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Rose of Sharon sprout leaves on 5/14. I’m way behind schedule with the gardening this year. Hopefully I’ll get everything in before June.
Forsythia Blooms
Forsythia blooms on 4/28, almost the same date 2 years ago. The flowers are very few this year compared to last.
And another bird
Still too cold to do anything garden related so here’s another bird.
Bird in flight
Photo shot at ISO 800, 1/2500s, f5.6
A new bird feeder
This feeder has metal fixtures so it may last longer.
Birds
The veranda becomes a bird feeder in the winter. The blue suspension truss supports 3 tube feeders and 1 hopper. Birds from all around eat away at pound after pound of bird food.
Veranda Update
Not much going on in winter. The veranda on March 6 after a 6 – 7 inch snowstorm.
Farewell 2012 Gardening Season
The 2012 gardening season has ended. Here is an album of most the photos published on this blog throughout this season. Hosted by imgur, they have the bandwidth to serve the higher resolution versions of photos that my site lacks.
End of Year Harvest
Massive harvest yesterday. Over 50 tomatoes (I lost count). This might be two dehydrators of habeneros. I only grew 8 productive habenero plants and they all produced unbelievably. I realize I should be counting but I don’t have any past data either for comparison. Visually and using my memory, I suspect that the per plant harvested habs were around 1/2 better — possibly more. This could be from adding mushroom compost or an increased amount of potting volume per plant compared to growing them in 5 gallon buckets. It’s possible I’m giving them 50% more room for their roots to grow. I’ll have to work some numbers later but this is definitely a clue to influence the design of the NE corner replacement box next season.
Heavenly Blue Morning Glories
Heavenly blue morning glory in late afternoon light. I had to seed these in order to get them to grow. The morning glories look awful this year which is why there aren’t many pics of them up. Although they were all planted in mushroom compost based potting mix, I don’t think that was the problem. My theory is too many hot days above 90F (this year more than broke the all time record) which resulted in lack of watering. Keeping up with the watering regime was brutal this year and I think that caused the MGs to thin out very early. They even looked bad at the end of August which is when they should be in their prime. The only way to fix this is to install drip irrigation. This has to be installed next spring because watering this garden is too much by the end of summer. I already gave up this year and am waiting for the first frost to kill everything and be done with it.
Update on tomatoes: I’m sick of watering and let the main roof go. I think there are red tomatoes up there because squirrels have been throwing them off the roof onto the sidewalk below. Not so interested in harvesting anymore. Maybe I’ll get a bucket full of red habs and see if I can fill the dehydrator one last time this year.