The June Garden

I totally missed getting photos of the pretty pink Oriental Poppies set against pink roses. I thought about taking a photo one morning, but in the afternoon a big windstorm had completely denuded the poppies.

But there’s lots more going on. My Campanula glomerata is blooming:

But I think it’s in a slightly too shady location. It only gets afternoon sun, and it’s really reaching for it. It was growing mostly horizontally, so I had to stake it up.

Some of my other flowers have really spread and are going a bit wild. But it’s a riot of colors:

The serviceberry tree/shrub is doing its usual thing and producing tons of berries:

I picked a quart yesterday, and another quart today. That photo above was taken AFTER picking, so you can see there are still lots left to ripen. Last year I picked a quart 4 or 5 times before I got tired of it and just left the rest on the tree.

And speaking of edibles, the peas are starting to fill out:

The fennel is starting to fill out – it’s doing much better than last year when I planted it much too late:

And the blackberries! From the number of flowers, I think this is going to be a great harvest:

I still have a LOT of lettuce, but I don’t think it will last much longer. I’ve planted more, but it’s still very tiny and I don’t really expect it to do all that well in the summer’s heat:

A for the rest of the garden, the green beans are coming up, but I lost about 2 dozen plants to something that gobbled them up. I have a suspicion that it was birds, since the only ones that got eaten had a cat-proof cage around them with openings big enough for birds to get through. The ones that were left untouched had chicken wire around them. I’ve been planting more every couple of weeks, so I’m not too worried about the crop.

The tomatoes are doing really well, and my two eggplants have flower buds.

This year I tried cabbage for the first time, and it’s not doing well – I’m pretty sure that will be a fail. I’m also trying cucumber for the first time. The plants are small, but look like they’re doing OK. I started some yellow bush-type zucchini from seed, but had a lot of trouble getting it to germinate and grow (I just planted the seeds in the ground). I ended up starting some indoors and transplanting them, which worked better, but they’re getting a really late start so they’re still really small. I don’t normally grow squash because I have such a small space, but I thought I’d give the bush-type a shot. If I try it again next year, I’ll definitely start them indoors.