Mary, Mary, quite contrary (with phloxes all in a row)

[thanate]

I have not been posting any garden pictures, because up until last week or so, there wasn't a lot to take pictures of. Native plants around here come out a bit later than all the silly annuals people buy at the hardware store, and my yard appears to be a bit later than most of the places I've been this season around here (including Longwood, which is a good distance north of us-- I'm guessing we're just on the cold side of the hill or something) so for a long time there wasn't anything out but the forsithia which failed to bloom on more than one branch, despite being cut back last year so it would be all new growth. (It had its chance. Now it's getting pulled out so I can put in something nicer.)

Now, of course, every time I take pictures something changes before I get as far as pulling them off my camera, so I have to take new ones. Ha.

Have a Jack-in-the-Pulpit.



Wildflower, native to the northeastern US (with a fair range around that, I think, though I couldn't tell you where the borders are.) This is one of the ones I'm always surprised other people haven't heard of, since they were all over the (wooded) back yard while I was growing up: this one is fairly small, as a happy plant can raise a flower head to about knee height, and the elegant purple striping inside the "pulpit" part of the flower is not universal. (yes, I see you trying to invade across the fence there, english ivy, and you can just go back where you came from...)


This... was an exercise in frustration, as Graphic Converter is clearly not the appropriate tool for the job, and I don't seem to have a better one working at the moment. I apologize for the inconsistent legibility, but after turning the first version inexplicably (and irredeemably) hot pink, when I subsequently discovered after the fact that to combine two layers is to combine them all with no undo it did not inspire in me a desire to retype the whole thing. But anyway, it's the butterfly garden out front, slightly color altered for clarity. Things are all coming up unrelated to roses.


Mint is also coming up (in mintly astronomical quantities), so I made it into jelly. This is not the elegant sun-through-lovely-jelly photo you were looking for, and I need to work on my leaf distribution, but I have now successfully achieved both pectin set and canning seal twice.


Another favorite local plant, though less impressive; I've been trying to get partridgeberry to transplant for some time, and this is the only one that's taken so far. It is tiny, difficult to transplant, and when happy will creep all over the ground like a tiny version of lawn ivy, produce little white flowers in pairs, each pair of which produces one red berry. Also, we have prodigious moss.


This patch of violets is the tastiest thing in the yard. Or at least the rabbits seem to think so; I haven't tried them. (I'd feel bad adding to their distress.)


The food garden is still pretty boring, although I did string up the pea trellis with rainbow striped yarn. Photos of the bucket of corn & pots of potatoes on the back steps were culled before I got this far, but they're out there, too, and I have planted peppers and carrots (which surprised me by coming up) and driven a post holder into the front lawn to put in a stake to hang tomato planters from.


...and we have cute baby lettuces!

Comments

[notyourwendy]

Violets are indeed tasty. If you paint them with egg white and sprinkle with sugar and leave them to dry a few hours, they're also very tasty and make very elegant dessert toppings. Mine never make it as far as the dessert because I eat them all too quickly.

[thanate]

I continue to contemplate candying violets, but there are lots of violets in the yard, and I'd be more likely to pick some out of the front lawn before I mow instead of picking on this poor heavily grazed patch in the back. Silly rabbits...

[notyourwendy]

Also, if you really want to make use of the violets, you could make violet jelly. Use basically the same recipe as the mint, but use violet flowers instead.

[tam_nonlinear]

When I absolutely must weed the flower beds, which I mostly try to avoid doing (but I am trying to undo the mistake of having planted morning glory some five years ago, and like most such sins, it takes years of diligence to undo the damage), I move the violets, if they must be moved, along the fence line, and they've spread out quite well. Most years I get rabbits nesting under them, as they provide a pleasant and edible shade.

Yay for jack in the pulpit. The ones in the woods near my house are unfurling- it seems quite dramatic, in its own way. I have vague memories as a kid that there was some folklore about telling him secrets, or something, but I don't remember it better than that, just fuzzy memories of gently peeling back the petals to see him better.

In that picture of the food garden- I love the rainbow colored yarn. Reminds me of the color stripes on convenience store doorways for determining the height of suspects- Yes sir, the tomato vine that attacked me was 5'3"

[thanate]

If the tomatoes get as far as the back yard after attacking people, they'll probably get away entirely, but maybe I should put up number markings just in case. :)

[heuchera.livejournal.com]

Yummy baby lettuces. I am fond of jack-in-the-pulpit too. Haven't seen any yet this year though. My garden accomplishments this weekend consist of pruning 6 hydrangeas, tying up 2 clematis, and about 1/4 the weeding I meant to do. Also, failing to spread corn gluten meal, prune potentillas, or crape myrtles. Urg.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I meant to put up my front yard stake yesterday & redo the tomato planter thing, but was thwarted by the scrap lumber I wanted to use being too wet to prime & paint. (also, weeding? who does that? heh...)

I have not eaten the baby lettuces yet; I think I'll probably start in a week or two when they actually start crowding each other out.