Seedy Saturday - Hot, Toasty and Growing!

In helping Miss Texas clean out her basement a couple of weeks ago, I came home with my 'Garden Goddess'. I have Buddha who is peacefully sitting under 'Christine' peony and now I have 'GG' glaring at anyone who dares to invade and bring negativity into the yard. Either that, or it's a self-portrait. They both work.

I also purchased another peony while at Costco earlier in the week. This is an Itoh peony, which is a cross between a tree peony and a regular peony. 

It will go into the ground in the next couple of days. I can't wait to see it next year when it gets to be a really large shrub. And hopefully, covered in flowers.

My Voodoo Lily is now a good 2 inches tall, looking more and more like an emerging penis. Maybe I should put the Goddess by the container.

I can already tell I will need to be doing a bit of 'moving' things around in the fall as they are a lot larger than I thought they would be. But I can't wait for them to flower.

Also in the front yard, in the 4x4 beds, I have removed the kale which will be suffering in this heat anyway, and planted 21 pepper plants. For some unknown reason I seem to have an awful lot of hot peppers. As in really, seriously hot. I might experiment a bit with making some hot sauce or at least drying the peppers for later use. And saving seeds for another year.

Like most of the things in the yard, my bee balm has gone from a little seedling to a 'ready to bloom' size in the past week. I also need to cut back my salvia for another flush of flowers. But I want to wait a little bit so I can get seeds before I cut them off. 

I may try taking some cuttings so I can root them and plant them later in the year along my fence line. Can't have too much salvia for the bees. 

This is Bed #2 where I have about 50 tomato plants down the sides and green beans, brown field peas and bi-color corn down the center. And a tiny area for my Fordhook Lima beans. I finally finished clearing it out on Tuesday and got it planted before the weather turned so hot. I normally water by hand, but I have purchased a sprinkler since I now have so many plots going and more to come. 

On the docket will be a row for my pumpkins and another one for my sugar baby melons. Basically I am going to stake out the bed, lay cardboard and start covering it with grass clippings when I mow. I'll cut a hole when I am planting the transplants and let them grown on the cardboard and clippings. 

I also want a couple more beds for corn, peas and beans. And yes, some more tomatoes. 

Tomatoes are in various stages of growth and I them just starting to flower, some putting on growth and some which are already setting fruit. My first bologna sandwich with a fresh, home grown tomato can't be far behind!

I had room in Bed #1 where I started potatoes to throw in 4 tomatillos. My pole bean teepee and my Italian squash teepee are starting to see the emergence of the vines. There is also several varieties of basil in this bed too. 

Hopefully, I will be able to get the grass mown in the next couple of days, along with a bit of weed wacking. My clippings will all go on top of Bed #1 and the new beds I will be creating to stop other weeds from growing, adding compost to the bed and retaining moisture. 

While waiting for the sun to start going down and the temperatures to cool off, it's time for a bit of porch sitting with a glass of iced tea and enjoy the view.