battling bugs over. 

I covered my big squash plant and soil with towels to protect it, and spray painted in stages~~1/3 at a time in Pistachio Green with a dusting of Caramel Latte metallic.  

I have counted 19 butternut squash growing here.

 I have not seen any squash bugs since.  I will also spray paint bricks and place them next to my in-ground squash plants.  We'll see how it goes.  I'll keep you posted.

BTW--the Terra Cotta colored tire in the back ground was spray painted with a base coat of white primer, then a coat of Pumpkin Orange and finished off with a dusting of Sparkling Canyon.

New Flower in the garden

My mother told me that she put a new flower in my garden today.

Dressing the flowers

My mother is getting into my garden, putting dresses and hats on the flowers.

We are looking Normal. again

I’ve been working in the garden, again, bring things back to normal.  The Spirit still restrains me from buying anything to put in the garden.  My mom ended up giving me 2 of her  yellow tomato plants she just bought ( as she also has to re-plant half of her garden),  and a 4-pack of Early Girl tomatoes that she never got around to planting.

I have replaced the tomato plant in the pink tire with another salvaged tomato plant.  Don’t know what it is, but we’ll see.  *;-.)

The above bean bed didn’t get a full dose of the chicken manure so it is doing just fine.  Now I just have to battle the bean bugs.  I have Jerry Baker’s gardening book from the library and I am going to try the home made citrus spray that he says is totally stink-a-roonie to bean bugs.

Lemon cucumbers are doing great (left row)  Love those pots of marigolds!

Row of Purple Zinnias with Thumbelina Zinnias growing in between

This will be a tire-full of Giant Zinnias when they grow up. These are the ones I rescued from a short life in a grass choked bed.

What has yet to go into the garden.  Not sure what everything is…squash? Cucumbers? Some kind of salvaged tomato?  But I DO recognize the Marigolds.