The title of this post is from a recent song by Five for Fighting (The Riddle). Anyway, those words keep running through my mind this week, as we’ve had two storms sweep in and blow summer far away. The first was last Friday, which brought snow to the mountains. It’s pretty to see Mt. Timpanogos and Lone Peak covered in snow, but it’s also sad when you love summer as much as I do. My absolute favorite time of year is from June 1st to mid July. So many flowers are blooming in the garden, and the hillsides are still…
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Two days ago, the twins and I picked all the Jonathan apples, except two or three still on the tree. This is early for them to be ripe, but several more fell off the tree in the previous few days, and I decided they must be ripe enough. They taste great — perhaps slightly tart, but I think they’re quite ripe. A few had bird damage, and some have worm holes — we’ll slice those ones and throw away the damaged parts. I think they might have ripened early because of slight water stress. I think the tree’s roots have…
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I’m growing a few flowers that I would not recommend, or at least I don’t want to grow them again. This is Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Double Click.’ I was pretty excited to grow it last spring when I ordered the seeds from Thompson and Morgan. I need to remember that Cosmos get mildewy very easy, even in our dry mountain climate. The foliage on these plants is a mess, and the flowers are held in awkward positions. The stems got twisted instead of standing up straight. And they ended up blocking a sprinkler from reaching some daylilies, and it wasn’t worth killing…
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Today, I fertilized my lawn with Vigoro weed and feed. I hope the weed control part of it works, because I have some dandelions and other weeds in some parts of the grass. I injected quite a few tablespoons of iron into the ground around my sick maple, using my old watering “syringe” thing. I just dumped a tablespoon at a time into its little fertilizer receptacle. Hope I didn’t overdo it! The tree is already dropping a lot of leaves because it’s been weakened by chlorosis this year. I was planning to put some implants in the trunk to…
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OK, since I gave an MVP award a few weeks ago, I thought it good to give an MVA to the Most Valuable Annual flower in my garden this year. I’ve been growing Rudbeckias for a long time, and they seldom disappoint. There is a perennial variety (Rudbeckia fulgida), but it’s too orange for my tastes. I like the pure yellow of these annual ones. I think they might be Rudbeckia hirta, but I’m really not sure. I’ve often thought they seemed perennial, but I think now that they just reseed really well. They get a little tall and sometimes…
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I checked my gaillardia (Blanket flower) and oenothera (Missouri evening primrose) cuttings today for roots. I planted them in clear plastic cups so it would be easy to see the roots when they develop. One of the gaillardias has already produced extensive roots, starting to wrap around the bottom of the cup! Another has one little root showing at the bottom of the cup. None of the oenotheras has produced any roots I can see, but I suspect some roots are developing, because some of them have vigorous-looking leaves. I took the cover off of them this morning, and I’ll…
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Today, I noticed that two of my fall-blooming plants are just beginning to blossom. One is Japanese Anemone (Honorine Jobert variety), a tall plant with large leaves and large white simple poppy-like flowers. Here’s a photo from a few years back when they were in full bloom. I also noticed the first blooms a few days ago on my Wood’s Blue Aster. Here’s a photo from a few years ago, too, with some Chrysanthemums joining the show (they’re not blooming yet this year).
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This Saturday, I’m going to make nectarine cobbler, and this is the recipe I used last year. I found it with epicurious.com, and it’s originally from Bon Apetit magazine: