More flowers

A second type of flower has begun to bloom in the "cottage" garden.  I believe this one is "bachelor's buttons."

The bok choy I planted this spring has also started to flower.

So has the nearby cilantro.  This was a "slow-bolt" variety, but our unseasonable warmth is probably the reason it bolted before it was even big enough to harvest the leaves.

The dill is also beginning to bloom.

This is some of the romaine that over-wintered.  Last time, they were closed because it was cloudy.  This is what they look like when they're open.

Look how similar the thistle flowers are to the romaine.  I also noticed tonight that the romaine flowers turn into little puff-balls (similar to dandelions) after flowering, which I have noticed also happens to this type of thistle.

Here is the most exciting new flower this week: zucchini!

Cosmos

Yesterday, the first bloom in my "cottage" garden opened.  Now that it has, I can identify that it is a cosmos.  The seed pack says that there will be red and gold blooms as well.  I picked two yesterday and there are two more today.  So far, they're all orange.  Two more types of flowers are getting to be a good size.  I can't wait for them to bloom to see what they are!

Garden flowers

 

bee balm

Who knew onions had such pretty flowers?

store-bought marigold

This magenta-spreen lambsquarters is getting ready to spread its seed.  Hopefully, it will grow as a weed for a long time in my garden.

This is one of the weeds I posted earlier this year.  It's turned out to have nice flowers.

These parsley flowers aren't the prettiest, but hopefully they'll scatter a lot of seed in the garden.

The lavender is in full bloom.  It looks a lot more impressive in person.

This pineapple sage survived the winter in my closet.  It's still tiny, but it's starting to bloom.  Hopefully, it will get much bigger this year.

The little, yellow romaine lettuce flowers have closed because the sun's behind some clouds.

This is probably the most important flower in my garden right now (to me): tomato!

Homemade pizza

Red onions and oregano from the garden, spinach and goat cheese from the farmers market = best pizza ever?

Peas!

On Saturday, while I was watching the Saracens win the rugby premiership trophy, my wonderful wife was out in the garden tying up our pea plants.  This is the first year I've grown peas and I didn't do enough research to know that they had to be trellised.  She tied them up to stakes and harvested some that were ready.  Pictured above, our son is inspecting his future dinner.

Weekend work

It's not the most glamorous part of gardening, but this weekend I had to tend to some bushes that had gotten out of control.  They were threatening both our house and our neighbor's driveway.  We're lucky she hadn't called the law yet.  There were weeds and vines growing up through all four of the bushes on this side of the house.  I tried to get into them and cut the weeds off near the ground.  I'm sure I'll have to have another go at these in a month or two and then again in the fall so that they will be nice and compact when they flower in the spring.  I was tempted to get rid of them entirely and use this area for gardening until I saw their flowers this spring.

Weekend project

Over the weekend, I got around to a project I'd been needing to do for a while.  I had hoped to compost all of my yard waste, but the larger branches just weren't breaking down.  Maybe if I had a wood chipper it could've worked.  Anyway, instead of a compost pile, I had more of a brush pile.  It's not just the ones you can see.  There are layers of branches underneath layers of leaves and sod. 

On Saturday, I just moved the problem.  I pulled all of the branches out and made a large brush pile in my yard.  There was actually some great compost underneath some of the branches.  Anything small enough was left to be part of the compost pile.  On Sunday, I bundled up all of the wood and put it out at the curb.  Supposedly, someone will be by to pick it up.  I guess living in the city isn't all bad.  Of course, if we were out in the country, I could've had a great bonfire!

It was important to get this pile taken care of so that I can continue to compost leaves and green growth from my yard.  There are a couple of areas of bushes that seriously need trimming and now I am free to attack them.  Instead of composting all of the leaves, though, I am going to use some to mulch around existing plantings to keep the soil from drying out.