Scenes from a summer garden--last week

I’m trying to keep a photo record of my garden, partly because it’s fun to see changes over time and partly so I can see what to add or change to make it look good year-round. (Note to self: mid-May to mid-June was kind of boring--need more stuff that blooms). The problem is, I get so busy with gardening and work (work=that thing I do to pay for my gardening habit) that I forget to take pictures. So last week I was very proud of myself. I went out before work last Thursday and took lots of pictures. And then forgot to upload them for, like, a week. *sigh*

Better late than never, here they are. This was my garden as of June 22, 2017:

Front and side garden

 Canterbury bells:

Yellow rose: 

Front entry area:

Side garden along the driveway:

First daylily blooms of the season:

Pansies and larkspur and a few other things:

The pond plus the new bed I just built next to it: 

The Vegetable Garden

Tomatoes and basil in containers along the south-facing front of the house, i.e. my desperate attempt to get tomatoes to ripen on the vine instead of in my spare bedroom.

Snow peas climbing the yard art I use to (badly) disguise the ugly satellite dish pole in the middle of my potager:

Fennel that wintered over, plus cilantro, cabbage, and radishes:

Lettuce about to bolt, lovage, and chard:

Beans and potatoes:

Pleasant surprises: a garden's greatest gift

It's nearly summer, and I spent Monday night worrying about frost. According to the forecast, the overnight low was supposed to be 32. Our average last frost date is June 15, but like a lot of gardeners, every spring I convince myself that that date is a worst-case scenario and of course it won't happen this year and the one good thing about climate change is that we'll all be a zone warmer and sure I can fit another six pack of tomatoes in. Yes, we gardeners are often delusional.

So it was with some trepidation that I got up Tuesday morning and ventured out to water the garden before work. I expected curled, frost-blackened leaves. I expected to mourn the untimely passing of  my tomatoes, basil, peppers, squash, and everything else I shouldn't have planted so soon. I steeled myself for the carnage. I stepped warily over the threshold and into… paradise. The morning was cool, the air perfectly still and fresh. And there was no sign of Jack Frost nipping at my nightshades. Something else was missing too--the hordes of grasshoppers that have plagued my garden since the nights started warming a few weeks ago. There were a few hopping here and there, but the Biblical plague was MIA. I can only guess that it must have been cold enough to drive them back--but not cold enough to damage tender summer veggies.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed watering as much as I did on that cool, perfect almost-summer morning. I even had a pair of hummingbirds for company. Mornings like this are why I garden: why I spend weekends shoveling manure, why I fight my way through gale-force winds to plant and water and weed, why I strain my back moving rocks to build raised beds, and why I spend half my salary on soil amendments and irrigation supplies and plants. My time in the garden was short--I do have to work for a living, and I had an 8:30 meeting--but that half hour or so in my own little paradise let me start my day with beauty and peace. 

Scenes from an almost summer evening

I took a short stroll with the husband this evening and took a few pictures of the garden and the neighborhood. I love how familiar plants and places can look different depending on the light. These were taken at dusk on this beautiful almost-summer evening.

In this light, the garden almost looks like the lush oasis I keep trying to create here in the land of sun and wind and late frosts. The dry creek bed could almost have water in it--instead of the leaf litter I need to clean out before the monsoons start.

Looks like the hollyhocks are about to bloom. 

I like to mix ornamentals and edibles (yay for cottage style!), so here we have the not-so-photogenic tomato cages mixed with an apple tree, some bachelor buttons, the aforementioned hollyhocks, and a Ketchup and Mustard rose.

Yep. There's that leaf litter I need to clean out of the dry creek bed. In the right foreground is a piece of garden art I picked up for a couple dollars at a garage sale. I'm experimenting with using it instead of a tomato cage. If my tomatoes don't freeze Monday night (it's supposed to be 31--*sigh*), we'll see if it works.

Here's the M*A*S*H* sign my husband made me for Christmas a couple of years ago. We had to relocate it this spring, because it was sitting in the middle of what would become the pond.

This is our grasshopper preserve, otherwise known as the front pasture. If you'd like about a million grasshoppers, bring a big net and take a walk through it.

Just a beautiful night in the neighborhood.

 One of my favorite things about summer nights here in Flagstaff are the cloud formations. It isn't even monsoon season yet, and we get to look at this gorgeousness.

One of many things I love about gardening is that it puts me more in touch with the seasons. The same small plot of land can have many personalities depending on the time of year. I might not ever notice that--at least not in detail--if I didn't garden.