It’s an overcast cool weekend after a week of summer temperatures and I went back to the garden this weekend to continue Jerusalem artichoke eradication and plant a few more flowers. I worked on the border between the fence and sidewalk, my garden, the small Plot Against Hunger garden, and the large outside garden. I was there for a few hours.
The irises have come out in their full glory.
The nice thing is I’m getting all sorts of greens–lettuce, spinach, arugula–for meals. The oregano is also going crazy, and overwintered kale is providing leaves and florets as well. Tonight I had a lovely pasta dish with oregano, kale, spring onions, arugula, tomatoes, and some Romano cheese. Yum! I love it when I can put together a dinner from the garden. I didn’t grow the tomatoes, but…
It’s so nice not to buy salad greens! More arugula in that line of green behind.
In my garden the squash and cucumbers are coming up.
I put these in last weekend.
The irises are magnificent.
The beans are coming up in their enclosure. Radishes are maturing, if being shared with sow bugs.
Each year I share radishes with the roly-polys.
I took some more Jerusalem artichoke roots home to put into a saute.
Not very appealing now, but very nice washed, sliced and sauted.
It was starting to rain when I put in some marigolds, hoping to protect my eggplant when I transplant it in later this month.
This showcases the bean enclosure and the oregano as well as some irises. If you look closely, you’ll also see roses coming out.
The rain was just a sprinkle and short-lived, so I went out to the big garden and planted wildflower seed in one bed where the asparagus hasn’t come up, and winter squash in the other. I noticed the blackberries are blossoming. We may have some berries this year. The poor blueberry bushes are a bit stunted by the cold, I think. Meanwhile the rest of the large garden is positively overtaken with larkspur and will be glorious in the near future. I can also see other flowers coming up and hope for a glorious flowering this summer.
I do love irises and that final photo made my little heart go pit a pat – I haven’t seen any in a while. Almost an entire meal made with garden produce – well done!!
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I was very pleased. I hope for more like that. The irises will be around for a few weeks, I think. They are lovely flowers and I look forward to them…Will shoot you an email for updates!!!
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I like the sunflowers on the Jerusalem artichokes too 🙂
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They are pretty flowers and come end of season. The things are just so large and so invasive from the roots, that I need to get them down to a smaller quantity. I need the garden space for food…
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You don’t eat the Jerusalem artichokes?
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Oh yeah, but I don’t want that many of them in the garden.
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It’s all looking so great–and full of future meals! My irises are coming up but it’ll be weeks . . .
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I hope it’s iris and flower season up there soon.
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Irises are my favorite flower, so what a treat to read this post.
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I’m happy to provide it, Laurie. hey, I love that you’re getting kudos on the other side of the Atlantic!!
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Thanks so much! It really is quite a thrill to think of Maya being read “across the pond.”
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Do you have another coming? I know you foreshadowed it in the last…
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I do. It’s called “Library Lost,” and I finished the first draft last week. We plan to publish it in the fall. Lots of work to do between then and now. Thanks for asking!
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Wow. You’re in the hard part now, the business part of editing and fitting the right way. Good luck.
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Thanks, Lisa! Yes, lots of work still to do, as I go over and over the story.
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Lovely irises and other produce. You are way ahead of us. It is amazing to think how cold you were not that long ago
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Yes, it’s been a very cold spring. I’m hoping it’s going to warm up slowly now, rather than jump right to the 90s. Regardless, we’ll cope with what we get!
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You will, indeed
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Such a promising and fruitful time!
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Yes, before my hopes are dashed (or not).
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Lisa, your garden is really coming to life. I love your irises! That last photo is particularly stunning. Do you take home cut flowers for your office desk? No matter how many years I garden, I marvel every spring at the rate of growth.
Your pasta dish sounds yummy. You’re an amazing cook. I wish you were here to give me lessons.
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I could always come give a few lessons. I do cut flowers and have some irises now (they’re a bit drippy, so I’m careful–but one of the pleasures of summer is cut flowers all over…
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I agree on the cut flowers of summer, Lisa. My sweet peas are keeping my home fragrant these days. Everything is growing like mad.
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Sweet peas! You are Soooooo ahead of us!
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I think we’re about two months ahead. Our daffodils are up in February and for you it’s March April. Will your sweet peas come up in June?
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They start to come up in March and April. But I think they start blooming later and they go late into the summer if picked. Unfortunately, they’re invasive in my garden and I’ve been pulling them up. I wish I could find a place to grow them where they could spread and display themselves nicely. A neighbor had a huge trellis of them every year when I was a child and they were all colors, right in the lawn and stayed there!
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How beautiful that must have been. They do take over, I now know, and even though I ruthlessly pulled many of the seedlings to try to contain them (they were also threatening to take over our public sidewalk) but alas they seem as full as ever. We don’t want to lose the plants below. Last year we had to replace several. They’re more established this year, so fingers crossed.
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Your garden looks amazing! That’s great that can have both flowers and vegetables at the same time!
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I try, but sometimes the flowers take over…
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Everything is growing so fast and the iris are lovely to see!
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Yes, they are wonderful to see every year.
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Are those blue iris a type of bearded iris, or are they related to Iris pallida?
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Goodness. I looked them up and they are very like, aren’t they? I always thought they were bearded; they were in the garden 18 years ago when we got it and I always thought they were bearded, but I could be wrong. The large lower petals are different, but color variations would be common, so it’s a mystery to me.
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Well, of course, they could be bearded iris that have been hybridized with Iris pallida, which would account for the more intricate pattern in the centers of the flowers. Iris pallida is a very simple iris. My Iris pallida has been around longer than anyone can remember. It came from the garden of my great grandmother. She got it from her parents. It took me a while to figure out why it was there at all. She did not waste much space on pretty flowery things. It occurred to me that someone probably grew it for culinary and perhaps herbal purposes. Even though white is my favorite color, and I happen to grow three excellent white bearded iris, the Iris pallida from my great grandmother’s garden is still my all time favorite iris. It is so elegant, on tall lean stems. The flowers are smaller than those of bearded iris, and are so ‘neat’ (I do not know how to describe them better.) They are not too ruffled or frilly or big or whatever the fancier bearded iris were bred to be. They have a very nice grape fragrance, and a perfect lavender blue color. Wow, I did not mean to get carried away with all that.
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I will smell mine when I go to the garden. I have noticed that they are around the county (saw some at the dry cleaners today) and they may very well have been planted a long time ago. People also divide and give them away, of course. These are as you describe, quite simple and lavender. Perhaps the scent will tell! I will report back!
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That is how some of the best ones are. I know my great grandmother would not have purchased iris, and that they probably were not even available for purchase in her community back then. Someone probably brought them in and shared them with everyone. Even if yours are different, they could have gotten around just like that.
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It is great when one can measure the garden’s progress in the plate! Such great flowers!
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That’s a wonderful outcome from your garden, Lisa. Gorgeous Iris! Amazing how far you are already, much ahead of us in North Norfolk and I believe our winter was not as hard as yours. I love Topinabur (Jerusalem artichoke), we grow them in our garden as well.
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I’m probably going to cook some of their roots tonight. It’s been a long, cold spring, but it’s warming up now.
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beautiful flowers
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thanks! There will be more…
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It sounds like you have a very good start to your garden…how nice that you are getting meals from it.
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And another salad tonight!!!
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Everything was looking awesome. I love the colour of your Iris’s ! I have short two-tone mauve ones. They bloom in about 4 days, then gone till next year. Like some kind of flasher, LOL
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