The Week in Pictures

Birds, Daffodils, Flowers, garden, Gardening, Reflections, Roses, Ruby, Strawberries, Weeding, Wild Flowers, Wildlife, , , ,

Well, I’ve got some catching up to do, so some of these pictures actually go back a couple of weeks.

Gardening

My husband has finished all of the planting for this year, and most things are coming up. Most of these photos are a week or two old and with the warm summerlike weather and rain that we have had everything seems to be growing in leaps and bounds.

Potato patch

Cabbage patch

Pole Beans. The strings are for them to climb on.

Tomato Patch just a few day after they were planted. Some are now getting blossoms.

The new strawberry patch. Yesterday my husband spent several hours weeding and removing the flowers and berries that were forming. It is best to remove the flowers the first year, so the plants put energy in developing a strong root system. It will make for healthier plants. Next year we will hopefully get a good harvest.

I spent about 12-15 hours over the course of several days weeding our old strawberry bed that had been taken over by weeds. In the photo above I am almost finished. Only another hour or two and I was done.

On Saturday, about a week after I finished weeding, we picked about a quart of berries. My husband picked about another quart on Sunday.

The Prayer Garden

After I finished weeding in the strawberry patch, I went to work taming the prayer garden.

In addition to weeding, I cut down all of the daffodil leaves and stems.

I’m afraid I might have cut them down to soon and that we will have less flowers next year, but it looks so much neater with them out of there.

A few days after I finished, it exploded with color.

The primrose began to blossom. I just love their brilliant color. I am sure I need to thin them because they spread very quickly and will take over everything, but I will wait until they are finished blossoming.

The roses also began blossoming. I love the red roses with the yellow primrose.

In the Wild

Last week the wild roses were in full bloom. We have wild rose bushes scattered throughout the property. I have featured two of the largest. The one above is a least 15 ft (4,57 meters) wide and 8 ft. (2.43 meters) tall. I can’t even begin to guess how deep it goes back among the other trees.

A close up of the rose blossoms. You might notice some wild grape leaves in the photo. Apparently there in a grape vine growing with the rose bush. What you don’t notice in the photo is the wonderful fragrance of the roses, – sweet but a bit spicey. Every now and then I would catch a whiff of it in the breeze. I love this time of year! Definitely worth taking time to smell the roses!

The second one that I am featuring climbs up the oak tree at our picnic area. We do keep it pruned a bit, otherwise it will reach out and grab someone as they are walking by, or in my case riding by on the mower while cutting the grass around the tree.

It probably reaches up 20 ft (6.09 meters) into the tree.

Feathered Friends

I sat quietly in front of the barn and snuck a picture while this blue jay ate chicken scratch near the coop.

We have a pair of ducks that have become regular visitors. Sometimes it’s just the male and other times the male and female are together. Not only do they swim in the pond, but my husband has also seen them eating chicken scratch with the chickens. If Ruby spots them, and she usually does, she is quick to chase them off. We actually encourage her to chase the off because duck dropping in the pond can bring bacteria and parasites that could affect human and aquatic health. we don’t want that.

Thanks for visiting.

19 thoughts on “The Week in Pictures”

  4. Oh, my!! What a beautiful place. All of your gardens look wonderful. Ruby is a good girl for shooing off the ducks. I really enjoyed this post and photos. Have a great day Ruth.

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  5. The weeds are definitely out of control here as well, but I did get some much needed plant therapy in yesterday. Digging in the dirt and planting beautiful things sure does make my heart happy . And the flower beds by the house look so pretty now. The wild roses on the mountain are in beautiful bloom this year and the rhododendron bloom is just beginning. How is your garlic doing? Is it time for scapes yet? Scape pesto is so good. Lol, Now I’m hungry 😋

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    1. Digging in the dirt is such great therapy, even if it is pulling weeds. :)The garlic is doing well. I haven’t seen any scapes yet but it won’t be long. 🙂

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  6. You sure have been a busy bee with the weeding Ruth – that hot spell we had made the weeds grow like crazy. I’m surprised your cabbage are that big already! That’s good you have strawberries twice already. I saw some very tiny wild strawberries in my backyard. The primrose are beautiful and vibrant and your wild roses are certainly thriving. That does make sense about the ducks … you want to keep the pond clean. Ducks are nice, but sure are messy.

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    1. We were able to plant cabbage early since it tolerates cold temperatures.
      Yes those wild roses are very prolific. The funny thing is when we first bought the farm we actually dug some wild roses up and moved them because they were in areas where we were working and I didn’t want to kill them. Now I see we have so many that I need not have worried about losing one or two.

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      1. That is funny – it figures, right? After my mom passed away, I decided to make a memorial garden and plant a climbing rose named “Stairway to Heaven”. I’d never had a climbing rose before and ordered three bare root roses from Jackson & Perkins as the nurseries didn’t sell that particular rose. It was pretty, but had blackspot from the get-go and I was constantly spraying it and respraying it after each rain, so I pulled the climbing roses and umbrella trellis out so it wouldn’t contaminate the other roses as I was always picking up black-spotted leaves I babied it as it was the focal point of my memorial garden for Mom and Sugar, our canary, that passed away not long after Mom. Wild roses take off like crazy – you likely don’t have to spray or fertilize them either. I see those same wild roses at Lake Erie Metropark and they are gorgeous, flourishing out in the wild, doing their thing.

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      3. I agree – the wild roses just keep rambling on and smell wonderful. I see some pink wild roses along the wrought iron fence that surrounds one of the old cemeteries, the one in Wyandotte – they are beautiful. [Lost my power about 12 minutes ago as it is very windy – weather statement for my area says 50+ mph winds … generator came on for two minutes, then the power came back on.]

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