Days of June

Summer arrives.

Some of the "Dusty Miller" in the yard has gone rogue. It's popping up in places where it isn't supposed to be. I dug up some of the offshoots last summer and potted them. They endured the winter in their pots, and this spring I planted some coleus with them. I'm enjoying the color contrasts, as a change from the petunias I usually plant.

This stream is somewhere between White Plains and Apex, probably in southern Hopkins County (KY). Dennis and I went adventuring today, and on the way home, we drove through some country I haven't seen before. I love new backroads!

This shot was taken through the window at one of the several produce stands that I patronize. The Mennonite lady who runs this stand put a couple of extra cucumbers in the bag. She said the vines were full of them and they'd be picking again in the morning.

I took this photo earlier in the month after a shower passed through. We could use another rain now. Where the grass has been cut short, it's starting to burn (go crispy).

Here's a sight that I look forward to every day -- the road to home! Our house is at the top of this hill. We've had a lot of 90° days already. The heat radiates from all the concrete and asphalt in town, but out in the country in the shade of the trees, it's always a little cooler.

These bright beauties grow at the end of a big cornfield. It was a nice surprise to see them. I couldn't see the field good enough to estimate how many acres of sunflowers there might be. If it's just a small patch, maybe  the farmer will leave them standing for wildlife.

This year's wheat crop in Christian County has been harvested. In most of the fields, soybeans have been planted in the wheat stubble. Some of the beans have already grown taller than the straw stems that surround them. A passerby doesn't need to guess whether or not that farmer has planted his beans yet.

Spring Days

Fresh and beautiful

Seen in Clarksville, TN

At the edge of a Hopkinsville parking lot where country meets town

Overgrown garden at an old house, long abandoned.

We've had plenty of bluster, but little damage from storms.

Daffodils in the Pasture

Boy with buttercups

Here in Christian County, Kentucky, it's not unusual to see places where old-time, single-bloom daffodils have naturalized. In this case, I speculate that a few bulbs were planted many years ago, near a house or cabin that doesn't exist anymore.

I call these flowers "daffodils", but people around here often call them "buttercups." Maybe this little Mennonite boy calls them "Osterglocken" as they do in Germany -- literally, "Easter bells."

Related:
Another place where daffodils have gone wild

Autumn Images

Seen in Christian County, KY

There's plenty of time to take a picture, when following a buggy uphill. They are extremely slow, but I never pass them on a hill, even if I'm in a terrible hurry. I figure that it's better to be a few minutes late than to risk a collision. However, I often see impatient drivers who pass without a clue of what's coming in the other lane.

Tobacco is curing in the barns of Christian County, KY. This old barn, built right beside a back road, is always closed tight, with a "No Trespassing" sign on the doors. When I drove by last week, I was surprised to see its doors opened wide.

This clump of trees in the middle of a Christian County field probably marks an old family graveyard. It's sad that so many old cemeteries receive no care at all, but when the families are unavailable, unable, or uninterested, the burden of upkeep falls on the landowner. Most farmers adopt an attitude of benign neglect, and nature takes its course.

Autumn color in Hopkinsville (KY). Some people around the county have reported heavy frost, but we haven't had a killing frost at our house yet. I still have impatiens blooming, though their days are surely numbered.

And who's that crowding into the picture with the impatiens? Why, it's Sophie, of course, doing her best to be the center of attention. I'm in the process of building an elaborate doghouse for her. It has two rooms, and it's better insulated than our house is! I am not a very fast carpenter, so it's still going to require a couple more days of work. And it's so heavy that I'm thinking we might put it in the truck and drive it to the carport, instead of trying to carry it.

Chrysanthenum with Leaf

Shady Back Yard

Pleasantly overgrown

I peeked over a fence and saw this Hopkinsville (KY) back yard on a hot afternoon a few weeks ago. It was such a pleasant space that I wanted to remember it, so I took a picture. I suppose it's a little overgrown by some people's standards, but it has an abundance of shade and -- in my opinion-- an informal, natural, inviting charm.

Butterflies and Coneflowers

Summer sights

As I was photographing these butterflies, they were completely oblivious to my presence. The only thing on their minds was checking each flower for nectar. I really enjoyed seeing them!

Honeysuckle and Old-time Roses

June blooms in central Kentucky

Honeysuckle and an old rose grow intertwined around the tall stump of an old cedar tree in our yard. It's June, and for now, they are making up for all their faults. The roses are a profusion of bright color, and the honeysuckle has a lovely fragrance.

This rose is an uncivilized semi-climber that probably dates back to the log cabin on this property. Some might call it an heirloom rose, but I call it an opportunist. With any encouragement, it throws out canes that are 15 feet or more in length. Wherever the canes touch dirt, they root down, and a new rose plant grows.

I once made the mistake of transplanting a cutting of this rose to a flower bed. After just one season of a softer life, thorny rose stems were sprawling off their pole teepee and rooting down everywhere.  I had to dig it out, and it took me a couple of years to fully eradicate rose sprouts from the area. I learned my lesson! This rose is doing quite well enough in the spot where it has always grown! It needs some stress and regular encounters with the lawn mower to keep it in check.

Honeysuckle is one of the most invasive non-native plants in Kentucky.  We have a big problem with it in our yard. It loves to get in the shrubbery and climb to the top where it can thrive in the sunshine. Before long, the health of the shrubs begins to suffer from sunshine-deprivation and the weight of the honeysuckle vines.

One way of controlling honeysuckle is to cut the base of the vine and spray it with Roundup. Then you can try to pull the vines down, but it's a difficult chore. Honeysuckle is a twiner, which means that the vines wind around and around whatever they're climbing.  I am sure I would never be able to separate the honeysuckle vines and rose vines that you see in the photo!

Odds and Ends (2)

More photos from the "To be posted" folder

I can say with certainty that I have not been in Elkton (KY) on a Thursday evening in summer for several years. How can I be so sure? Thursday night is Bike Night in Elkton from May through October. If I had passed through the downtown area of Elkton on Bike Night, I would have noticed the motorcycles.

Elkton's Facebook page reports 265 bikes in town on the evening of July 2, 2010, just two days before I photographed the flag and metal biker art on the corner of the town square. The poster was on display in an Elkton convenience store.

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I saw this business card on the bulletin board at the Pennysaver Market in Fairview (KY). Apparently these guys have a market for the materials they salvage. Large beams, weathered siding, wide-plank flooring, doors, vintage light fixtures, old mantels, etc. from old buildings are sometimes used in new construction to add a rustic look.

I would like to visit a building salvage yard, sometime. On the home-decorating TV shows, the designers visit salvage stores and always find a vintage piece with lots of character. Hailey Salvage & Building Material in Nashville sounds like that sort of salvage store.

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I was really shocked when I drove down Jeff Adams Road (in Christian County, KY) and saw this heap of broken boards instead of the little frame house that it used to be. Bro In Law Barn Salvaging could have recycled some weathered silvery-gray wood siding from it. Instead, the little house is bulldozed and ready to burn.

This little house was built like a barn with the boards running up and down. It always looked to me like there was nothing between the inside and outside except a single layer of board. People who grew up in houses like this one tell stories about waking up on winter mornings with snow on their quilts.

The little house is gone, but the day-lilies that grew around it are still there, I promise. They filled the yard long ago, and they've spilled out into the road ditches where they grow for a hundred yards in both directions.

One summer, I dug up a few day-lilies from the ditch and brought them home. They have multiplied and they would like to expand out of their allotted area here, too, but the lawn mower keeps them corralled.

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As the shortest day of the year approaches, these forsythia buds remind me that the cold, dark days of winter will soon pass. This photo was taken in early March; it's now late December. In less than three months, the forsythia will be ready to bloom again!

Related:
Odds and Ends (1)

Mushrooms, Mottled with Purple

Unidentified Kentucky mushroom

Dozens of these brown and purple mushrooms have sprung up under the old maple tree. I suppose that the spores were lying on the ground, waiting for perfect conditions, and the several quick, hard rains of last week  activated them. Obviously, they like hot, steamy weather.

I have searched the internet for a couple of hours, trying to find an identified mushroom that looks like these. I've looked at photographs of hundreds of mushrooms, but I haven't found a single one that resembles these at all. Maybe these mushrooms are an unusual variety. Or maybe I'm not recognizing them when I see them in someone else's photograph..

It could be that I'm just not searching with the right terms. It's hard to describe them. Are they orange, copper, brown, or tan? Purple or violet blotches, spots, or mottling?

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that these mushrooms are usually found around old trees whose roots are rotting. Our old maple tree is in decline. It has taken a beating in several ice storms and it's leaning southeast. That's a good direction, if it must lean; our house is on the west side of the tree.

UPDATE 6/30/10

Here are a couple of views of the bottom of one of the mushrooms. I really had to search around to find one that was still fresh. All of them have gone dark brown on their top skins, and I only found one little mushroom that hadn't gone brown on its underside. It is smaller than any of the mushrooms in the photo at top. Isaac brought home a pocketful of Euro change from Germany, and the coin in the photo is one of those -- more or less the size of a half-dollar coin.

The flesh is yellow all the way through. The little dip in the outer margin of the mushroom cap seems to be a feature of the species.  In some of the larger mushrooms that I pulled up while trying to find a fresh one, the stem seems to be set to one side, because the dip was deep and spread-open.

Now Blooming

In flowerbeds of western Kentucky

I call this flower a " pē'-ə- nē " but most people around here call it a " pē-ō'- nē ". Either way, the flowers are gorgeous. Peonies must not be very fussy about how they're grown. Our peonies bloom every year with no special care. I love them, and so do the ants.

Flowers in a Berlin Park

Old photo, scanned

Spring flowers in a city park.  Berlin, Germany, about 1990.

Daffodils are Blooming

Spring glories

Colors of November

Fall foliage and flowers

The brown concrete building in the background is part of the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church complex. I would call this building a "fellowship hall", but I'm not sure what they call it. Maybe a "parish hall"?

Four of these shrubs grow in a narrow strip of soil between the side of the building and the parking lot. In my opinion, they are prettier in the fall than at any other time.

The Catholics have a good gardener who keeps their grounds well-groomed and attractive. The photos that follow were also taken at the Catholic Church.

Melon Months of Summer

One good reason for hot weather

I don't like hot summer weather, but melons do, and I like melons. In fact, melons are one of the few things about hot weather that I anticipate happily.

When I had a bigger garden, I grew melons myself. I had my best success with cantaloupe, mainly because it's easy to tell when cantaloupe are ripe. Several years, I grew more cantaloupe than we could eat and Dennis took gave them away at work. This made him quite popular through the melon months of summer.

My favorite cantaloupes to grow from seed were Burpee Hybrids. They are just too delicious for words.

I didn't have enough luck with watermelons to decide that I liked to grow any particular variety. My biggest problem was knowing when to pick them. If I didn't pick them too green, I waited until they were too ripe.  After a few years, I decided I had better luck picking a ripe watermelon at the produce stand.

One summer after I gave up growing watermelons, a watermelon seed sprouted in my compost pile. The vine meandered out into the garden, and I decided not to pull it up. It grew one big, delicious melon before frost. It was one of the best watermelons I've ever tasted.  It must have been the compost. Somehow, I managed to pick it at the perfect peak of ripeness.

In one of my first gardens, I grew some honeydew melons that were particularly green and sweet. I picked the first one and we really enjoyed it .

When I went to the garden to pick the next ripe one, it had a hole chewed in the side of it. I was disgusted, but I cut off the damaged side of the melon, and we ate some of the undamaged side.

My garden intruder liked his taste of honeydew, and decided to have some more. He wasn't a bit careful about just eating the ripe ones, either. After he damaged a dozen or more, I finally caught him in the act. It was a turtle. I took him up the road a mile, and we had no more holes in the honeydews after that.

Nowadays, we buy melons at the grocery store in early summer. Then, about the first of July, our Mennonite neighbor starts selling homegrown cantaloupe at his produce stand.  I bought a couple of cantaloupe there last week, and I'm going to stop by tomorrow on my way home from work and get a couple more. The watermelon will be ready soon, he says. I'm glad to hear it.

Our neighbor's produce stand: Homegrown cantaloupe and 

flower baskets outside. And inside, tomatoes, cabbage,

squash, zucchini, and bunches of big green onions

Greenhouse at Fairview, KY

Flower shopping at Fairview

The Country Barn, with the Jefferson Davis Monument in the background.

I bought some flowers and tomato plants at the Mennonite greenhouse on the outskirts of Fairview, KY a couple of weeks ago. It's a pleasant place to visit, even when you really don't need any plants.

It was late in the season when I finally planted my garden. At the greenhouse, I bought two flats of marigolds that were past their first bloom. They were already marked down, and Mrs. Weaver agreed to take an even  lower price for a full flat. The flowers are putting on new blooms, now that they've been planted in the ground.

Fairview is a small town, but it might be possible to miss the greenhouse somehow, so I will give directions. The Country Barn is located at 112 Britmart Road on the north side of Fairview. From Highway 68/80, take the exit for Highway 1801 (Britmart Road) and turn toward the Jefferson Davis Monument.

The easy-to-find location of the greenhouse has made it popular with many people who ordinarily would hesitate to venture out into the countryside. It's quite apparent that The Country Barn's business is flourishing. The ability of the Mennonites to make a living with hard work and a small acreage is being demonstrated again.

See more information about The Country Barn at the Kentucky Dept. of Agriculture website.

Related post:
Jeff Davis and the Mennonites
Pennysaver Market at Fairview KY

Vegetable Garden Architecture

Some of my garden hardware

I have a metal livestock fence panel -- a grid about 12 feet long and 5 feet tall. Recently, I've been growing cucumbers on it, but I've used it for pole beans in the past. I stand the panel up against three steel fence posts. I place a large stone under each end of the panel to lift it about 8 inches off the ground, and then I wire the panel to the posts. The space under the panel makes it easier to hoe or to mulch around the plants.

For the zucchinis, I use a long pallet that I picked up beside a dumpster some years ago. I lay it over the bed so the vines will grow up and lie on the pallet. My theory is that the zucchinis resist mildew and squash borers better with their vines off the ground. This method doesn't seem to deter the squash bugs, but they can be controlled somewhat by inspecting the leaves regularly and eliminating the eggs.

This year, I planted the tomatoes and peppers in groups of three. I gave each plant a cage and tied each group of cages to a steel fence post in their center. I do this because unsupported cages are likely to fall over in a rain or wind storm. The fence post eliminates this problem.

Related post:
My Experience with Tomato Cages and Stakes

A Lazy Gardener's Garden

Mulch is the answer.

This is my 17th (or 18th?) garden in Kentucky. I've only had the garden plowed once. All the other years, I've dug it up myself with a garden fork. I do recommend a fork for digging, rather than a spade. It is amazing how much easier it is to dig with a fork.

I have considered getting a rototiller, but it seems an extravagance that would just take up room in the shed. I would probably only use it once a year.

Mulching out the weeds

You see, I don't waste time and effort in cultivating soil I'm not going to plant. I put some kind of mulch over every part of the garden except the beds where my plants are growing. I like to keep the weeds and grass down with mulch because I am not fond of hoeing.

This year, I covered my entire garden with two large sheets of black plastic. The plastic is held down around the outer edge with some large cut stones we happen to have from a couple of old chimneys. I used scissors to cut large holes in the plastic where I wanted to make this year's beds. 

In each bed, I dug up the soil very well and enriched it with a humus/manure mix and a little lime before setting the plants. In a few weeks when the plants are bigger, I will mulch around them with straw. The rest of the garden (everywhere but the beds) is still covered with the black plastic.

I've also used newspaper as a mulch with good success. I put down a layer 6 to 8 sheets thick and covered it with enough straw to hold it in place. Some years, I've bought end-rolls of newsprint from the newspaper office for mulch -- 6 to 8 strips thick, weighed down with a little straw.

Work in the spring, and relax in the summer,

I work pretty hard for a few days to get the garden set up and planted, but after that, it doesn't require much effort. I wander through and look for tomato worms and squash bugs and pull up any bindweeds that are winding their way up the tomato cage legs.

The mulch around the plants helps keep the soil moist, so a good soaking about once a week is all they need. Mother Nature often takes care of it for me. (If I could just teach her to pick the tomatoes and bring them to the house, I could really take it easy.)

Sometime after frost, I pull up the plants. It is best to pull up any plastic at that time also, as it will probably start disintegrating over the winter.

These ideas certainly won't work for everyone or every situation, but they work for me.

A Late Garden This Year

Finally planted

At last, we've had a stretch of sunny days. The farmers have been planting corn and making hay as fast as they can. I've also been busy in my little garden and have nearly finished planting it.  Thank goodness -- I was starting to wonder if I would have a garden this year.

So far, I have planted:

9 Better Boy tomato plants
3 Bell Boy pepper plants
3 King Arthur bell pepper plants
1 Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant
3 hills of Armenian Yard-long Cucumbers
2 hills of NK Dark Green zucchinis
9 marigolds

I have two jalapeño pepper plants and six more marigolds to set out, I still want to get one more cherry tomato plant, and I plan to plant some clumps of dill.  I like the way it smells. It reminds me of my grandma's garden.

The marigolds are for Keely, who would think my garden incomplete without them. She likes their spicy fragrance. This year, the marigolds are all yellow because I got a good deal on a flat of them at the Mennonite greenhouse in Fairview.

A small garden

I used to grow a much larger garden, but I don't have that much time and energy now, and it's unnecessary anyway. This little garden will produce much more than Dennis, Isaac, and I can eat. We'll be begging people to take a few zucchinis home with them and hauling bags of tomatoes to town to foist off on Keely.

When I had a bigger garden, I did a lot of canning. I have packed up most of my fruit jars and stored them in the shed, now. However, I am thinking about making and preserving some salsa this summer -- thus, the jalapeños.

We like corn, watermelon, canteloupe, squash, and all the other fresh veggies too, but if I grew all of them, I'd have a big garden, not a small one! We'll buy them from the several Mennonite produce stands that operate in our area.

And this year, since it will be July before the zucchini and cukes begin to produce and sometime in August before we have tomatoes and peppers, we'll be buying them at the produce stands for a while, too.

Gardens from other summers:

Tomatoes Someday
Dill Flower
Fields and Gardens Are Being Planted
My Vegetable Garden
Living off the Fat of the Land
Zucchini, Anyone?
Flats of Flowers
Planting the Garden with Mama

Respite from Rain

Wet spring weather

From the shelter of the carport, looking south across our lawn.

(Check out this nearly identical photo, from a rainy day in Nov. 2007.)

I can barely distinguish one rainy day of this month from another; the days of wetness have merged into one big puddle. However, I think today was our third day in a row without significant rainfall. It's been nice to see some sunshine.

The photo above was taken on a day that I do remember -- last Friday, when several severe thunderstorms passed through our area. We had a long day of many weather warnings, but we suffered no tornadoes or notable wind damage. Rainfall of over three inches was reported in some parts of the county for the day.

Dennis got home late on Friday afternoon from the elementary school where he works. We had a tornado watch at the time the students should have been going home. The buses weren't allowed to go to the schools until the weather cleared up a little.

Cadiz --pronounced "Kay-deez" -- is a small town about 20 miles west of Hopkinsville. One of the girls at work told me about the high water there, following a downpour late on Friday night. Her boyfriend has a law enforcement job in Cadiz. Around midnight, he sent her a text message: the rescue squad was trying to get some cattle out of the river, and they had their vehicles stuck in a muddy pasture. "Only in Cadiz," he noted wryly.

The farmers are hoping for a spell of dryer weather so they can plant crops and mow hay. Today, I saw someone unloading flats of tobacco plants from a truck. I guess he's going to "mud them in", as I have done with tomato plants in the garden some years.

Ah, yes, the garden. I haven't been in my garden at all yet. Well, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are looking a little rainy, so maybe Sunday afternoon.

Let me be clear. I'm reporting, not complaining about, the amount of rain we've had in the past few months. This part of Kentucky gets the majority of its annual rainfall in the winter and spring. We had a dry spring in 2007, and it was the precursor of a long summer of horrible, desperate drought. I'd much rather have a wet spring than a dry one.

A long low shaft of evening sunshine illuminates

the Bradford Square Mall in Hopkinsville, KY

after several days of rain last week.